EVERSOURCE ON TUESDAY SOUGHT regulatory approval for a hefty increase in its distribution rates, a move that has the potential to sharply increase monthly utility bills in its service areas in eastern and western Massachusetts.
Utility bills have four major components: customer service, distribution, transmission, and power supply charges. This rate filing only applies to distribution, which is the cost of delivering electricity to customer homes.
The utility said it is seeking to recover a $60 million deficiency in its eastern Massachusetts distribution rates and a $35.7 million shortfall in its western Massachusetts rates. The proposed rate hike would boost the per-kilowatt-hour distribution fee substantially, but Eversource officials said they are streamlining elements of the charge so it was difficult to calculate the exact percentage increase.
Eversource said the change in the distribution rate would boost the typical customer’s monthly bill by $8.45, or 7 percent, to $129.43 in eastern Massachusetts. In western Massachusetts, the company said a typical customer’s bill would rise $11.64, or 10 percent, to $126.52.
Attorney General Maura Healey said she would oppose the rate hike, and particularly the utility’s request for a 10.5 percent return on equity. She noted the other big Massachusetts utility, National Grid, received a 9.9 percent return on equity in its latest rate filing, which was significantly higher than the 9.1 percent awarded to the company in a rate case in Connecticut. “Our initial evaluation shows that Eversource should be returning profits to customers as savings, not raising rates,” Healey said in a statement. “We urge the DPU to reject Eversource’s request for a rate hike.”
Michael Durand, a spokesman for Eversource, said the company’s current return on equity is 10.5 percent in its eastern Massachusetts service territory and 9.6 percent in western Massachusetts. He said the company’s rate filing seeks a 10.5 return on equity in both service areas.
Eversource is also seeking approval to move ahead with a number of initiatives to improve the reliability of the power grid; expand the use of renewable energy, particularly solar; pilot energy storage projects; and roll out infrastructure for charging electric vehicles. The total cost of what the company is calling its Grid-Wise Performance Plan is $400 million, including $45 million for the electric vehicle charging infrastructure, but a spokesman said it is unclear whether all of those programs would be launched and the costs incurred within the next five years. The cost of the Grid-Wise program, if approved, would be recouped in Eversource’s next rate case.
Kevin Conroy, cochair of Foley Hoag’s energy and clean tech practice, called Eversource’s rate request significant. “They’ve asked for the moon, knowing they won’t get everything they want from the Department of Public Utilities,” he said.
Conroy, whose firm represents a number of businesses that sell electricity directly to consumers, said he is concerned the Grid Wise program would prevent his clients from offering customers smart meters and other products in competition with Eversource. “Right now we can’t do it because Eversource won’t allow us to do it,” he said.
Durand said Eversource’s filing will be the company’s first fully litigated rate case in eastern Massachusetts in 25 years. Utilities are required by law to submit rate filings to the Department of Public Utilities every five years, but the review process was subsumed within DPU approvals for company mergers in 1999 and 2012 and avoided in 2005 through a rate settlement agreement with the attorney general’s office. Eversource said its distribution rates have remained stable for the last decade. If approved by the Department of Public Utilities, Eversource’s new distribution rates would take effect on Jan. 1, 2018.
If you want to see where we are headed with all this, just look across the pond.
https://stopthesethings.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/ccacost-dec16.pdf
The transition to a clean energy future is a road back to the future. The world abandoned wind power in favor of fossil fuel in the 18th century, improving our quality of life. Promises that renewables will improve our quality of life are unreal.
Are you insinuating that energy independence and a carbon-free economy will lead to a lower quality of life for Americans? Do you care to provide any proof aside from the propaganda website you linked?
Also, how much money do you receive from the fossil fuel industry?
The USA is already energy independence. And, a carbon-free economy with skyrocketing rates will definitely lower quality of life, especially for those Americans who can least afford high rates.
Both of your assertions are demonstrably false.
We are by no means energy independent now. Thanks to domestic oil and gas production increases in the last few decades, the US produces a much higher percentage of our energy domestically. However, we still rely heavily on imported oil from OPEC, among other sources, to satisfy our outrageous demand for fossil fuels. Although, since the domestic increase has come mainly from natural gas and oil, CO2 levels haven’t decreased as much as in other developed nations.
What proof do you have to suggest energy rates will skyrocket once the majority of the economy is powered by renewable sources? That’s pure fantasy; the cost per kWh of energy from wind and solar has dropped by an order of magnitude or more in the last decade, with no signs of slowing down.
Care to elaborate on the fantasy world you’re living in?
The cost per kWh is the wholesale price which at times is driven negative by state and regional mandates for ever increasing mandates for renewable energy. We the ratepayers pay retail, and retail is skyrocketing.
https://commonwealthmagazine.newspackstaging.com/environment/renewables-not-cheap/
“The difference in price is huge. For a typical customer using 600 kilowatt hours a month, the Eversource price is $49.20, while the CleanChoice product costs $85.20. That’s just the price for electricity, and doesn’t include separate transmission, distribution, and customer service charges assessed by Eversource.”
And look at what is happening in the UK, Spain, Germany, and Australia!
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/09/the-south-australian-black-out-a-state-running-without-enough-thermal-reserve-to-cope-with-contingencies/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFaqmHOeNmg
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/10/27/berlins-ballooning-electricity-rates-become-highest-in-europe/#5b8ee9e26a80
Renewables add cost to the system for nothing in return!
It is pretty obvious you are just an industry shill. If you wanted to point out that gas is cheaper now, that’s a reasonable stance. But there are clean energy that already charge much less than CleanChoice, and prices are going down.
What you are not taking into account is the large number of power plants that we did not have to build as a result of adding solar and wind power to our grid — in combination with energy efficiency measures.
Take a look at the price of the latest wind and solar installations… that price continues to drop while the commodity price of gas is only going to go back to where it was in 2014 over the next 2 to 5 years — as the first set of fracking wells dry up and newer ones are more expensive to drill.
There has not been any need to build new power plants for some time. The need for dispachable power is driven by peak demand which has not increased since 2006. Wind and solar installations are not dispatchable, and do not count among those needed for peak demand. Therefore, regardless of how cheap wind and solar get, none of the existing power plants can be retired, and any that do retire must be replaced with new conventional power which is why policymakers want new power lines to Canada and pipelines to Pennsylvania.
All we get from pushing wind and solar on the grid is the early retirement of coal and nuclear to be replaced by natural gas from Pennsylvania and hydro from Quebec. Rates are rising heading for the sky.
As for Saving the Planet, forget it! Carbon emissions are not going down as long as natural gas is needed to balance the volatile power coming from wind and solar on the grid