Eversource Letter Of Intent Points To 11 Percent Rate Hike Request, Attorney General Calls For 'Scrutiny'

CONNECTICUT — A letter of intent to state regulators filed Wednesday by Eversource Energy indicates the utility will be seeking an average 11 percent increase in its electric distribution rates for Connecticut customers in the next round of billing.

The letter to the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority represents the first request for a base rate jump in roughly nine years.

If approved by PURA, after the lengthy vetting process, the proposed increase would be connected to the "delivery" portion of electric bills, which covers poles, wires, substations and the power grid.

The new rate season commences on July 1, 2027.

Eversource said in the filing that it can keep the increase to 11 percent if it can take advantage of a new law that would extend collection of more than $1 billion in storm damage costs by issuing state bonds.

Said utility officials, "Over the past several years, charges on a customer bill have fluctuated drastically while the electric distribution rate has remained relatively stable since our last rate review application nearly a decade ago.

"We work diligently to keep maintenance and infrastructure costs we can control as low as possible, but just like nearly every other sector of the economy, inflation, supply chain challenges, and other factors have significantly increased costs for equipment and materials across the utility industry.

"Prices have grown well beyond the pace of inflation. Across the utility industry, since 2004, wire and cable costs have increased by 411 percent, transformers have increased by 265 percent, and utility poles have increased 123 percent, according to a May 2026 Lawrence Berkeley National Lab report on electric utility distribution costs."

Attorney General William Tong released the following statement regarding news that Eversource intends to file for the double-digit rate hike this summer:

"Connecticut families are getting crushed by unaffordable energy costs while Eversource executives crow to Wall Street over surging profits and rake in multimillion dollar bonuses. But they choose now to demand hundreds of millions of dollars more. Why? Because after years of litigation and lobbying, they finally ran their chief regulator out of town.

"They want a rate hike now not because they need one, but because they think they can get away with it. We're going to scrutinize every profit, every bonus, every perk and every padded expense in their application and we're going to be fighting for Connecticut families and small businesses at every step of this process."

Eversource issued a quick response to the AG.

It read, "Today we submitted a letter of intent to file a distribution rate review for our electric operations – the first in nearly a decade. Over the last 10 years, customers have experienced increased reliability as a direct result of our strategic investments in the electric system, and increased investment is needed to maintain the level of affordable reliability and resiliency that customers have come to expect.

"The LOI is standard procedure and submitted prior to filing the actual rate review application. This is the first step in the process to request regulators review and adjust current distribution rates to better reflect the cost of maintaining the electric system and safely delivering power to customers across Connecticut. Our LOI details an operating revenue deficiency of approximately $503 million annually, which excludes 2018-2023 storm costs. If approved as proposed, the average increase would be approximately 11 percent across all customer classes and approximately 13 percent for residential customers starting July 1, 2027.

As far as storm effects, the utility said, "Our storm costs are currently being evaluated by PURA in a separate docket, and we are hopeful regulators will authorize securitization for those costs, which is a specialized financing method that will allow those costs to be recovered over a much longer timeframe of 20 years and at a lower interest rate compared to the traditional six year recovery. If securitization is approved, this will substantially lower bill impacts for customers and allow us to keep the full amount of storm costs from our rate review application. "