PROVIDENCE – National Grid is seeking a sharp reduction in electric rates for Rhode Island customers, effective Jan. 1.
A decline in generating costs, as oil and natural gas prices have retreated from this summer’s highs, has meant the utility is paying less for the electricity it purchases, Natural Grid notes in its filing with the R.I. Public Utilities Commission. (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.) The company therefore is seeking to pare its energy fees for local electricity customers by 23.4 percent, to 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour for Standard Offer Service from the current 12.4 cents.
Partly offsetting that decrease, however, are proposed adjustments in Natural Grid’s energy-delivery charge that would boost customers’ bills by about half a cent per kWh, the utility said.
Together, the two changes would result in a savings of $12.84 per month, or 13.7 percent, for a typical customer using 500 kWh per month. That would pare the typical monthly bill to $80.60 – $3.83 more than before the last rate change, this July (READ MORE) – from the current $93.44, the company said.
The current rate filing includes the impact of National Grid’s settlement with electricity wholesaler Constellation Energy Group Inc. (NYSE: CEG), in which the utility agreed to pay $50.2 million over the next year. (READ MORE) “The Constellation settlement is figured into this filing, as being recovered through 2009,” Thomas Kogut, the PUC’s chief of information, said in an e-mail citing Schedule 1 of the utility’s rate-change request.
Meanwhile, National Grid and other wholesale and retail electricity suppliers are slated to meet with the PUC on Dec. 2 to discuss the state of the electricity market in Rhode Island. Later discussions will address renewable-energy supply, portfolio management and meter technology, the commission says in an online memo. Interested parties and stakeholders wishing to attend those sessions are asked to notify the PUC at least 48 hours in advance.
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 the text of recent filings by local utilities and other regulated businesses, visit www.ripuc.org.
