New Hampshire's energy officials are asking the state’s Supreme Court to review a decision by utility regulators that raised rates for Eversource customers last summer.
In July, the state’s Public Utilities Commission approved a plan that would allow Eversource to raise the flat fee all customers pay, regardless of energy use. Commissioners also approved what they called an “alternative regulation” framework – essentially, a new way of regulating the rates that Eversource is charging customers. It would allow Eversource to charge ratepayers for company expenses without first proving their investments are reasonable.
After pushing back on the decision at the Public Utilities Commission, state officials have brought appeals before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
In a filing from late January, the state’s Department of Energy asked justices to weigh in on whether the alternative regulatory framework is unlawful because Eversource does not have to prove their investments are prudent before charging the costs to ratepayers. They also say regulators did not do their due diligence when deciding to establish an alternative form of regulation.
Generally, utility companies must prove their investments in capital projects and equipment are “prudent, used, and useful” before they are allowed to collect money for those projects from ratepayers.
But in the alternative regulatory framework, Eversource would be allowed to increase rates each year based on a formula, and there would be no review of the company’s expenditures for several years unless they spent more than $250 million in one year.
The case, energy officials say, sets a precedent for whether regulators can set rates that include spending on future projects that haven’t yet been vetted.
“The rate plan at issue in this case has the potential to significantly impact the utility and its ratepayers,” the Department wrote in their appeal.
The Department of Energy referred NHPR to the state’s Department of Justice, which declined to comment on the appeal.
New Hampshire’s Consumer Advocate, Don Kreis, is also asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on the case. His appeal focuses on the process the Public Utilities Commission used to approve the rates and the alternative regulation framework.
One issue, he said, was that only two commissioners were in office to adjudicate the original appeal of the decision. Those two commissioners disagreed on what to do.
“The result was an anomalous situation in which the Commission appears to have endorsed the outcome from July even though no sitting member of the Commission agreed with that outcome,” the Office of the Consumer Advocate wrote in their appeal.
Kreis says other issues included whether the commission unfairly rejected his office’s testimony in the case, and whether it was unlawful for regulators to dismiss his second attempt to re-try the case.
“We're in the midst of a nationwide and statewide electricity affordability crisis, and it's through rate cases like this that rates just keep on going up and up and up,” Kreis said. “There isn't enough skeptical scrutiny of what the utility is trying to get away with.”
In a statement, Eversource said the alternative regulation framework would allow the company to invest in making the electric grid more reliable while “making customer bill impacts more gradual and predictable.”
The company said the alternative regulation structure, a version of which they proposed at the outset of the rate-setting process, was designed to lower customer costs overall, improve transparency, and increase accountability.
