In the latest tussle over electric utilities’ profit margins, Gov. Kelly Ayotte and other New England governors have urged the federal government not to raise the guaranteed return on spending for owners of transmission systems, including Eversource.
New England Transmission Owners filed a proposal on April 30 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which regulates interstate power transmission, to increase their return on equity, or profit over expenditures, from 9.57% to 11.39%. The move has drawn pushback from officials throughout the region.
“I joined fellow New England governors in urging federal regulators to reject transmission utilities’ effort to inflate their guaranteed profit margin,” Ayotte wrote in a statement.
Electric utilities are guaranteed profit on spending that involves systems regulators say are needed to keep the power grid going. How much of a return they should get has long been a subject of dispute.
Notably, FERC has said that Eversource and other New England utilities must return $1.6 billion to ratepayers because they were collecting a 10.57% return rather than 9.57%. That case may end up going to federal district court.
