NEW BRITAIN — Residential customers paid $58 million more for their electricity than they needed to according to the Office of the Consumer Council.
In a report released Wednesday, Consumer Counsel Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz said some customers paid more than the utility Standard Service price by contracting with other electrical suppliers instead of the utility in their area.
Residential electric bills are split into two sections, supplier services and delivery services. Consumers have the option to reduce their bill by choosing a cheaper supplier of electricity, which may include the states largest utilities, Eversource and UI. Delivery services are set by the utilities and cannot be changed by the consumers.
The data was prepared from publicly-available data filed by the electric suppliers with Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. Consumers can change their retail electrical supplier, for a full list of suppliers, click here or call 1-800-382-4586.
According to the report, during 2015, in the area of the state served by Eversource, 64.21% of residential supplier customers paid more than the Standard Offer on average, and 59.82% of residential supplier customers paid more than the Standard Offer on average in UI territory.
The cost of Standard service for Eversource customers was 12.6 cents/kWh from January 1, 2015 through June 30, 2015 and 8.2 cents/kWh from July 1, 2015 through December 31, 2015. For UI customers, Standard service was 13.35 cents/kWh from January 1, 2015 through June 30, 2015 and 9.12 cents/kWh from July 1, 2015 through December 31, 2015. Rates typically go up for the first half of the year and down after July 1.
