HARTFORD, Conn — Following investigations into customers' high electric bills this summer, Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority announced Wednesday changes to the electric rate adjustment process.
According to a release, PURA concluded that the current approach to administrative rate hikes is not in the public interest.
State regulators said they found that deficiencies in the existing administrative rate adjustment framework were exposed by the economic impacts of COVID-19.
The pandemic caused a significant shift in energy consumption patterns between and within customer classes, which resulted in fluctuations in regional wholesale energy market prices, according to officials.
PURA said moving forward, it will consider semi-annual adjustments to the reconciling components of a customer’s bill, changing the effective dates to May 1 and September 1.
"Today’s decision dictates a comprehensive overhaul to the rate adjustment process moving forward, along with a mandatory redesign of customer’s electric bills to bring some much needed transparency to the policies, programs and investments paid for through customer rates," officials wrote.PURA says they determined that the current framework is problematic because it relies heavily on forecasts, which are inherently incorrect.
Mitch Gross, of Eversource made the following statement following the ruling:
"We’ll review the decision once we receive it and look forward to working cooperatively with PURA to institute changes to the rate adjustment process that further enhance transparency and understanding by our customers."
"Depending on the degree to which the forecasts are wrong – like in 2020 – can result in wild swings in a customer’s bill from one month to the next as the utilities essentially work to course correct the associated rates," officials said in a release.
"The new process will rely on actual revenues and approved expenses from the previous calendar year as a proxy for expected costs when determining the going-forward rates, which will prevent the yo-yo effect that is witnessed when forecasts are dramatically off-base."
Officials say PURA's Office of Education, Outreach & Education (EOE) will lead a stakeholder effort to redesign customer’s electric bills.
PURA Chair Marissa Gillett joined FOX61 on The Real Story back in September to discuss the rate hike issue.
