Report: CT utility company wrongly rejects solar procurement

Connecticut ratepayers could lose out on major savings because of what some affordability advocates call a miscalculation by power provider Eversource.

An Acadia Center report finds the company is abandoning a multi-state, 54-megawatt solar procurement plan, citing high development costs. It also finds those contracts would potentially save ratepayers $80 million over the next 20 years.

Kate McAuliffe, senior policy advocate for Connecticut at the Acadia Center, said Eversource has a double standard for solar projects, but not for its asset condition projects.

“Those can amount to as much as $300 million in spending annually,” she said. “When you compare that to the annual costs of these solar projects, it’s pretty small, and yet we’re not hearing the same level of objections when they look to recover the costs of those asset condition projects.”

Renewable-energy buildouts often face challenges. While the projects come with large up-front costs, the long-term benefits and cost-saving measures pay off in the end. Yet, the Acadia Center report notes renewables are a reliable boogeyman for utility companies regarding affordability.

Noah Berman, senior policy advocate and utility innovation program manager at the Acadia Center, said Eversource scapegoats these developments because it can’t make money on them.

“Those other pieces of the bill frequently are actually saving money for ratepayers,” he said, “because, unfortunately, the way electricity bills work is you see the gross cost, but you don’t see the net benefit on the bill. However, those net benefits still exist.”

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