Even before Rhode Island Energy requested a near-record hike in electricity rates last week, the folks at the George Wiley Center, a consumer advocacy group in Pawtucket, had their hands full.
All summer long, they’ve seen a steady stream of Rhode Islanders who have fallen so far behind in their bills, the electric company shut off their power.
Mariane Pabon is one of them. She’s a Certified Nursing Assistant and a single mother of four. Rhode Island Energy cut her family off two months ago.
“It’s hard,” Pabon said. “Hard to survive.”
She has had no way to keep cool during the July heatwave. No way to cook for her children at home. Instead she’s using her SNAP benefits to buy groceries on DoorDash.
“I have two coolers,” she said. “One is for drinks, the other to keep snacks like ham and cheese for the kids.”
Pabon owes the power company more than $9,000. She needs to pay 25% of that balance to get the electricity switched back on.
That’s more than she pays for rent. She’s behind on that, too.
“Right now, my biggest thing is just paying the rent,” she said. “I don’t want to be out in the street with my children.”
She’s not alone.
Rhode Island Energy disconnected 2,210 customers in the first half of this year, according to the latest figures reported to the state Department of Public Utilities.
“We’re hearing from a lot of folks who are disabled, or who are elderly, who need protection and should never have to face the conditions of a shut-off,” said Eleanora Rowe, a volunteer at the Wiley Center, a local non-profit that has fought for “Utility Justice” for more than 30 years.
“I had a client who was disabled and homebound, and she was telling me she was using ice to cool off because there was no other option,” Rowe said.
If you don’t have power, you can’t even plug in a fan when the temperatures soar above 90 degrees, as they have repeatedly this summer.
The latest available figures indicate Rhode Island Energy sent shut off notices to 27,270 delinquent customers this year through May. That’s up 39% from last year. Actual disconnections are up 33%.
The company is ramping up collections even though the number of delinquent accounts is significantly smaller than last year – down nearly 20%.
The sudden spike in cut-offs reflects a tough new reality.
“Customers haven’t seen disconnections like this since pre-COVID,” said David Moreira, Jr., head of customer connections at Rhode Island Energy.
“They don’t know what it means to be disconnected,” Moreira said. “We kind of got numb to it.”
Moreira and others attribute the sudden jump in disconnections to two factors. Utilities cannot disconnect residential customers during the winter months. And this past winter, pandemic-era protections that had made it easier for customers to avoid shutoff finally expired.
Now Rhode Island Energy is trying to clear the backlog.
“We’re right back to the same rules we had pre-pandemic,” Moreira said.
For the past few years, customers facing a threat of disconnection were required only to pay 10% of their overdue balance. Some low-income customers kept the lights on by making minimum payments on past-due balances. Meanwhile those balances continued to grow.
“We saw a lot of customers who did that,” said Greg Cornett, the president of Rhode Island Energy. “Now they’re finding themselves in a situation where they’ve got multiple thousands of dollars on their electric or gas bill because they haven’t really paid it in 4 or 5 years.”
Many of those customers are now facing a double- or triple-whammy. Higher prices on gas and groceries have stretched people’s budgets thinner. Now those massive power bills have finally come due.
“We’re seeing people in crisis,” said Camilo Viveiros, executive director of the Wiley Center. “It’s inhumane to create crises for people who are already very vulnerable and struggling.”
Local non-profits like the United Way of Rhode Island and the Wiley Center are doing their best to help. Gov. Dan McKee declared a statewide energy affordability emergency, directing $28 million in funding to help lower household bills. Rhode Island Energy, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania-based PPL Corporation, is a major contributor to the philanthropic relief effort.
The company also offers a number of programs to help qualified customers.
“If you are struggling to pay your bill in any way, please reach out to our customer call center,” Cornett said.
But the volunteers at the Wiley Center say enrolling in those programs can be tricky.
“People have to jump through crazy hoops even if they are elderly or sick or have small children,” said the Wiley Center’s Eleanora Rowe. “If your child just turned two, then suddenly you’re not protected anymore.”
One big way the Wiley Center helps needy people is by advocating, one customer at a time, helping them find their way through the maze of red tape.
Rhode Island currently pays the fifth highest electric rates in the country. Like Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine, Rhode Island faces a shortage of renewable energy sources other than wind. Most of the power the region consumes has to be generated by burning fossil fuels.
The costs associated with maintaining a reliable electric grid in New England are going up. So are the prices of fossil fuel needed to power that grid. The region depends heavily on Liquified Natural Gas, and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have had a big impact on prices
Now, just as many customers are staring down large balances accumulated during the pandemic, Rhode Island Energy is seeking a 15% rate increase this winter.
If regulators approve the proposal, the average residential electric bill would rise about 15% this winter. All of the company’s customers will see their bills go up, even the 48,000 low-income customers who qualify for a discounted rate.
“I know that’s not a lot of comfort to those who are struggling because they’ve got higher costs on gas and groceries and rent and everything else,” said Rhode Island Energy President Cornett.
“But,” he said, “our costs are up too.”
