At a nearly three-hour meeting Monday, officials from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, representatives from Eversource and about 160 others, began discussing the energy price crisis — which is region-wide — and looking for ways states can pool efforts to find solutions, especially when it comes to procuring energy. Utility companies — Eversource and Avangrid — are not responsible for the price spikes. As electric distribution companies, their job is to get the power to homes and businesses. The cost of the actual power is collected by Eversource and Avangrid on behalf of the generator, which gets all the money. Energy generators and utilities are resistant to change how they make money and lobby strenuously to keep the existing system in place, and it is difficult to build new transmission. Lawmakers, many of whom don’t understand the complicated world of energy, have been reluctant to spend money and therefore timid in their embrace of renewable energy and other infrastructure. And, finally, there has been a persistent focus on short-term energy rates, as opposed to investments in upgraded systems and renewables that may cost more upfront but will save money and improve reliability down the road.
The winter energy crunch, what it costs, and what it will take to fix it