FALMOUTH, Mass. — Knee-jerk reactions to backlash over high winter costs could create long-term consequences for customers, utility regulators warned at the New England Energy Conference and Exposition on June 5.

The spike in energy costs across the region last winter, largely driven by cold weather and high supply prices, has caused significant public pressure targeted at state utility regulators, spurring debates about programs that increase costs in the near term but are intended to provide long-term savings and decarbonization. (See Regulators Focus on Energy Affordability at NECPUC Symposium.)

“Balancing the short term and long term is going to become increasingly difficult for PUCs,” said Marissa Gillett, chair of the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, adding that it is important not to “throw out the baby with the bathwater in the search for the silver bullet in the short term.”

On June 3, the Connecticut Legislature passed a compromise energy bill intended to lower bills over the next few years, reducing some incentives for clean energy and authorizing the use of rate-reduction bonds to cover storm costs and the installation of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). While Republicans fought for deeper cuts, the final legislation received bipartisan support in both the House of Representatives and Senate, and Gov. Ned Lamont has said he plans to sign the bill.

Gillett said PURA has worked to increase education and transparency regarding the different components of customer bills, which have brought additional public scrutiny and criticism for regulators.

“PUCs are increasingly faced with a public that’s looking at the total bill, including transmission costs that have really grown precipitously for this region over the past decade,” Gillett said. “There’s always going to be a group of customers that don’t want to know more — they just want their bills to be lower — and we have to understand that and meet them where they are.”

Regulators throughout the region have faced similar pressure from consumers and legislators. In Rhode Island, when the Public Utilities Commission held a public hearing in March, “people came in, and for about four hours were just screaming at us, after the winter had passed and the rates were about to go down,” Chair Ron Gerwatowski said.

Electricity rates typically increase in the winter in Rhode Island because of elevated supply costs. While average rates during the past winter were slightly lower than the previous two winters, cold weather increased usage and total bill costs for many consumers.

“Our role as a commission is to kind of take the heat and then work with the legislators in ways that are kind of difficult, but you can make progress,” Gerwatowski said. He added that it is important to actively communicate with legislators during price-spike periods to prevent short-sighted responses with “knock-on effects.”

In Massachusetts, high supply costs over the past winter coincided with an increased distribution rate, causing bills to increase by about 18% on average relative to the previous winter, according to data from the state Department of Public Utilities.

DPU Chair Jamie Van Nostrand said cost increases in the state’s Mass Save program, an energy-efficiency initiative that has been used to promote heat pump installations in recent years, were the biggest driver of high distribution rates, followed by costs associated with the state’s Gas System Enhancement Plan (GSEP) program, which enables expedited recovery for utility investments to replace leaky gas pipes.

The DPU has taken steps to rein in spending from both programs in recent months, directing a $500 million cut in the three-year Mass Save budget and ordering the utilities to put a greater focus on pipe repair and non-pipeline alternatives in the GSEP. (See Mass. DPU Aims to Align Gas Leak Program with Climate Strategy.)

Van Nostrand echoed the need to carefully balance short-term costs and long-term benefits, highlighting the state’s push to deploy AMI, which utilities expect to complete by the end of the decade. Despite the high upfront costs, AMI will enable time-varying rates, which should reduce the need for transmission and distribution infrastructure in the coming decades, Van Nostrand said.

Maine Public Utilities Commission Chair Philip Bartlett also expressed optimism about retail demand response and said time-varying rates should lower bills for most customers — even if the customers do not change their usage patterns — and reduce systemwide infrastructure costs.

Bartlett also emphasized the importance of continuing to prepare the grid for new offshore and onshore wind resources, despite the current federal administration’s antagonism toward clean energy.

“We need to continue to get ourselves ready so we can bring those resources online as soon as we get the support from the federal government,” Bartlett said.