It won’t change the fact that Massachusetts has some of the highest electricity rates in the country. In fact, if state officials decide to boost subsidies for lower-income ratepayers, it could result in even higher costs for many gas and electric customers to help pay for them.
“The money all has to get paid,” Van Nostrand said. “This is just a reallocation of that, to address affordability issues.”
When establishing the new makeup of the three-member commission that oversees the DPU last March, Governor Maura Healey had asked the commissioners to consider making changes that help the state achieve its climate goals, improve community dialogue, and respond to concerns from lower-income ratepayers. (After taking office early last year, Healey appointed Van Nostrand and Staci Rubin to the commission, while the third commissioner, Cecile M. Fraser, was first appointed by Healey’s predecessor, Charlie Baker.)
Among the DPU’s big questions: whether to ask the state Legislature to raise the income cap for electric and gas rate discounts. Currently, households that earn up to 60 percent of the state’s median annual income, about $87,000 for a family of four, could be eligible for discounts. Another possibility: studying whether Massachusetts should tie discounts to a percentage of household income, as several other states do.
To accommodate the transition to more renewable electricity, the state’s three main investor-owned utilities — National Grid, Eversource, and Unitil — will need to upgrade their transmission and distribution infrastructure over time, and will inevitably seek to pass those costs on to ratepayers. Van Nostrand said he hopes the DPU can use the findings from this investigation to inform its reviews of those future rate hikes.
Meanwhile, shifting to electricity at home, by switching to heat pumps or electric vehicles, also can drive up electric bills for individual users. Van Nostrand said the DPU will study whether there’s a way to address those costs, too.
“We … don’t want customer bills to go up when they’re basically doing what we want them to, by helping us decarbonize,” Van Nostrand said.
The DPU is accepting comments through March 1 and Van Nostrand said he expects to finish the investigation sometime this year. There’s no set deadline, but any proposal that needs legislative approval this year would in all likelihood need to be presented by sometime in June, if not earlier, to be passed before the Legislature adjourns from formal sessions at the end of July. Any DPU proposal would likely be included in the Legislature’s next climate bill.
Spokespeople for National Grid and Eversource, the state’s two largest electric and gas utilities, said their companies welcome the DPU review of changes to the state’s energy affordability programs.
The National Grid spokesman noted that his company’s latest rate request, filed with the DPU in November, includes a proposed tiered discount rate program for eligible customers, a first for Massachusetts. And the Eversource spokesman said that while the DPU works through this review, it’s critical to focus on cost-effectiveness while also recognizing that new electrical infrastructure is essential to meeting the state’s decarbonization goals.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
Read More: State launches review of affordable-energy programs amid green transition.