By G.C. GOULD

BURRILLVILLE — Starting Tuesday, the Pascoag Utility District, which provides electricity to Pascoag and Harrisville, will increase its electric rates by about $20 per year for the average customer. The rate for National Grid customers will increase from 47 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2007 to 54 cents per kilowatt-hour starting Jan. 1. That represents a 15 percent increase, said David Graves, spokesperson for National Grid.

According to Ted Garille, general manager for the not-for-profit Pascoag Utility District, the Pascoag rate hike will represent a monthly increase of $1.59 for the average customer in the district due to increases in the costs of transmitting electricity through Rhode Island to Pascoag from energy sources to the north, west and east.
However, Henry Shelton, executive director of the Pawtucket-based George Wiley Center, an advocacy group for the poor, protests the increase. “If you are a lower income person in Pascoag, it doesn’t go over too well,” he said. The transmission lines that run through Rhode Island and are owned by National Grid, which supplies electricity to most of Rhode Island, are the cause of the increase, according to Garille.
He said electricity comes to Pascoag Utility District from hydropower in Niagara Falls, from nuclear power in Seabrook, N.H., and from coal sources from Somerset, Mass. The last leg of the transmission of the electricity from these sources goes through Rhode Island, and this section of the transmission lines is responsible for the increase in the energy costs, according to Garille.
Last Thursday, at an open meeting of the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission, the commission approved a rate increase for both National Grid and Pascoag Utility District customers at its annual end of the year review of rate filings. Graves said the increase for the Pascoag Utility District customers was suggested by the Independent System Operator for New England. ISO makes budgets for all of the improvements and enhancements to the electric system in New England.
Graves said the ISO presented a budget for new wires, poles, substations and equipment. Based on that estimate, he said, the increased cost is absorbed by the transmission companies.
The cost to the transmission companies like National Grid — the dominant electric utility in Rhode Island — are then passed on to the distribution companies and then typically passed on to the customers. Shelton, whose organization is expected to provide the governor with a plan for assisting with energy needs for low-income Rhode Islanders, said Pascoag Utility shut off 299 families in 2007 for non-payment.
“We’re frustrated the Rhode Island legislature and governor cannot make [electricity] affordable,” said Shelton. He said Garille had said Pascoag Utility did not need the rate hike at the present time, but that the PUC voted to approve the increase anyway.
Had the increase not been approved, said Garille, “we would be able to absorb the increase [in the transmission cost] for at least the first six months, and then do a reconciliation.” He said the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers, which suggested the increase, “felt we should do the increase now and do a reconciliation in June. If there is an overcorrection, we may want to return [that amount] back to the customers.”
“Most of our customers know us,” he added, “they own our utility.” He also said that his company tries to meet customers face to face who are being threatened with the possibility of a shut-off. “Out of all the shut-offs, four or five remained off. In those cases, the people had moved,” Garille said.
Shelton feels that the plights of many people are not taken into consideration when rates are raised. “They went over and above, we think, in making a raise. The prices are up. Pay does not match the bills.”
The George Wiley Center has chapters in various locations in Rhode Island. It began as an affiliate of the National Welfare Rights Organization, which was headed by Wiley in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, Shelton and his organization act as a watchdog against unfair treatment of lower income families in the areas of energy and food distribution.