CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Poor National Grid. Its shareholders only earned a 5 percent return last year. As Tim Knauss reported Jan. 30: “The British company’s top executives expect their business units to earn at least 10 percent return.” So they want the Public Service Commission to approve a 20 percent hike in electric delivery prices above what the current plan through 2012 allows.

Of course, National Grid’s senior vice president of rates and pricing proposes an accounting gimmick “that would make room for a $390 million (per year) increase in rates without raising customer bills.” Do they think we were born yesterday?

National Grid cites energy conservation and the recession for reducing its sales. Energy conservation is supposed to be a good thing, not something that results in higher rates to maintain corporate profits. And the recession is already hitting everyone; shouldn’t National Grid eat its share?

New York already has the 49th highest electric rates in the country (out of 50 states and Washington, D.C.), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Only Connecticut and Hawaii are higher. It seems to me that increasing our rates further will only drive more energy conservation and deepen the recession locally by exasperating the already challenging business climate in the region. So, by National Grid’s formula, which will become precedent if the PSC approves it, electric delivery rates will be locked in an upward vortex.

If National Grid needs to bolster revenue to maintain and upgrade its distribution network, then let any approval by the Public Service Commission be narrowly allocated for infrastructure.