The Maine Public Utilities Commission recently announced plans to introduce a series of new electricity rates for those using electric vehicles, heat pumps or batteries.
These new alternative rate plans drew some criticism from Republican lawmakers in Maine earlier this week. But government officials say the new rates won’t cost other taxpayers any additional costs.
The new tariff option will incentivize corporate and residential customers to charge electric vehicles at night, when demand for electricity is usually less.
The other is designed to attract households that consume more electricity than the average household consumer.
The new tariff plan is optional. Maine families and businesses can participate if they wish to participate.
“We’re not really trying to impose anything,” Maine PUC Chairman Phil Bartlett said. “We’re trying to empower people to help them balance their accounts based on new usage patterns.”
The discussion of these new rates is linked to state legislation passed last year that encouraged commissions to develop new utility rates that take into account battery storage and other electrification policies.
“It’s about making sure everyone contributes fairly to the cost of the grid without discouraging overly favorable policies,” Bartlett said.
Both CMP and Versant Power are offering a new pricing plan that might appeal to Maine households that use heat pumps or charge their electric vehicles at home.
This new rate will only change the transfer and delivery rates for customers who have agreed. The delivery tariff is divided into two parts – a fixed monthly fee for the service and another part, the amount of electricity consumed by the household each month.
Under the new rates approved by the PUC, households will pay a higher monthly service charge but a lower rate per kilowatt-hour consumed.
“It’s just a different way to break down the price they pay, so just reallocate part of the bill from the monthly service charge and part from the cost per kilowatt hour,” said Michael Stoddard, chief executive of the Efficiency Maine Trust.
He said the new fee structure more accurately reflected the costs charged to the grid by heat pump users.
According to Efficiency Maine, the average Maine home consumes 6,620 kilowatt-hours per year, a number that utilities use to determine the annual cost of delivering electricity to consumers.
But heat pump miners use more electricity than the average home; the total average kWh varies from 10,000 to almost 17,000, depending on the number of heat pumps used in the home.
Utilities, in effect, collect more from heat pump customers than the company determines the cost of maintaining and operating the network.
For example, a CMP customer using a heat pump to supplement an existing oil-fired stove consumes about 9,612 kWh per year at a cost of $955, according to Efficiency Maine estimates.
Now, based on the newly approved alternative rate, the same customer would pay $897 per year and save $58.
A customer who uses a heat pump to heat and cool their entire home uses 16,989 kWh per year, which costs $1,604 at current rates, but saves $309 per year on the CMP bill.
Please note that these figures from Efficiency Maine do not include standard rates or delivery charges. This new rate option only applies to the part of your electricity bill that is included in the shipping cost. Each bill usually consists of two parts: one covers the costs of transmission and delivery of electricity, and the other covers the costs of supplying energy.
Officials from the Governor’s Office of Energy and the Maine Office of Efficiency said the new rates would not cost other taxpayers additional costs.
Bartlett said the commission will periodically review these new rate plans. Utilities will be required to report usage of tariffs and how they affect customers.
“This is the first step in re-evaluating the rate structure given that we use the system in very, very different ways,” Bartlett said.
The Efficiency Maine website has a tool that Versant customers can use to enter their electricity consumption and see how their monthly and annual bills change with the new rate options.
The agency also plans to create a similar calculator for the new CMP fare, Stoddard said.