Conn. residents see higher electric rates

Higher electric rates for customers of Connecticut's two utilities went into effect Tuesday, raising issues familiar to consumers pressed by rising energy costs.

Increased demand for power, electricity deregulation that critics say has failed and rapidly escalating energy prices are blamed for the higher electric rates.

Connecticut Light & Power, which serves 1.2 million customers, won a 4.7 percent increase from state regulators, boosting the monthly bill of an average residential customer by $6.22.

United Illuminating, which serves 17 towns from Fairfield to North Branford, won state approval to raise residential rates by 2.1 percent, or about $3 a month, according to the state Department of Public Utility Control.

Frank Poirot, a spokesman for CL&P, said the Berlin-based utility has been building power lines to keep up with steadily increasing demand. Power use has risen by 27 percent from 1990 to 2007, he said.

"It adds up rather quickly," he said.

CL&P and Western Massachusetts Electric Co., businesses of Northeast Utilities, are proposing a transmission project that would increase capacity by 345,000 volts for customers from the Springfield, Mass., area to central Connecticut.

CL&P, responding to rising demand, especially in southwest Connecticut, from the burgeoning use of air conditioners, computers and numerous electronic devices, has built a transmission line from Bethel to Norwalk. A portion of another line from Middletown to Norwalk has been energized.

Of CL&P's 4.7 percent increase, 3.7 percent is to pay for transmission charges and 1 percent is for federally required charges related to power congestion and energy prices, said Mitch Gross, spokesman for the Berlin-based utility.

"We think we're doing a good job for our customers, getting the lowest prices in the market," he said.

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the rate increases demonstrate the need to end electricity deregulation in Connecticut. He criticized lawmakers for doing little in the legislative session that ended last month.

"There was no overhaul in the fundamental system that has produced these spiraling electricity charges," he said.

Blumenthal repeated his call for a windfall profits refund and a state-run power authority to bring down prices.

For more than a year, as electricity prices have been marching upward, several state lawmakers have said they regret supporting deregulation that was enacted in 1998. Rep. Steve Fontana, D-North Haven, and House chairman of the General Assembly's Energy and Technology Committee, said allowing utilities to return to the business of generating electricity would eliminate third parties that drive up costs.

But he said lawmakers are too divided to alter the regulatory structure.

"I am optimistic that as prices continue to rise, consumers and legislators will get more and more frustrated with rising prices and there will be pressure on us to fix the problem," Fontana said.

Chris Kallaher, director of government and regulatory affairs at Direct Energy, said Connecticut has "robust competition" for electricity that would be threatened by utilities returning to generating power.

Ray Long, director of the Northeast region for NRG in Middletown, said increasing costs are due to the rise in energy prices.

"There are no short-term fixes to address escalating prices," he said.