Since the State of Maine forced our electric utilities to take on either the role of distributor or generator in 1998, electric costs have soared. But, while that division was meant to shed light on the source of those increases, allowing us to easily assign blame to the distributor or generator, a poorly considered billing process leaves many confused. While electric bills clearly show the cost of generation is increasing more rapidly than the cost of distribution, most consumers and the legislators who represent them, appear convinced the organization that prints the bill is solely responsible for those increases.
This is why there’s a push to takeover Central Maine Power and Versant. It’s a misunderstanding driven by the assumption that consumer confidence, and therefore electoral influence, can be attained by making the State of Maine directly responsible for the electric bill. Of course this attempt would fail, as it does nothing to address the soaring costs of electric generation, and assumes a state owned distributor will produce a bill that eliminates this confusion.
While the problem is very simple (consumers see a bill with CMP or Versant on it and assume they’re solely responsible for the increases therein) the solution is not. We can try to correct it by educating consumers, but CMP and Versant have already done that and failed. So, why should we assume a government owned distributor can do better?
As I see it, the solution may be to force distributors and generators to bill separately for their services. This may be cumbersome for consumers at first, but before long they’d get the hang of it and would thereafter be able to determine where the increases were coming from. There may be a cost associated with this approach, as generators are forced to produce bills for the first time, but I think that would be worth the clarity it would provide.
Jamie Beaulieu
Farmington, Maine
