InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/tag/eversource/)
The state’s largest utility Eversource argued before the Public Utilities Commission Tuesday to increase its rate as New Hampshire electric consumers brace for bills going up by about 50 percent for at least the next six months.
New Hampshire doesn’t care about who owns its public utilities. But maybe it should.
As with any deals of this magnitude, there are a few sticky details. For one thing, you don’t actually get 175,393 pieces of wood – you’ll take title to 3,844 of them, along with a 50 percent interest in 343,098 others. The other half belongs to Eversource.
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.
You are about to experience what is known in the trade as “rate shock.”
If there is a fundamental truth that applies to ratepayer advocacy, it is this: The customer has the only wallet in the room.
Ever so quietly, a battle for the soul of New Hampshire’s electricity grid is raging.
Maybe, just maybe, after paying hundreds of millions of dollars and waiting 24 years, New Hampshire’s residential utility customers are about to get some real benefits out of the 1996 Restructuring Act. But not if Eversource has anything to say about it.
“We have reviewed the record and conclude that the Subcommittee’s findings are supported by competent evidence and are not erroneous as a matter of law” Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi wrote for the court.