Eversource’s plan to deploy advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) to its more than 1.2 million Connecticut customers by early next year has suffered a setback as the utility and state regulators squabble over how the program will be paid for.
In 2019, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) began an initiative to modernize Connecticut’s electrical grid. Deploying AMI was one of four objectives in the modernization initiative.
The PURA issued a decision on the matter in early January, which it says will establish a framework to provide a regulatory roadmap for electric distribution companies, protect ratepayers, and ensure that the investment advances the economic, energy, and environmental goals of the state.
However, there’s still one problem: Eversource says it doesn’t know how the costs of the AMI program will be recuperated and requested an AMI cost tracker to enable annual recovery of the actual cost.
The framework from the January decision aims to address this by establishing metrics for “measuring the value of AMI to customers,” and it will consider the establishment of an AMI cost tracker. The confusion around payment is the primary reason for the AMI program’s delay, and a decision could come as late as November, the Hartford Courant reports.
A PURA spokesman told the Hartford Courant that the Authority believes Eversource already has a cost recovery mechanism for capital investments, including AMI, with decades of legal precedent.
Eversource currently has “very few” AMI meters deployed, the PURA said in its decision, consisting mostly of automated meter reading (AMR) meters and “bridge” meters, with 971,000 AMR meters and 300,000 bridge meters installed in 2021.
Some state lawmakers aren’t happy with the delay, the Hartford Courant reports, especially when the state is considering requiring all new car sales to be electric or hybrid by 2035.
