Maine Public now Emera Maine
Photo courtesy Emera Maine/Steve Foster
BRUCE FROST, of Woodland, is one of several Maine Public Service Company employees assigned to help restore power to parts of southern Maine, following the ice storm of Dec. 22. Here, Frost — whose name is quite fitting for the circumstances — works to clear ice-ladened branches from power lines. He’s pictured wearing his new Emera Maine hardhat, just in time for the company’s official name change which takes effect as of January, 2014.
By Paula Brewer
Special to the Aroostook Republican
Local power users will see some changes to their electricity bills in the coming weeks, namely the official changeover from Maine Public Service Company to Emera, a combined entity of MPS and Bangor Hydroelectric. Also new will be an increased kilowatt-hour rate, from 7.3 cents to 8.5 cents for residential and some business customers.
Beginning Jan. 1, Emera Maine will become the area’s electricity company. Susan Faloon, Emera’s communications supervisor for Bangor Hydro and Maine Public Service, said customers will see very little change except the signs on the trucks. Additionally, all employees at both companies will remain.
“They’ll see the same commitment and the same local people that everyone has worked with over the years,” she noted. “There are no plans to change the workforce at all.”
Customers have already seen subtle changes in their electric bills, Faloon added. The MPS and BH logos have appeared alongside that of Emera Maine on paperwork, and the names will also be retained, at least for the time being.
“It will be Emera Maine/Maine Public Service district, and Emera Maine/Bangor Hydro district,” she explained. The names will be used for the foreseeable future to help differentiate between the two companies, and to help alleviate confusion on the part of consumers.
“It’s also a neat way to honor the histories of the two companies,” said Faloon. “We’ve really effectively been working as one utility for the last couple of years. Really, not much is going to change.”
While a new Emera Maine website was scheduled to be rolled out on Jan. 2, she said the amount of outages and recovery arising from recent storms have tied up most of Emera’s efforts, and the site, emeramaine.com, will likely be put into use in mid-January.
“We didn’t want people to have to deal with getting used to a new site along with everything else,” Faloon said. Once the new site is active, consumers going to mps.com will be redirected.
She noted that customers have already begun getting mailings with contact information. Emera’s customer service telephone number is 1 (855) EMERA11.
As far as the new electricity rates go, the Maine Public Utilities Commission recently announced higher prices for standard-offer electricity supply service for MPS customers, which will become effective March 1. The increase to 8.5 cents applies to homes and small- to medium-sized businesses, and represents a rise of 16 percent compared to the current rate. The new price is fixed through October 2016.
Faloon said the rate increase is set by the MPUC and is unrelated to the changeover. “It is not related to us at all,” she remarked. “We are the delivery company, not the supplier. That is the supplier rate, and is set by the Public Utilities Commission.”
According to the MPUC, large businesses will see a cost in the first year of 11.1 cents per kwh, which is an increase of 4.5 percent compared to the current standard-offer service price, but over the three-year term, this amount will actually drop down to 8.62 cents per kwh.
“The prices reflect prevailing conditions in wholesale electricity and natural gas markets,” said Commission Chairman Thomas Welch. Welch noted that wholesale prices have recently been trending upward, and suppliers are reflecting these increases in their standard-offer service pricing.
The new 8.49-cent rate, while an increase from the current 7.3 cents set in March 2011, is actually on par with numbers going back to 2007. MPUC records indicate costs of 8.45 cents per kwh from December 2007-April 2008, 8.54 cents from April 2008-February 2009, 8.33 cents from March 2009-February 2010, and 8.62 cents from March 2010-February 2011.
Welch said the new rates do not apply to customers who purchase their own electricity supply in the market. Currently, about half of the load of medium and only about 5 percent of the load of large-business customers receives standard-offer service, while virtually all residential and small-business customers receive the standard price.
Consumers receive standard-offer service if they have not purchased supply from another retail supplier or through an aggregator, Welch added. Maine law requires the commission to ensure that standard-offer service for electricity supply is available to all customers in Maine, and the commission holds periodic competitive bid processes for standard-offer pricing.
