InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/series/power-to-the-people/page/6)
D. Maurice KreisPower to the People is a new column by D. Maurice Kreis, New Hampshire’s Consumer Advocate. Kreis and his staff of four represent the interests of residential utility customers before the NH Public Utilities Commission and elsewhere.
The state’s utilities, conservation groups, a social service agency and the state Consumer Advocate want the Public Utilities Commission to rehear an energy efficiency plan regulators rejected last month.
ISO-New England officials Monday said if generators lack access to enough fuel, and a prolonged cold snap grips the region, rolling blackouts may be needed to prevent the entire grid from crashing.
Now I intend to put that superpower to its test. And, in so doing, I am going to get right in the face of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
In New Hampshire, an agency like the PUC can’t make arbitrary decisions and it can’t make stuff up.
For gas customers of Liberty Utilities, it was a deal too good to be true.
In fact, Liberty Utilities is asking the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to force customers to cover a $4 million error committed by its natural gas subsidiary in 2019 and 2020. And if you thought the flub committed by Eversource was a convoluted mess, wait till you get a load of this.
Eversource threatened to take its toys and go home the other day. Its reason says a lot about the central issue confronting New Hampshire’s captive utility customers as we head into a winter of soaring energy prices.
It turns out that many of you took me seriously when I promised, in the last installment, that I would have some suggestions for what New Hampshire ratepayers could do in the face of looming increases to their electric bills.
You are about to experience what is known in the trade as “rate shock.”
Once upon a time, I was general counsel of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). As the first line of a fairy tale, that lacks a certain zing. But times are tough, and I promise this story has a moral.