UI Seeks Rate Increases For CT Customers

CONNECTICUT ? United Illuminating is seeking a series of distribution rate increases over three years. The company filed proposed rate increases with the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

The rate schedule would begin Sept. 1, 2023. The average total bill increase across all rate classes would be about 8 percent in the first year, but the company is proposing a rate levelization schedule that would increase the average bill by 5 percent.

?Our goal in this rate case is to spread the proposed total rate increase over three years at an average total bill increase of approximately 5 percent per year across all rate classes, which represents an increase that is less than the current rate of inflation,? UI spokesman Gage Frank told Patch.

The average residential customer (with a monthly bill of $188) would experience a $9.69 bill increase, Frank said. The company?s cost of business has increased more than 7 percent since January 2019.

UI serves about 341,000 customers across 17 southwestern municipalities.

Connecticut has the highest retail electricity price in the continental United States at 19.82 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to 2020 data from the federal Energy Information Administration. The U.S. average is 10.59 cents.

Multiple state agency heads have promised to closely scrutinize UI?s proposals. UI customers are already struggling with high costs from inflation and record-high electricity rates, Consumer Counsel Claire Coleman said.

?My office will be carefully examining the details of UI?s request and will offer the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) an alternative that prioritizes the welfare of Connecticut ratepayers,? Coleman said in a statement.

The Attorney General?s office will also scrutinize every charge and assumption in UI?s proposed rate hike in an effort to find some savings, Attorney General William Tong said in a statement.

The last UI distribution rate increase was in January 2019. UI also made an agreement with PURA in 2021 to lower rates due to the federal corporate tax rate going from 35 percent to 21 percent.

?UI customers are paying less today for distribution service than they were when rates were approved in 2016,? UIL Holdings Corporation Presidnet Franklyn Reynolds wrote in a letter to PURA.

Eversource, which serves the majority of Connecticut municipalities, had a supply rate increase on July 1. Electric bills in Connecticut are broken up into multiple categories, including generation, distribution and transmission.

The rate went from $0.07003 per kWh on July 1, 2021, to $0.11484 on Jan. 1, 2022 and $.12050 on July 1, 2022.

The average residential customer who has Eversource as their electrical supplier will experience about a $3.96 monthly bill hike, according to the Office of Consumer Counsel. Standard supply rates are adjusted Jan. 1 and July 1 every year to account for changes in electric generation costs. UI customers experienced a 0.5 percent supply rate decrease July 1.

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Eversource and UI by law don't derive any profits from the standard service rate, and customers can opt to select a third-party electrical supplier.