A Big Week for Your CMP or Versant Bill

Lots of big news about Central Maine Power Company and Versant Power bills this week! And to be honest, we’ve noticed people are confused. Which is understandable. It’s a confusing topic — so let’s break it down.

Yes, your CMP or Versant bill is going up again in January. Yes, this is bad news, with hardworking Mainers already struggling. But no, this new increase is not due to CMP, Versant, or state government actions. And in fact, our Public Utilities Commission (PUC) actions this week avoided a much bigger rate hike!

Does that surprise you? Or maybe you’re skeptical, and wondering how this could be? If so, this post is for you!

First, let’s remember: CMP only delivers power, via poles and wires. A competitive market supplies power, via generation and storage. For supply, you can let the PUC buy for you, or you can take your chances with other suppliers.

Very roughly speaking, your CMP bill about half delivery and half supply.

So: what happened this week?

On TUESDAY, the PUC REJECTED CMP’s request to raise delivery rates paid by the average customer by about $204 immediately, and by about $420 over the next five years.

On WEDNESDAY, the PUC then accepted what they viewed as the best competitive option to supply us all with power for the coming year. This is an annual, free-market process to serve all CMP and Versant customers who choose “standard offer” supply. Months ago, the PUC put out a request for proposals, and then evaluated each bid. The one they chose is the best they felt they could do. It means a one-year increase in rates, by about $132 a year.

But why? Why are our supply rates going up? The #1 reason is that New England depends mostly on expensive natural gas to meet our peak power demand, when all of us are using lots of power.

Seasonal peaks come on the hottest days of summer and the coldest days of winter, due to our heating and cooling needs. Daily peaks come on weekday evenings, between about 5 and 9 pm. Why? It’s we all get home from work and turn on our appliances!

When usage peaks, very expensive gas and oil “peaker plants” kick in. These are expensive due to fuel costs, but also because we pay all day, every day just to keep them ready.

But there’s also some great news here: the solution isn’t all that hard. If we make small changes in WHEN we use our power, we can collectively reduce our energy costs by a lot! For this reason, Maine’s PUC is looking at time-of-use (TOU) rates. This would nudge us to use less at peak periods, where possible.

Want to learn more about TOU rates, or how to shift your peak use to cut costs for us all? Or just how to read your utility bill? If so, let us know!

Together, we can use both our voice and our choice to change the trend and bend the curve to more affordable power.