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Electric affordability was one of the easiest promises to make in Connecticut this year.
Candidates across the state told voters they would lower bills, rein in public benefits charges, strengthen utility oversight or change the policies driving energy prices. Incumbents pointed to legislation they said had already delivered savings.
Now that the campaigning is over, those promises are about to meet the legislative process.
Eversource is asking the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) for a distribution rate increase that could add about $33 a month to the average residential bill if its full request, including storm costs, is approved. If those storm costs are removed from the rate case, Eversource says the distribution increase would be about $20 a month — with the storm costs recovered separately.
Distribution is the part of the bill that pays to get electricity from the grid to homes and businesses. Eversource says the additional revenue would pay for crews, storm response, equipment, poles, wires and transformers.
PURA, not the legislature, will decide what the company is entitled to recover. But the case arrives just as lawmakers who campaigned on making electricity more affordable prepare for the next legislative session, which begins Jan. 6, 2027.
Ratepayers also have several chances to weigh in before then. PURA has public hearings scheduled Nov. 16 at the Red Barn at Mitchell College at 5:30 p.m. in New London, Nov. 23 in Danbury at the Ives Concert Hall at WCSU at 5:30 p.m. and a virtual hearing Dec. 9 at noon.
What Lawmakers Promised
The campaign platforms show what incumbent and newly elected lawmakers said they would do about electric costs.
Several incumbents spent the campaign telling voters that Hartford had already delivered major savings on electric bills.
Sen. Saud Anwar (D-South Windsor) said the 2025 Ratepayers First Act had “cut electric bills by $800 million over three years by removing charges that never belonged there.” Sen. Jorge Cabrera (D-Hamden) stated he had “pushed to cut electric bills by hundreds of dollars per year for every Connecticut resident,” while Rep. Mike Demicco (D-Farmington) said he had “secured $300 million to lower electric bills and extend solar incentives.”
Those claims came as Connecticut households were still paying some of the highest electricity costs in the country. Federal data cited by CT Insider put the typical household bill at about $200 a month, second-highest among the states. Connecticut also ranked sixth nationally in overall residential energy costs.
Other campaigns were less about claiming past savings and more about promising what Hartford would do next.
Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan (D-Bethel) pointed to reforms that capped public benefit charges and moved $250 million in hardship costs off electric bills, while calling for a mix of “nuclear power, transmission, efficiency and renewables for the long term.”
Newly elected lawmakers made promises of their own.
One of the more specific came from Sen.-elect Jack Fazzino (D-Meriden), who called for increasing electric supply, “shaving back unnecessary public benefits” and stronger utility regulation. The Public Benefits portion of the bill includes several different government-driven costs, including assistance programs, energy-efficiency programs, renewable-energy programs and mandated power purchases.
Utility oversight was also a main theme in several campaigns. Sen.-elect Maryam Khan (D-Windsor) pledged to “end Eversource’s monopoly by giving us the power to control our own local utilities” and to give regulators more authority over what customers pay. Sen.-elect David Kiner (D-Enfield) promised greater transparency in rate setting, stronger utility oversight and opposition to “efforts that shift unnecessary costs onto ratepayers.”
Affordability was also part of Rep.-elect Tiffani McGinnis’s (D-West Hartford) platform. She said she would support clean-energy policies that reduce long-term costs.
The goals are easy enough to understand. What is harder to find in most of these campaign platforms is a detailed plan for getting there.
Fazzino did not identify which public-benefits programs he would cut. Khan did not explain how Connecticut would end Eversource’s monopoly or what new powers regulators would need. Kiner called for stronger oversight and fewer unnecessary costs without laying out the specific changes he would pursue. McGinnis promised clean-energy policies that would reduce long-term costs but did not explain which policies she would pursue, what they would cost or how much they would reduce customer bills.
Those details are still missing. Starting Jan. 6, lawmakers will have to move beyond promising lower bills and decide which programs to change, which costs to remove and which tradeoffs they are willing to make.
What Lawmakers Can Do Next
Lawmakers who promised to tackle the Public Benefits charge will not have to reinvent the wheel.
Three bills introduced in 2026 — House Bills 5028, 5048 and 5080 — proposed removing the Public Benefits Charge from electric bills and paying those costs from the General Fund instead. All three were sent to the Energy and Technology Committee. None received a public hearing or a committee vote.
The proposals are already there. The next legislature can decide whether to give the idea the consideration it did not receive this year.
Lawmakers will also have a report waiting for them. The Office of Consumer Counsel was originally supposed to report by Oct. 1 on every line item in the Combined Public Benefits Charge, including what each one costs and what benefit it provides. The legislature later extended that deadline to Jan. 15, 2027.
When that report arrives, lawmakers should use it to go through the charge item by item. Programs that cannot justify what ratepayers are being required to spend should be cut or ended. Programs lawmakers decide to keep should then face a second question: Is an electric bill really the right place to collect the money?
Connecticut should also take a harder look at its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS).
The law requires suppliers to get part of their electricity from sources lawmakers have designated as Class I renewable energy. That list includes solar, wind, fuel cells, geothermal, biogas and certain hydro facilities. New nuclear plants built after October 2023 can qualify, but existing plants such as Millstone do not, and neither does most large hydropower.
The question is whether Connecticut needs to dictate that mix at all.
Connecticut should stop micromanaging the power mix and give suppliers more room to compete on price and reliability.
The state could scrap the mandate altogether. If lawmakers will not go that far, they could at least stop ratcheting it up and give existing nuclear and large hydro more room to compete.
Connecticut also needs more power, not more rules about which kinds of power Hartford prefers. Make it easier to build generation and transmission, let more sources compete, and stop narrowing the field before the competition even starts.
PURA will decide how much of Eversource’s current request customers should have to pay. Lawmakers have a different job: deciding which government-created costs belong on electric bills in the first place and which policies offer a realistic path toward lower bills.
The campaign is over. “Lower electric bills” now has to mean something.
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