Energy Audit
Imagine for a moment that the gas station you stop at once or twice every week is one day out of fuel.
Or perhaps, the coverage provided by the cell phone plan you signed up for is spotty and unreliable.
In either case, the consumer has options: The gas station down the street, the cell phone plan offered by a competing company. And in either case, those options act as the remedy for poor service, uncompetitive price or even simple consumer caprice.
But if you’re a resident of Fitchburg, Lunenburg, Townsend or Ashby, you do not get to choose who provides your home or business with electricity. Because of a decades-old state law establishing exclusive territories for utilities, New Hampshire-based Unitil is your only choice.
Last week, the state Department of Public Utilities ordered Unitil to refund $4.6 million to customers it had overcharged for natural gas, and in the same breath ordered the company to undergo a management audit for its numerous failures during an ice storm last winter that left thousands without power for as much as two weeks.
Following the ruling, the DPU came under fire from both Gov. Deval Patrick and Attorney General Martha Coakley, who both felt that DPU should have been fined for its ice storm shortcomings. But the DPU said it does not have the legal authority to fine the utility under its storm investigation.
We agree with Patrick and Coakley, that the DPU should have the power to send Unitil a very strong message — along with a fine — as a result of the ice storm catastrophe.
In a capitalist economy, competition is king. And in the absence of any real competition for Unitil, the state, which codified the arrangement, should feel justified in stepping in.
In fact, the state should be quite a bit more willing to throw a flag on the playing field it has created. DPU’s investigation found that Unitil showed a lack of adequate planning or training, inadequate damage assessment efforts, and a failure to take action to get the power back to homes and businesses in the towns it serves.
In nearly any other sector of the economy, customers would have left Unitil.
In the absence of such an option for its citizens and because it created the system that results in such exclusivity, the state should be permitted to fine Unitil for last winter’s severe shortcomings. If it truly is not legally able to do that, then the DPU should use every resource available to it to clarify state statutes to avail itself of that authority.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments