Orange-based United Illuminating, a subsidiary of Avangrid Inc., has filed a new, three-year rate plan that would increase annual rates by $46 million in 2017, $52 million in 2018 and $43 million in 2019. That works out to approximately 5 percent increase each year for residential customers.
The electric company is saying the increased rates are necessary for infrastructure replacement, system modernization, and vegetation management efforts that will help UI maintain reliability and protect its system against storms.
UI is proposing phasing in the increase over three years in roughly equal installments. Under this proposal, a typical monthly residential electric bill would increase by about 5 percent in each year of the plan, starting Jan. 1, 2017. UI last filed a rate request in Feb. 2013 and is still operating under the old rate plan.
UI said it spent $92 million in 2014 and 2015 to replace aging infrastructure and manage vegetation. It said the efforts paid off in reduced outages. Customers, the utility said, can now expect an outage once every two years, which it said is a 20 percent improvement from a decade earlier.
UI’s Standard Service generation rate, which reflects the cost of the energy itself, is set separately and adjusted twice annually by PURA. That generation rate will fall by about 25 percent on July 1, from 10.74 cents to 8.02 cents per kilowatt hour. Generation accounts for about 40 percent of a typical residential electricity bill, and customers may also choose to purchase generation service from alternate suppliers at market prices.
