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On October 9, 2026 the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) issued an order declining to approve a partial stipulation filed on September 18, 2026, closes the time of use (TOU) investigation, and directs Commission Staff to open a further inquiry.

As previously reported, on May 29, 2026, Commission Staff issued a procedural order providing a description of the process recommended by the Commission’s consultant, Exeter, to estimate the costs and benefits of various rate proposals. Parties were provided with an opportunity to file comments and questions on this process. On June 16, 2026, Commission Staff issued additional questions regarding the OPA/Synapse straw proposals, and on June 30, 2026, the OPA filed a motion to extend the July 2, 2026 deadline to respond to these questions to allow more time to pursue settlement discussions. Commission Staff granted the OPA’s motion for an extension and the parties continued to engage in settlement discussions.

Settlement conferences were held on August 7, 2026, and August 31, 2026.

On September 9, 2026, the OPA filed a partial stipulation (September 9 partial stipulation) signed by the OPA, EMT, DOER, NRCM, CLF, Acadia Center, AARP Maine, ReVision Energy, Peter Evans, and Peter Fitzgerald (the stipulating parties). On September 18, 2026, the stipulating parties filed an amended version of the partial stipulation (partial stipulation) for consideration in place of the September 9 partial stipulation. Note that CMP, Versant, NRG Energy, and NEEP did not join but did not oppose the partial stipulation. No parties objected to a waiver of 5 M.R.S. § 9062 and Chapter 110 § (8)(F)(4).

Commission Discussion of Ruling:

“The Commission supports several aspects of the partial stipulation, including better aligning Versant’s current TOU rate with CMP’s TOU rate, and EMT’s proposed expansion of its demand response initiative. However, acceptance of the partial stipulation would essentially result in suspending this docket until at least 2028. Such a delay would not be in the public interest. It is for this reason that the Commission cannot accept the partial stipulation.

The Commission’s efforts to examine TOU and other flexible rate designs in this investigation and in the prior inquiry are based on a desire to provide customers with more control over their electricity costs during a time of rising costs. The majority of utility customers pay rates that do not vary over time or reflect any differences in the costs of supplying and delivering electricity at different times of the day or year. Yet actual costs incurred by the providers of delivery and supply vary over the time of day and time of year, largely driven by peak demands. In turn, these peak demands force utilities, generators and suppliers to build infrastructure sufficient to meet unconstrained peak demands. Because customers pay the same electricity rate during all hours of a day, customers have no price signal or incentive to avoid consumption during costly peak periods.

TOU and other flexible rate designs may provide customers with more control over their electricity costs, thereby providing relief to individual customers in the short term, while lowering both supply and delivery costs in the long term for everyone. While TOU and other flexible rate designs should only be adopted if the savings to customers outweigh the costs, in order to make that determination the Commission cannot afford to delay its consideration of the costs and benefits of such rate designs. One issue consistently raised during this proceeding has been how and if new rate designs may be implemented using the utilities’ existing metering, billing, customer care, and settlement systems, and how these flexible rate designs may be integrated into future upgrades to these systems. The Commission agrees and believes that understanding system capabilities is integral to the implementation of flexible rate designs but finds that this would be better addressed through an informal investigation.

Thus, the Commission closes this investigation and directs Commission Staff to open an inquiry pursuant to 35-A M.R.S. § 1303(1) to collect information such as, but not limited to: 1) what enhancements to, or replacements of, the utilities’ existing metering, billing, customer care, settlement, and any other relevant systems would be necessary to implement time varying rates for delivery and standard offer service; 2) the costs of such enhancements and replacements; 3) whether expected upgrades will accommodate time-varying rate designs for delivery and standard offer service; and 4) the cost differences for opt-in versus opt-out time-varying rates.”

Provisions from the Partial Stipulation:

The partial stipulation provides that EMT will expand the scope of this initiative to collect data and conduct an evaluation to test the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the existing opt-in TOU rates, evaluate Maine specific price elasticity and customer demand response patterns, and conduct a targeted test of peak time rebates.

The partial stipulation also provides that EMT will develop an evaluation plan in consultation with a third-party evaluator that will take into consideration estimated load impacts resulting from exposure to TOU rates and/or peak time rebates, adoption of TOU rates resulting from marketing and outreach, cost reductions from system peak reductions, customer bill impacts, and price elasticity.

The partial stipulation provides that data will be collected throughout 2027, ultimately resulting in an evaluation and final report (EMT report) to the Legislature in accordance with L.D. 2140, and filed in this docket by February 2028. The partial stipulation would pause the cost-benefit analysis in this docket for EMT to gather additional Maine-specific data and to test out marketing strategies that will inform future analysis. Following the submission of the EMT report, further process in this docket would then be scheduled.