Ubaldo Quintero peers through the window of his second-floor apartment at a Rhode Island Energy truck driving through his Pawtucket neighborhood. He hopes and prays utility company technicians aren’t coming to his door.
Quintero, 63, has faced multiple shutoffs over the past five years for defaulting on his payment plan, he explains through an interpreter. Quintero is from Colombia and speaks Spanish.
He can’t say how much his latest electric bill is; he avoids opening the mail because he knows his income as a security guard is not enough to cover the cost. And so he waits for the next time the lights don’t turn on, and the humming medical devices helping his wife, Janeth, manage her chronic illnesses fall silent.
If Quintero didn’t have to work on Monday night, March 10, he would have gone to a public hearing to share his story with state utility regulators considering changes to electric and gas bills. He’s attended such twice-a-year hearings in the past. He’s also written to lawmakers in support of bills that would provide relief for low-income and medically vulnerable residents like him.
Nearly 200 people packed the Warwick offices of the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for the March 10 hearing to denounce rising energy bills. Among them was Rep. Megan Cotter, an Exeter Democrat and a first-time attendee at the rate review hearings.
“This is an issue that impacts every single Rhode Islander, from seniors on fixed income to small businesses,” Cotter said in an interview. “Rhode Island needs to wake up and do something. Whatever it’s going to take.”
But solving the structural and systemic problems at least partially responsible for soaring and unpredictable utility bills is complicated. State law limits the PUC’s oversight over the supply-side energy prices, as long as the company can prove its proposed rates are a direct reflection of what it pays third-party suppliers, with no additional profit, the rates must be approved.
The appointed utility panel is expected to vote soon on Rhode Island Energy’s proposed changes to electric and gas rates before they take effect on April 1, though a meeting date has not been scheduled.
Meanwhile, at the Rhode Island State House, energy costs are in the spotlight thanks to a bevy of bills. Some are perennial proposals: to cap bills based on income and to give more time for seniors and medically vulnerable residents like Quintero and his wife to pay their overdue bills. Others are more radical: encouraging purchase of nuclear power as an alternative energy source, chopping Rhode Island Energy’s profit ceiling of 9.275% by more than half, and setting up a study panel to review the alternative of a state-run public utility.
Cotter, who is behind the latter two bills, acknowledges her proposals might sound severe. But so is the problem.
And she has no confidence that PPL Corp., the publicly traded parent company that owns Rhode Island Energy, will fix it on its own.
“They’re not ever going to try to get less money,” Cotter said. “They’re always looking out for shareholders. That’s their job as a company and a business.”
Who profits off your power?
PPL Corp. reported $888 million in profits for 2024, including utility operations in Rhode Island, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The earnings mark a 20% increase over the prior year, with a corresponding increase in earnings per share.
Under the terms of its 2022 purchase of Rhode Island’s utility operations from former owner National Grid, PPL was barred from hiking distribution costs to Rhode Island customers for three years. So 2026 will be the first time the utility carrier can propose higher fees not tied to supply-side fluctuations or state policy mandates. The company’s proposed distribution charges are expected to be submitted this fall.
But even without extra distribution fees, Rhode Island energy customers have seen their bills skyrocket due to political unrest and limited supply, which drives wholesale prices higher. Supply-side electric charges — which account for half of the average monthly bill — reached their highest rate in state history in winter 2022, with the second highest rates on record the following winter. The peaks coincided with international market spikes in response to the war in Ukraine, magnified in New England because of limited regional pipeline capacity. Meanwhile, state laws mandating decarbonization, including offsetting 100% of state electricity usage through renewable sources or credits by 2030, hiked bill charges associated with renewable energy.
This winter, market prices declined, while the PUC issued bill credits to offset a $25 million overcollection from 2023. Most residential customers received a one-time credit of nearly $69 on their December bills, while low-income customers got $140, divided into $23 monthly increments for the last six months.
Recent cold snaps spiked wholesale pricing and customer demand for electricity again, escalating what was already a nearly $169 monthly electric bill for the average residential customer using 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
“My bill went from $100 to $200 last month,” Catherine Zelazny, of Warwick, told state regulators during the March 10 hearing. “I did not change anything. I do not use the oven, I keep my house at a low temperature.”
Brian Schuster, a Rhode Island Energy spokesperson, attempted to empathize in his opening remarks at the hearing, promising relief would be on the way.
“We have experienced one of the coldest winters, and we feel the pain you’re going through,” Schuster said.
The crowd responded with jeers.
Summer electric rates to decrease
In keeping with seasonal fluctuations in electricity prices, Rhode Island Energy customers would see their electric bills decrease for the six-month period starting April 1.
The proposed rate reduction would save an average residential customer about $28 on their monthly electric bill — from $169 to $142 per month — according to calculations from Rhode Island Energy submitted to the PUC.
But fired-up residents at the hearing did not want to talk about summer electric savings, or the proposed $78 increase in annual natural gas fees — the other item on the agenda. One after another, they took aim at Rhode Island Energy and its executives, blaming their profit-centered approach for skyrocketing bills.
“I am angry at an ever-increasing profit that squeezes hardworking Rhode Islanders, forcing us to choose between heat and food, children and rent,” said Sue Kelley, 76, of Cranston. “I am angry that no corporation expects itself to support the greater community or consider the morality of its actions.”
Kelley urged state regulators to “force an immediate rate cut,” a plea echoed by many among the 50 people who testified.
The commission has never denied the base supply rates, as proposals have always proven to directly reflect market pricing, said Todd Bianco, chief economic and policy analyst for the commission, in an interview. However, the commission has attempted to blunt the impact to customers’ bills at least five times over the last 10 years by deferring proposed increases to warmer months, and offering credits from various revenue sources, including the state’s carbon trade program.
PUC Chairman Ronald Gerwatowski told the crowd during the hearing that he and fellow commissioner Abigail Anthony were not allowed to respond to comments. The third, $139,000-salaried seat on the three-member panel has been vacant since commissioner John Revens Jr. stepped down in December.
But Cotter felt commissioners were not receptive to the public testimony.
“It did feel like a lack of empathy for the folks who were speaking,” Cotter said.
The Massachusetts model
In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey on Monday ordered the state’s utility regulators to issue credits for April electric bills while announcing a $220 million “Energy Affordability Agenda” to find competitive alternative energy suppliers, reduce seasonal and market-based price volatility, and enroll more people in discount programs. Last month, at Healey’s urging, the state’s Department of Public Utilities forced natural gas companies to lower March and April bills by 5%, temporarily suspending delivery fees that help pay for energy efficiency programs and capital infrastructure improvements.
Rep. Teresa Tanzi, a Narragansett Democrat, criticized Gov. Dan. McKee for not taking a similar role in Rhode Island.
“I think he’s out of touch,” Tanzi said of McKee in an interview. “This is something a governor should be addressing without a doubt.”
Energy costs are a “top priority,” Olivia DaRocha, a spokesperson for McKee, said in an emailed response. She gave examples of efforts to help customers, including bill credits issued last fall at McKee’s direction, along with the recent $8 million settlement with Rhode Island Energy for invoicing fraud committed by its predecessor National Grid.
The settlement money is not being used directly to reduce customers’ bills, but instead will pay down debt in a separate fund for emergency responses, indirectly sparing customers higher fees in the long run, Bianco said.
The Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources is also soliciting proposals from vendors to administer the state’s energy efficiency program to determine whether a third party — rather than the state utility company — offers the best “net benefits” to state residents, as required under the state’s fiscal 2024 budget. Bids were due Friday, though information on the number and identities of bidders was not immediately available.
Activists with The George Wiley Center, Rhode Island Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter PAC and Indivisible RI have flooded McKee’s inbox with letters, and petitions urging the governor to “address the escalating utility costs that are crushing families.
Camilo Viveiros, coordinator and executive director for the George Wiley Center, said he has not heard anything from the governor’s office in the week since a 600-signature petition was sent.
State representatives met twice over Zoom with Rhode Island Energy leaders in February in the hopes of finding ways to cut costs for customers. But Tanzi said they weren’t prepared to answer specific questions, and didn’t let lawmakers record the call for those unable to attend.
“I too often feel that they are trying to do a song and dance around this, and in this case put the blame on us,” Tanzi said. “They’re saying they’re so cut to the bone, they have no room to be doing anything differently.”
Caroline Pretyman, a Rhode Island Energy spokesperson, said in an emailed response that the company will continue to have continued discussions with policymakers, regulators and “other stakeholders.”
This is an issue that impacts every single Rhode Islander, from seniors on fixed income to small businesses. Rhode Island needs to wake up and do something. Whatever it’s going to take.
Rep. June Speakman, a Warren Democrat, on Feb. 28 introduced a resolution asking the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers to meet with Rhode Island Energy to consider “immediate and meaningful action” to reduce utility bills, reporting recommendations to House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi by April 22. The non-binding resolution, co-sponsored by 10 House Democrats, also points to what utility regulators did in Massachusetts as a model for Rhode Island to consider.
National Grid’s energy efficiency charge in Massachusetts — which is being suspended for two months on natural gas bills — is 4.5 times higher than what Rhode Island Energy charges its natural gas customers. Temporarily suspending the energy efficiency charge in Rhode Island would not drastically reduce customers’ natural gas bills, especially in the warmer months, Bianco said.
In search of a solution
State utility regulators aren’t opposed to policy solutions. They have written to lawmakers to support a bill that would enact a policy model popularized in a dozen other states. The Percentage of Income Payment Plan program would create a tiered-income plan in which the lowest-income residents would pay no more than 3-6% of their income on gas and electricity.
Rhode Island Energy did not oppose the bill in 2024, but warned of additional “programmatic and administrative costs,” according to an April 1, 2024, letter from its lobbyist Nicholas Ucci.
The company has come out strongly against both of Cotter’s bills to cap revenue and create a study commission to explore how the state could set up a public-owned utility. In op-eds published in The Providence Journal and The Boston Globe respectively, Rhode Island Energy President Greg Cornett warned the bills would increase rates while risking safety and reliability. He said Cotter “glosses over the risk for Rhode Islanders in this plan, and ignores the real reasons that energy costs are rising.”
Viveiros of the George Wiley Center sees Cornett’s public rebuttal as further evidence of Rhode Island Energy’s poor communication.
“I don’t know who their publicity marketing person is that they are spending millions of dollars for, and our bills pay for, but that isn’t what consumers want to see,” Viveiros said.
Ucci was paid $24,000 as Rhode Island Energy’s lobbyist in 2024, according to the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s Lobby Tracker. Advocates with the George Wiley Center have been unable to meet or talk to Ucci or other company executives outside of bill hearings, unlike National Grid executives, including its company president, who made themselves available to discuss policy ideas prior to selling the state’s utilities, Viveiros said.
Pretyman said Rhode Island Energy has spoken with sponsors of the Percentage Income Payment Plan bill “at various times” in past sessions, noting that hearings on this year’s PIPP bills have not been scheduled.
Relief can’t come soon enough for Pawtucket resident Quintero, who just finished paying back his neighbor the $250 lent to him last fall to turn his power back on.
Quintero stopped paying for natural gas heat 15 years ago, relying on a small space heater and sealing his windows shut to try and avoid extra costs. But he still can’t afford groceries and power. As long as Janeth’s medical machines keep running, she can stay comfortable and manage her chronic conditions, including sleep apnea and lipedema.
“She basically cannot live without those machines,” he says through an interpreter.
He lets out a long, low sigh.
“This is a constant problem.”
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
