For lawmakers in CT, lowering electricity costs is complicated

To provide relief for utility customers in Connecticut, officials must confront at least one obstacle they cannot change: the state’s location squarely within one of the nation’s most expensive electric markets. 

Electric prices were front and center in Gov. Ned Lamont’s annual State of the State address earlier this month, when the Democrat challenged lawmakers to look beyond “cosmetic changes,” and focus on increasing electric generation through a combination of both renewables and — somewhat controversially — fossil fuels.

“These high prices impact all of us: working families, seniors on fixed incomes, small businesses, big manufacturers,” the governor said. “Everyone was mad as hell looking at their bills following the hottest July in recorded history, and I can see why.” 

Others who have called for reforms are quick to note that Connecticut residents are saddled with some of the highest electric rates in the nation. In the most recent rankings published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the state landed with the ignominious distinction of being third, behind only Hawaii and Rhode Island. 

Less frequently mentioned is how those prices compare with Connecticut’s neighbors.

Just a few spots down the list stood the rest of states in the New England power grid: Massachusetts at 4th, and New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont at 7th and 8th, and 9th, respectively.  

To the west, in its own separate grid, New York landed 10th on the list. 

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