WARWICK – The typical local electric customer will save $13.64 per month, starting Jan. 1, under a National Grid rate reduction approved last night by the R.I. Public Utilities Commission.
The rate cut is even steeper than in National Grid’s proposal last month, which would have pared energy fees for the most common Standard Offer Service by 23.4 percent, to 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and boosted the company’s energy-delivery charge by about half a cent per kWh. (READ MORE) That plan would have yielded an overall savings of about 13.7 percent, or $12.84 per month, for the typical electricity customer using 500 kWh per month.
Instead, the typical customer will see overall savings of 14.6 percent – paring the typical monthly bill to about $79.80 from the current $93.44 – thanks to the continued decline in prices for crude oil and natural gas.
Under state law, electricity and natural gas utilities are allowed to profit from energy delivery but not from energy commodities, so they must pass through to customers any significant increase or decrease in wholesale energy costs.
National Grid, a division of the U.K.-based National Grid plc (NYSE: NGG, LSE: NG), distributes electricity to approximately 3.3 million customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island and natural gas to about 3.4 million customers in those states. Additional information is available at www.nationalgridus.com.
For information about the R.I. Public Utilities Commission and its Division of Public Utilities and Carriers – including PUC decisions and recent filings by local utilities and other regulated businesses – visit www.ripuc.org.
