Jenny Graham’s rental in Pittsburgh — a two-floor, 2,000-square-foot loft — cost her about $300 a month in utilities. Then, she moved to an apartment in Pawtucket.
Graham’s single-floor, 1,000-square-foot loft costs about $700 a month in utilities — more than double her previous bill for half the square footage.
These seemingly high utility bills come as R.I. households currently pay close to 16.4 cents per kilowatt hour — the third-highest rate for electricity since October 2021 according to data from the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers.
Much of the pushback against higher utility costs has been directed toward Rhode Island Energy, the state’s dominant energy supplier.
R.I. has seen “really, really high” utility bills in the last few years, Rep. Megan Cotter (D-Exeter, Hopkinton, Richmond) said in an interview with The Herald. She attributed part of this hike to the acquisition of Narragansett Electric by PPL Corp. — the Pennsylvania-based parent company of RIE.
Cotter is currently advocating for legislation that aims to address high utility prices. Her first bill proposes a study commission that would “examine what a publicly owned utility company would look like in Rhode Island,” she explained. The proposed commission would present its recommendations to the General Assembly by April 2026.
Her second bill would “cap the profit margins on the rate of return for RIE (and) all utility companies to 4%,” she explained.
“I think that we have a lot of power in the legislature,” Cotter said, “and it’s our moral responsibility to take care of our communities.”
RIE President Greg Cornett called both of these bills “very bad ideas for the state” in an interview with The Herald, adding that the legislation is “unconstitutional” and “a distraction from the real debate we ought to be having, which is: How can we bring down costs for customers?”
Cornett cited several reasons for the recent uptick in utility bills. For one, it’s been a colder winter than usual, meaning that electricity demand has skyrocketed, Cornett explained in an interview with The Herald. In turn, this increased usage has inflated the bills issued to R.I. households.
Moreover, service rates make up a relatively small portion of the utility bill, Cornett added, and delivery costs have “actually decreased as an overall percentage of the bill.” He noted that the costs of various state-mandated programs — including pushes for renewable energy and net-zero energy production offsets by 2033 — have grown substantially.
For Clear River Electric and Water District, prices have “stayed about the same” since last winter, according to William Guertin, the public R.I.-based energy provider’s general manager and CEO.
Since Clear River is a smaller utility company, they are not subject to the same regulations as RIE, according to Guertin.
“We are a competitive supply state where customers can choose their supplier,” Thomas Kogut, a spokesperson for RIPUC, wrote in an email to The Herald. Though RIE’s privatization does play a role in their rates, he emphasized that RIE’s customers’ bills must be “viewed in (the) context of mandated programs and renewable energy development.”
Camilo Viveiros, coordinator and executive director at the low-income advocacy nonprofit George Wiley Center, criticized RIE for being uncollaborative in legislative efforts to provide utility protections for vulnerable people.
“When utility costs go up, housing-insecure, food-insecure and vulnerable people, from seniors (to) the disabled, become more at risk,” Viveiros wrote.
“We are open to exploring concepts of additional assistance offerings for our most vulnerable customers,” Caroline Pretyman, head of communications at RIE, wrote in an email to The Herald.
Megan is a metro editor covering health and environment. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she spends her free time drinking coffee and wishing she was Meg Ryan in a Nora Ephron movie.
