If the devil’s in the details, the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission’s order on the state’s latest energy efficiency plan looks like something sprung from Satan’s hopyard.
In its November 12 rogue order, the Commission reneged on the 2021 – 2023 Triennium Energy Efficiency Plan, despite agreement among all parties to the docket. In his column on InDepthNH.org, Garry Rayno writes, the PUC “… wants to end utility administered energy efficiency programs and instead let a competitive market take over.”
He continues, “Traditionally settlement agreements similar to the energy efficiency proposal for the next three years, are approved by the PUC with some adjustments, but are seldom rejected.”
In this case, though, the Commission’s repudiation of this settlement and break with judicial norms followed ex parte communications.
On November 29, 2020, almost four weeks after the parties in the energy efficiency docket had reached an agreement, the Commission issued an order that read, “We expect that final order will be issued within eight weeks.” That order came on the heels of two earlier letters sent to the Commission, one on November 9th from Jim Roche, then-president of the Business & Industry Association (BIA), and another on December 4, 2020, from nine House Republican members the day after the agreement was reached. Both the BIA and House members wrote to the PUC to cut the plan’s increases on commercial and industrial ratepayers during the pandemic.
The BIA and the House members had equal opportunity to become party to the case. Yet not one signatory among the House members nor any associate of the BIA intervened in the energy efficiency docket. Moreover, every reason they gave the Commission for postponement had already been discussed, negotiated and agreed to among the parties who did, including the utilities.
Still, the Commission’s latest order on the energy efficiency plan addressed the financial interests of the BIA and the Republican House members over the interests of those who respected its administrative rules, norms and timelines for intervention and over what makes for legitimate PUC proceedings and settlements with just and reasonable results.
Moreover, that the PUC issued its final order more than eight months later than the expectation they set looks like a dereliction of duty.
Now consider the PUC’s delayed order following belated correspondence from those not party to the case in the light of the Commission’s ethics policy. The first principle requires PUC employees’ “to perform their duties impartially and diligently” while avoiding “even the appearance of impropriety.” The second, charges the Commission, as the arbiter of the interests between customers and regulated utilities, “with maintaining the public trust.”
Immediately following last month’s PUC energy efficiency order, Chairwoman Dianne Martin resigned after serving only two years of her six-year term without explanation.
Given the PUC’s strict, proscriptive ethics policy and the circumstances surrounding its order, the Commissioners should welcome any motion to rehear the case.
It’s worth bearing in mind too that after months of negotiation, all parties in the triennium plan’s adjudicated docket agreed to invest $350 million, through the utility system benefits charge, to guarantee ratepayer savings of $1.3 billion in wasted costs from energy inefficiency with a spectacular 271% return on investment.
On November 16, 2021, the New Hampshire Bulletin ran a piece by Amanda Gokee titled, “It essentially dismantles all of the progress: Energy efficiency decision sends a chill.” In it, she writes, “The [PUC’s] contentious order may face legal challenges: Consumer Advocate Don Kreis has already announced that he may ask for a rehearing, which would be the first step toward an appeal.”
I suspect he’s looking for unanimous support from the utilities party to the case. If so, Eversource could prove a powerful ally.
On September 21, 2021, the utility sent an email to its customers titled, “Carbon Neutral by 2030.” The email quotes Joe Nolan, president/CEO, saying, “We have a bold vision to be a catalyst for clean energy, a beacon of sustainability and a leader in promoting racial equity and social justice among our employees, suppliers and the communities where we live and work.”
In the aftermath of the Commission’s failure to maintain public trust, will Eversource now prove Mr. Nolan’s vision of his company as a beacon of sustainability and leader in social justice? Will it stand with our consumer advocate on a rehearing of the PUC’s energy efficiency order? It is most certainly the single best opportunity Eversource has in New Hampshire to get to “Carbon Neutral by 2030.”
(Terry Cronin lives in Hopkinton.)