State utility regulators will hold an emergency meeting Friday morning to consider renewing key moratoriums on electricity and other service shut-offs.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority announced the meeting on Thursday, following appeals for action from advocates for low-income households and from Eversource Energy.
PURA members specifically will consider barring electricity, gas and water companies from barring service to residential customers and small businesses — regardless of financial hardship — until Feb. 9.
Connecticut already prohibits utilities from cutting service to households that cannot pay their bills during colder months. But in mid-March, as the coronavirus pandemic broke out, PURA prohibited gas, electric and water service shut-offs — regardless of hardship — for residential and small business customers.
Those prohibitions expired, though, on Aug. 1 for small businesses and on Oct. 1 for households.
Eversource filed a motion on Sept. 30 to renew the moratoriums. That motion has been endorsed by the state’s acting consumer counsel, Richard E. Sobolewski, Attorney General William Tong, and by Operation Fuel, a Hartford-based nonprofit that provides emergency energy assistance to poor households.
Friday’s meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. and will be conducted via teleconference.
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