Central Maine Power Co., a subsidiary of the Spanish company AVANGRID Inc. (NYSE: AGR), circulated a Dec. 27 press release to media in order to tell customers about higher bills coming. 

“Beginning in January, residential customers will receive a brief explanation in their bills about how the price of their supply of energy is different than the price of delivery, which is the portion CMP is responsible for,” the release said.

“We are reminding customers that the energy supply rates for residential customers who choose Standard Offer supply will rise 13.7 percent beginning in January,” according to CMP. “This is not a CMP increase. This is the increase in the cost of the energy supplied largely by natural gas-fired generation companies. However, CMP collects this fee in bills and remits it to the Standard Offer suppliers so customers often assume we have just raised their rates—which is not the case,” said Doug Herling, president and CEO of CMP.  “We want to do everything we can to prevent the sticker-shock that some customers experienced a year ago when the supply rates rose by close to 18 percent and were first reflected in customer bills during an extreme cold spell in January.”

“CMP charges customers for the delivery of electricity and all customers share in transmission and distribution costs – essentially the costs involved in maintaining a safe, secure and reliable grid,” the company said. “The Maine Public Utilities Commission determines the rates for Standard Offer Service energy supply and announced 2019 rates earlier in December. Customers can also choose to receive energy supply from other Competitive Electric Providers and a listing of licensed retail suppliers is available on the Maine Public Utilities Commission website.

“With CMP tools such as Energy Manager and Usage Alerts on the newly revisedcmpco.com website, all customers can have information about their energy use at their fingertips and can understand when and how they may be able to manage those costs.”