How does the electric restructuring bill affect Connecticut’s electric utilities?
For nearly a century, utilities such as UI, have controlled the production, manufacture, transport and sale of electricity within its service territory. A hundred years ago, this made sense because it allowed one company to capture the economies of scale. But now that structure is being replaced with one that separates the generation function from the transmission and distribution functions. Does this mean customers can’t buy their power from UI? Once UI sells its power plants in mid-spring, UI will no longer be a power generator. Instead, it will be a deliverer of electricity, a company that maintains and operates the overhead wires for other power suppliers, vying for your business. Over the next four years, the law requires UI to provide a “standard offer” to customers, who don’t choose a power supplier. That “standard offer” requires UI to provide power from a purchased source for those customers. Who are these new suppliers? They could be power marketers, who sell power they gener
