Opinion: Utilities count on your boredom to keep electric bills high
Want to know the quickest way to clear a party? Start talking about utility regulation. First, the record scratches, eyes glaze over, conversations die, and suddenly everyone remembers they need to check on their pets. It’s regulatory Kryptonite … so mind-numbingly technical that even policy wonks reach for their phones.
And that’s exactly how utilities like it.
Maybe you’ve seen and promptly forgotten a confusing and uninteresting public notice about “Performance-Based Regulation (PBR) implementation frameworks.” Well, the companies sending you those painful monthly electric bills don’t think those frameworks are boring — and they are busy trying to shape a system they hope will lock in their profits for years to come. They’re betting millions of your dollars that this is all so impenetrable that you’ll leave the decision-making to them.
Connecticut rate-payers face some of the highest electricity costs in the nation. Yet when the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (“PURA”) opens regulatory cases about fundamentally restructuring how our utilities get paid, proceedings that could determine whether your bills go up or down for the next decade, the hearing rooms are practically empty … except for utility lawyers, of course (and a few advocates like us).
The great regulatory reveal
Here’s what’s happening behind all the technical jargon: Connecticut is considering revising the way utilities make a profit to incentivize them to spend less money (or at least spend it more where it counts). Instead of the traditional model where utilities get paid based on how much of your money they spend (yes, you read that right — they literally make profit from spending your money), performance-based regulation ties their compensation to actual, specific results.
Right now, utilities in Connecticut (and across most of the country) operate under what’s called a “cost-plus” model. They spend money on grid infrastructure — think wires, poles, and substations — then get to charge you for it, plus a guaranteed profit margin. It’s like someone giving you a credit card and promising they’ll pay your bill and give you a 10% tip on whatever you spend, regardless of what you buy or how much it costs. Who wouldn’t max out that card?
Performance-based regulation flips this script. Instead of rewarding utilities for spending, it rewards them for delivering actual value: reliable service, faster storm restoration, meeting clean energy goals, and, crucially, keeping costs reasonable.
If this idea sounds obvious, that’s because every company that isn’t a monopoly utility makes a profit when it delivers value. It’s what a competitive market yields naturally.
Why ‘it’ll never work’ is the real problem
The real barrier isn’t technical – it is psychological. We’ve become too comfortable accepting a system that doesn’t work for anyone except utilities. For too long, the energy sector has operated under the assumption that monopolistic structures and guaranteed profits are just how things have to be, as if sky-high electric bills and utility monopolies are like gravity — natural laws we have to accept, rather than policy choices we can change.
This comfort with dysfunction has real costs. While we’ve debated incremental tweaks around the edges, utilities have continued collecting guaranteed returns regardless of performance, and ratepayers have continued footing the bill for inefficiency. The longer we accept “that’s just how it has always been done” as a valid response to systemic problems, the more entrenched these issues become.
But those of us who came of age watching entire industries transform overnight know better.
We’re the voice that refuses to accept “that’s just how it’s always been done” as a valid answer to systemic problems. We’ve seen Uber disrupt taxis, Netflix kill Blockbuster, and solar prices plummet by 90% in a decade. For us, it’s obvious: industries only seem “unchangeable” until they change completely.
The truth is, resistance to change has become the energy sector’s most expensive luxury and ratepayers — all of us who depend on electricity — are footing the bill. But we don’t have to be paying for nothing to change, and we shouldn’t be. When incumbents shrug off innovative regulatory approaches, they’re not making a prediction; they’re making a choice: to protect a system that keeps utility profits sky high (and growing!) while everyone else pays through the nose.
What’s really at stake
Performance-based regulation isn’t just regulatory housekeeping. Done right, it could be the key to breaking Connecticut’s cycle of ever-increasing electric bills. Done wrong, it could lock in the current system where utility shareholders get richer while ratepayers get poorer. The grid will require significant investment in the coming decades, of course, so it is vital that the public’s money be invested as prudently as possible.
Literally, only utilities are happy with increases in electric and gas bills right now. Families are choosing between air conditioning and groceries. Small businesses are closing because they can’t afford to pay their electric bills. So why aren’t we throwing everything we have at fixing this problem?
The framework being developed now will determine whether your utility gets rewarded for efficiency or excess, for innovation or inertia, for serving customers or enriching shareholders. This is the rare regulatory moment where the wonky details will make a big difference to your wallet and your future.
Time to crash the party
The window for action is opening: PURA is expected to issue their proposed final decisions in the PBR proceeding this July. Organizations such as Vote Solar, Acadia Center, and a growing coalition of advocates are fighting for performance standards that matter and translating gate-keeping utility-speak into plain English so you can join the fight.
We’re demanding that any new regulatory framework serves the people paying the bills, not just the companies sending them. We’re fighting for faster power restoration after storms, real progress on clean energy goals, and incentives for utilities to keep your bills affordable for you rather than profitable for them.
But your electric bill depends on someone showing up who represents your interests. The utilities are certainly showing up … and they have teams of lawyers that your money pays for whose job is to protect their interests, not your pocketbook.
Luckily, PURA provides equitable opportunities for advocates and rate-payers to weigh in on these critical decisions. Keep your eyes open for ways to get involved when these decisions drop. Whether that means submitting comments supporting provisions to lower your bills or voicing concerns about proposals designed more for utility shareholders than rate-payers, your input matters. It may seem like it doesn’t, but we promise: it actually does.
Younger generations will be the ones living with the consequences of today’s energy decisions. Climate change isn’t a distant threat for us — it’s the backdrop of our entire adult lives. Energy affordability isn’t an abstract policy debate either — it can be the difference between saving for a house or paying rent forever.
Connecticut rate-payers deserve a voice in how their utilities get regulated and compensated. Don’t let the utilities’ strategy of “boredom-by-design” win by default, especially when PURA is actively creating space for you to be heard.
Your future electric bills are counting on it. Because the most expensive conversation is the one you’re not part of.
To read this article from CT Post, click here.
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