Central Maine Power Co. customers began paying 7% more in their monthly bills Jan. 1 to help fund $3.3 billion of upgrades to transmission lines, poles and other equipment in New England. Versant Power ratepayers can also expect increases, though smaller, later this year.

Federal regulators are apportioning about $280 million of the region’s costs to Maine’s two major utilities, with the remainder assigned to utilities in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. The costs are divided based on load, or how much electricity each service area uses.

Consumer advocates in the region have criticized the practice of assigning transmission costs to ratepayers, saying upgrades proposed by utilities are often unnecessary, insufficiently regulated and enhance the value of assets for shareholders at the expense of customers.

“The ratepayers are the only wallets in the room,” said Donald M. Kreis, New Hampshire’s consumer advocate who says poles, wires and other components of transmission are overbuilt.

As an example, one energy company proposed rebuilding a 49-mile transmission line in New Hampshire for $384 million, when less than 8% of it needed to be replaced, according to consumer advocates.

Versant said transmission rates are set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “using a preset formula and cover needed investments” in local transmission and regional investments.

“Most of the transmission rate increase is due to Versant paying our share to support regional transmission projects as part of our ISO-New England membership,” it said in an emailed statement.

CMP spokesman Jon Breed said ratepayer-funded spending authorized by FERC “will help reduce outages and protect our system from the threats of extreme weather in Maine.” New England’s transmission is a nearly 9,000-mile system, he said.

How the money in its entirety will eventually be spent is unclear. Eversource Energy, the parent company of utilities in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, has plans for numerous projects, such as a partial line rebuild and other work totaling nearly $80 million in Connecticut, and a $7.4 million rebuild of a substation in Massachusetts.

“We’re responsible for maintaining just under half of the regional transmission system in New England and are constantly working to upgrade and modernize the transmission system, making the electric grid more resilient to increasing extreme weather caused by climate change and improving reliability for customers across New England,” Eversource spokeswoman Jamie Ratliff said in an email.

A representative of National Grid, parent company of New England Power Co., which said its revenue requirement is $485.4 million this year, did not respond to an emailed request for information about its projects.

CMP customers who use an average of 550 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month are paying $149.83, up from $139.62 in 2024, according to the Maine Office of the Public Advocate. Versant customers in the Bangor Hydro District who use the same amount of power pay $155.80, up from $148.09, a 5.2% increase, the utility said. Customers in Versant’s Maine Public District in the northern reaches of the state pay $146.37, an increase from $144.35.

Utilities in New England say “revenue requirements” of $3.3 billion are needed for 2025, up more than 16% from last year, according to the New England Power Pool, or NEPOOL, an advisory group of utilities, consumer advocates, consumers and others.  

Together, CMP and Versant account for 8.4% of the revenue needed in the region for the transmission upgrades, as identified by the utilities. In contrast, subsidiaries of Eversource Energy account for nearly 59%, or about $1.9 billion.

Increased rates for consumers are not due solely to transmission costs. Utilities also are collecting more than $254 million, including interest, to compensate for previous under-collecting of revenue based on the difference between cost forecasts and actual costs last year.

Ratiliff said the rate change is “largely the result” of utilities recovering less of their 2023 transmission costs.

Still, the largest driver of higher rates that took effect Wednesday is significant construction by utilities and replacing older transmission equipment, Landry said.

“They figured out they can build stuff and send the bills and everyone has to pay them,” he said.

The transmission costs will overwhelm a slight decline in electricity bills approved by Maine regulators in November. A lower 2025 standard offer rate — the default supply price for most home and small-business customers who don’t buy electricity with competitive energy providers – reflects stable natural gas prices, the main driver of power generation in New England.

Seth Berry, a former state legislator who chaired the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee and is critical of the performance of investor-owned utilities, said scrutiny by state regulators could uncover weaknesses in the argument for transmission upgrades and force utilities to scale back their plans.

The lure of profitability is difficult for utilities to resist and the result, he said, is “a race to a very expensive and overbuilt transmission network.”

Utilities should instead focus on repairing and upgrading “very creaky” distribution systems, he said. The networks of roadside power lines is most vulnerable to storms and potential damage that knocks out power.

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Massachusetts State Police say they had an interesting start to the new year when they helped out an unlikely victim in Pelham.

Troopers responded to reports of an injured owl that had been struck by a car and left with a broken wing.

The troopers were able to safely secure the owl, and arrangements were made to transport the animal to a rehabilitation center.

A picture posted to social media shows a smiling trooper cradling the owl that appears wrapped up in a blanket or shirt.

There was no immediate update on the owl’s condition.