Four Connecticut state agencies filed a complaint with federal energy regulators Thursday seeking to ax a financial bonus that Eversource Energy and United Illuminating collect through their electricity transmission rates.
The agencies say a 2025 state law made the charge obsolete, and ratepayers should no longer have to pay it.
The complaint — filed by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the Office of Consumer Counsel, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and Attorney General William Tong — asks the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to eliminate the bonus and refund ratepayers any charges collected after the complaint’s June 11 filing.
The state’s electric utilities have been collecting the bonus since 2004. The incentive was created to reward the utilities for allowing ISO New England, the regional electric grid operator, to manage their transmission infrastructure.
But a law enacted last year requires utilities to participate in that regional grid system as a condition of operating in Connecticut, leaving them no choice in the matter.
“Utilities with record profits should not receive bonus profits for doing something they are required to do by law,” Gov. Ned Lamont said. “This is another way we’re addressing the issue of high electric bills in our state and ensuring utilities are not able to take advantage of ratepayers.”
The payment costs Connecticut ratepayers roughly $4.5 million per year, according to the complaint.
Eversource spokesperson Sarah Paduano said the savings would amount to about 9 cents a month for the average residential customer — roughly a dollar a year.
“It doesn’t get to the crux of the problem,” she said.
The cost of moving electricity across the regional grid has grown 77% since 2015 and now accounts for 15 to 16 cents of every dollar a typical Connecticut residential customer pays for electricity each month, the complaint says. New England as a whole has the highest transmission costs of any regional grid system in the country.
Consumer Counsel Claire Coleman said the federal complaint targets an unjustified cost embedded in rates.
“The Office of Consumer Counsel is proud to join our state partners in this litigation urging federal regulators to enforce Connecticut’s commonsense reform to remove inappropriate and unnecessary bonuses paid to transmission companies by families and businesses across the state,” Coleman said.
The FERC complaint arrived one day after Lamont held a press conference outside an Eversource work center in Cheshire, where he proposed a package of utility reforms — including a requirement that Eversource and United Illuminating seek permission to continue operating as exclusive monopolies every 15 years. He also accused the state’s utilities of growing too comfortable with their ability to raise rates.
As Lamont seeks a third term, the price of electricity has emerged as a central issue in the campaign.
Meanwhile, Eversource is seeking an 11% increase in the rates it charges customers to deliver electricity. The request is pending before PURA.
Federal regulators have set a July 1 deadline for responses to the complaint.
