Heating energy prices are on the decline but there’s a growing difference between what residents are asked to pay for utilities and what they can afford.
The average oil price in Connecticut is less than it was last December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Prices of electricity and propane have generally also been lower than a year ago, but all are still higher than pre-pandemic costs.
While oil costs are currently lower than they were at this time last year, that doesn’t mean they won’t rise, according to Connecticut’s Consumer Counsel Claire Coleman.
“Given our winter heating prices are often connected with global energy dynamics, these are things that are really not in our control,” Coleman previously said.
Coleman, along with several state elected officials and leaders behind home heating affordability efforts spoke earlier this month regarding a report outlining the state’s energy affordability needs.
The annual report was released by Operation Fuel, the state’s nonprofit energy assistance fund.
Despite the decrease in heating costs, Coleman said lower prices don’t automatically make bills affordable. A mild winter will help, but other factors, such as a rise in rent and inflation come into play.
“If you're on standard service for Eversource, paying 14 cents instead of 24 is a good, good thing, but that doesn't mean that it's low enough to make bills affordable, and it's not,” Coleman said.
However, utility companies like Eversource do not control energy supply costs.
Requests for aid are also on the rise, Operation Fuel reached maximum enrolment during both its winter/spring and summer/fall application periods months earlier this year.
“Our recent summer/fall program … was about two months, and we received roughly 4,000 applications in that time,” Gannon Long, the agency’s chief programs officer, previously said. “The year prior, we had gotten 4,000 applications over about four months.”
