BRUNSWICK

What has been an open process to decide what Central Maine Power customers will be paying over the next five years will soon be going behind closed doors. On Friday, representatives of CMP, the Maine Public Advocate Office, and other official parties will hold private discussions on settling the latest five-year rate case that is before the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

Everyone who is a party to the case is entitled to participate in the settlement discussions, however the general public is not.

“Anything you discuss pursuant to a settlement is confidential,” said Agnes Gormley of the state’s public advocate office. “It is the procedure, it is the practice, it is the law.”

Friday’s closed door discussions may allow “freer and more open discussion” over the rate case, said Gormley. CMP’s last two rate cases were settled through such a process.

Any settlement would have to be approved by the commission. If no settlement is reached, the rate case process will continue as briefs are filed and a recommendation is offered by the examiners, before a decision is made by the commission by July.

However, Gormley said it’s uncertain whether this case will be settled.

“Everyone is fairly far apart, but there’s no telling how far people will move,” Gormley said. “This case is hard to predict.”

At issue are two proposals in particular: An increase in the fixed monthly costs for consumers and a massive increase for those who generate their own power, and an increase to the stand-by charge for power producers.

For residential customers, CMP now charges $9.36 a month in fixed charges that covers the cost of connecting to CMP’s grid and for the first 100 kilowatt hours of electricity used. Each additional kilowatt hour is about 7 cents.

Under the new rate case, that fixed cost will increase by $2 a year until 2019, at which point customers will be paying $20 per month in fixed charges.

As a result of the increase, 217,000 residential customers — those who use more than 600 kilowatt hours per month — will see their rates decrease. The rest — 328,000 customers — use less and will see their rates increase.

The increase to the average user will be about 3 percent.

The less electricity a customer uses, the more their rates will increase. It costs CMP about $25 a month on average to keep a residence connected to the grid. Those who may be paying less for their fixed rate, said CMP spokesman John Carroll, are not paying their “fair share.”

Rates are increasing because CMP needs to raise $5 million in revenue each year from residential customers to pay for capital investment, higher wages, fuel, insurance and other costs of business, according to Carroll.

Their proposal, however, gives customers who try to save on energy costs by conserving electricity “less ability to control their monthly bill,” said Gormley.

Carroll said the fixed charge increase was “consistent with utility practices across the country.”

The change in the fixed rate could prove to be a disincentive to those who were trying to conserve electricity. However, Carroll said CMP should not be determining its rates “in terms of virtuous behavior.”

“CMP is not a public policy agency,” said Carroll. “No one elected or appointed us to select what is good or bad consumer behavior.”

According to information provided by Carroll, those on CMP’s Electricity Lifeline Program for low-income individuals use 797 kilowatts per month on average, and would likely see a decrease in their bill.

“We know that a lot of people in our ELP program are living in small apartments that are electrically heated, and they’re using electric space heaters,” Carroll said. “A lot of these small users — these are second homes and summer homes. … Those very low users are not necessarily old ladies eating cat food.”

Clean energy producers large and small are fighting a proposed increase in the fee that Central Maine Power charges customers who produce their own electricity.

According to Gormley, CMP’s standby rate increase goes against the state’s policy of encouraging energy production through renewable resources.

Bowdoin College plans on building solar arrays to offset 8 percent of its electrical costs, but the standby fee could wind up costing the college $117,000 , according to Bowdoin College spokesman Doug Cook.

Also affected by the proposed standby charge would be the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority that oversees Brunswick Landing. MRRA has been trying to attract companies, such as Village Green Ventures, to develop and produce clean energy alternatives at the former Naval Air Station.

On Monday, MRRA Executive Director Steve Levesque said his organization hadn’t decided whether to attend the settlement discussion.

“We’re just observing right now, thinking of the best course of action,” Levesque said. “The rate case has a multiple of issues. If there are settlements, they will be different types, and they will affect different people in different ways.”

Mainers, including local residents who have installed solar panels to offset their energy costs, have let their objections be known to the commission since the rate case was proposed last year.

In written testimony to the PUC in April, Wiscasset resident Robert Marcus accused CMP of raising rates to protect its profits, a practice he called “insane” and blamed on greed.

In March, Bath resident Adair DeLamater wrote to the PUC: “As a society, we should be supporting those who produce energy without the use of fossil fuels. Every unit of energy produced by solar power is a valuable addition to our energy supply, and reduces the need to build more power plants and transmission lines. Solar power creates jobs, and is good for the economy as well as the environment.”

Nat Wheelwright, a Brunswick resident and Bowdoin College faculty member, wrote to the PUC in April: “When my wife and I invested in solar panels (along with a solar water heater), we did so under the understanding that we would save money while helping the environment. For a company like CMP to satisfy its shareholders at the expense of Maine citizens and the Maine environment is totally inappropriate.”

Central Maine Power is owned by energy conglomerate Iberdrola USA, which in turn is owned by Spainbased global energy conglomerate Iberdrola.

In January, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded by one notch three of Iberdrola USA’s subsidiaries, New York State Electric and Gas Corp. and Rochester Gas & Electric, in addition to CMP. Moody’s cited “the supportive New York regulatory environment” that allowed those companies to implement “recovery mechanisms” that allowed them to recoup their costs from ratepayers.

“The implementation of such mechanisms has helped each company improve its financial profile and the predictability of its cash flow generation in recent years,” Moody’s reported.

At the same time, Moody’s also upgraded CMP for its “constructive relationship between the company and its primary regulator, the Maine Public Utilities Commission.”

Under a 2000 Maine law, CMP no longer generates electricity. The company is now set up as an electricity delivery company using an infrastructure that includes more than 20,000 miles of lines. It also supplies billing for electricity generators.

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com