Chris Sununu
PUC’s Energy Efficiency Decision Is Shortsighted
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As Joni Mitchell sings, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” and she might as well be singing about the state’s energy efficiency program.
InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/tag/puc/page/2/)
As Joni Mitchell sings, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” and she might as well be singing about the state’s energy efficiency program.
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.
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).
Energy efficiency efforts in New Hampshire will be taking a step backward to 2017 levels in the next few years under an order issued last week by the Public Utilities Commission, according to Democratic legislators.
Amidst an outpouring of anti-vax protesters, at the Executive Council meeting on Wednesday Gov. Chris Sununu quietly nominated two new circuit court justices and is requesting new terms and new faces for a number of key state commissions.
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.
Explaining that the Department of Energy and the PUC are independent agencies that are administratively attached, Deputy Energy Commissioner Christopher J. Ellms Jr. said the relationship was designed to improve efficiency and reduce duplicative efforts.
If there is a fundamental truth that applies to ratepayer advocacy, it is this: The customer has the only wallet in the room.