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After Outages And Rate Hike, Frustrations With Eversource Reach A Boiling Point

Tropical Storm Isaias snapped this pole and damaged a transformer on Arlington Road in West Hartford.
Joe Amon
/
Connecticut Public
Tropical Storm Isaias snapped this pole and damaged a transformer on Arlington Road in West Hartford.

First July electric bills went through the roof. Then, hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents lost power for days after a tropical storm. Today, ratepayer frustration with Connecticut’s largest electric utility, Eversource, are higher than ever.

After years of paying more for electricity with the promise that some would be used to “harden the grid”, many residents are wondering--where did that money go?

This hour, we talk with lawmakers and the state’s utility regulator about how Eversource responded after the recent tropical storm and what needs to change.

Are you an Eversource customer? How do you want to see the utility respond?

GUESTS:

  • State Senator Norm Needleman - Senate chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee in the Connecticut General Assembly
  • Marissa Gillett - Chairman of Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA)
  • Richard Schmalensee - Professor of management emeritus at MIT Sloan School of Management, and former Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research

Where We Live invited Eversource to join this show, but the company declined to participate.

 

 

Lucy leads Connecticut Public's strategies to deeply connect and build collaborations with community-focused organizations across the state.
Carmen Baskauf was a producer for Connecticut Public Radio's news-talk show Where We Live, hosted by Lucy Nalpathanchil from 2017-2021. She has also contributed to The Colin McEnroe Show.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

That means $2.1 million per year that Connecticut Public relied on to deliver you news, information, and entertainment programs you enjoyed is gone.

The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.

Connecticut Public’s journalism is made possible, in part by funding from Jeffrey Hoffman and Robert Jaeger.