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Parties File Comments on “Energy Fairness” for TOU Rates as Required by New State Law
The Maine PUC issued a Notice of Inquiry on August 14, 2026 stating that “[t]hrough this Notice and pursuant to Section 3 of “An Act Regarding Energy Fairness” (Act), P.L. 2025, c. 588) and MPUC Rules, ch. 110, § 13, the Commission initiates an inquiry to solicit feedback into whether changes should be made to the current design and composition of electric delivery rates.”
As background, the Maine PUC opened this proceeding to investigate energy delivery rates in the context of “energy fairness” as required by a new state law signed by Gov. Mills in March 2026.
The Legislature enacted the Act. Section 3 of the Act requires that the Commission conduct a comprehensive review of each component of electric delivery rates for transmission and distribution (T&D) utilities. The Act requires that the Commission consider whether changes to the current design and composition of electric delivery rates could be implemented to, at a minimum: 1. Contain customer costs; 2. Reduce T&D utility bill volatility; and 3. Increase T&D utility bill transparency.
Among other things the law requires the MEPUC: (1) to consider impact on affordability for residential customers in performing its duties; (2) publish data on utility credit and collection activities on its website; (3) conduct a comprehensive review of all electric delivery rate components that at least considers options that could: (i) contain customer costs; (ii) reduce utility bill volatility; and (iii) increase utility bill transparency; and (4) develop an affordability metric to assess the impact of electricity bills on the overall energy burden for residential customers.
The Act further requires that the Commission engage stakeholders in the review process and solicit stakeholder feedback. By January 31, 2027, the Commission is required to submit an interim report to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over energy matters informing the committee of its work to date on the comprehensive review. By December 15, 2027, the Commission must submit a final report regarding its comprehensive review, including any recommendations or proposed legislation, to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over energy matters.
In response to the notice of inquiry parties filed initial comments including the following:
Joint Comments of Acadia Center and NRCM – TOU rates in Maine are substantially underutilized by customers: by October 2025, Central Maine Power (CMP) had fewer than 1000 customers enrolled out of over 500,000 and, at the end of 2025, Versant had fewer than 700 enrollees. . . . While the investigation in docket 2025-00176 into whole-bill TVR continues, our organizations recommend that attention and resources should be provided to facilitate the adoption of the existing TOU rates as a means to mitigate delivery bill costs, provide improved customer control over bills, and defray the maintenance and CAPEX costs that cause delivery rates to rise.”
Conservation Law Foundation – “An initial “scoping phase” could explore the key factors increasing energy bills, including not only bill components but also systemic T&D compensation and incentive issues such as those further described below (return on equity, to name one). Once the Commission and stakeholders have their arms around the full purview of possible topics, the Commission can better define the scope of the docket, allowing for a more efficient and focused inquiry. We suggest the Commission conclude the scoping phase by issuing an order outlining the scope of this docket and topics for consideration (and explaining why certain topics are not to be considered, if applicable).
Simultaneously, the Commission should take steps to avoid duplicative efforts and sync up consideration of corresponding topics. We recognize that this docket is one of many addressing fundamental rate design issues. The Commission should avoid piecemeal decision-making, which is not only inefficient but also jeopardizes development of an overarching approach to rate design issues. We recommend the Commission review all its pending directives and dockets that weigh on delivery costs, consider how decisions in one proceeding affect analyses in others, and be intentional and explicit about sequencing and interaction of these many matters. This should also be part of the scoping phase of the docket, before the Commission or stakeholders expend significant time or effort discussing issues that may overlap with other proceedings.
Finally, we suggest the scoping phase also identify information needed from Maine’s T&D utilities to answer the questions posed in this proceeding. The Commission should order utilities to file the necessary information early in the docket, so that it is received with time to inform subsequent analyses.”
Efficiency Maine Trust – noted that “[a]s Maine transitions to a winter peaking grid, utilities’ distribution planning standards appear overly conservative or appear to use the wrong assumptions,” recommending that the Maine PUC should “review planning standards to ensure that utilities are not building infrastructure to unrealistic planning assumptions that understate asset capacities and unnecessarily increase ratepayer costs”
OPA – recommended that Maine PUC should: (i) “act to reduce customer rates and volatility by… reforming storm cost recovery mechanisms,” “exerting more oversight over reliability and resiliency investments informed by benefit-cost analysis,” and “exerting more oversight over capital spending to address capacity constraints”; (ii) continue to “review routine spending… in individual utility rate cases”; and (iii) ensure that “any approved multi-year rate plan (MYRP)… avoid relying on reconciliation mechanisms and utility capital forecasts so that the plan provides an incentive to control costs as required by Maine’s incentive ratemaking statute”.
AARP – (i) opposed “any mandate that residential customers be enrolled in more volatile rate structures, such as time of use or ‘real time’ pricing rate design”; (ii) opposed “shifting variable costs into the fixed monthly charge because those charges are imposed no matter what actions the customer undertakes to reduce electricity usage,” noting that “The monthly charge does not reflect any incentive to conserve electricity” and “fixed customer charges or fixed charges generally have a regressive impact on residential customers since residential customers with lower incomes tend to have lower usage profiles”; and (iii) recommended that “utilities be required to separately disclose the basic components of how residential rates are reflected on the bill,” including “Fixed monthly customer charge,” distribution service, transmission service, “Public policy mandates (with an explanation of and presentation of the cents per kWh for each of the major components, such as efficiency programs, low income programs and net energy billing mandates),” and “Standard Offer (expressed as a cents per kWh and total generation supply charge).”
