Central Maine Power Co. is asking regulators for permission to raise customers’ monthly distribution rates by about $35 between 2026 and 2031, using the new revenue to hire hundreds more workers and upgrade southern Maine’s aging electrical grid.
While the utility says the cost changes are necessary to improve service quality and reliability, state officials, including the governor, said the proposal represented a massive price hike and urged regulators to prioritize affordability for Mainers.
CMP plans to raise its revenue by more than $400 million through incremental, annual increases over the five-year period. That money would go toward hiring 400 new, full-time employees, including 200 line workers, and funding infrastructure improvements like stronger poles, upgraded substations and better protected wires, the utility has said.
To do so, the company proposes raising distribution rates annually, with the first hike likely slated for effect Oct. 1, 2026, according to a notice that Public Utilities Commission staff filed Monday.
Under the proposal, a typical household, using 550 kilowatt hours of electricity each month, could see its monthly electric bill climb about $17 in 2026, followed by increases of $5 in 2027, $4 in 2028, $4 in 2029 and $5 in 2030, according to documents CMP filed with the Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday.
The company argues that ratepayers would likely see relatively little change on their actual bills, though, as a number of storm-recovery charges roll off over the next few years.
The state’s largest utility has more than 640,000 customers across southern and central Maine. Counting several recent rate changes, the average CMP customer’s bill rose from about $138.76 in July 2024 to about $154.67 a year later.
CMP bills currently include hundreds of millions in recovery costs for extreme storms in 2023 and 2024. The company also raised its rates this summer, attributing the roughly $5-per-month increase to additional storm costs.
The new plan is designed “to take components of the extremely high storm costs, embed them in our base rates and lower the costs we pay for storms over time,” CMP spokesperson Jonathan Breed said when it was first announced in July, though the utility did not provide details on rate impacts at that time.
STATE OFFICIALS CONDEMN PROPOSAL
Public Advocate Heather Sanborn, who represents ratepayers in utility proceedings, has called the request “eye-popping” and on Tuesday reiterated calls to prioritize affordability.
“At a time when many families are already struggling to afford their bills, CMP’s proposal asks Mainers to pay even more,” Sanborn said in a written statement. “We need to ensure electricity distribution costs don’t spiral out of control, especially as our state encourages people to electrify their homes and vehicles to meet climate goals. Affordability must remain front and center.”
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, called the request “massive and unacceptable” in a written statement before the filing Tuesday morning.
“Today’s request from CMP blatantly ignores the economic reality that Maine people face every day, especially seniors on fixed incomes, small businesses, and residents of rural Maine, who are struggling with high costs of electricity, groceries, housing and health care,” Mills said. “Yet CMP wants to raise their electricity bills again.”
In a written statement, Linda Ball, the company’s new president, said the state’s grid is regularly strained by high electricity usage in the summer and intense weather in the winter. She said the new rate structure is intended “to help stabilize the impact and cost of extreme weather in Maine.”
“Over the next five years, these targeted investments will not only enhance
reliability but also provide greater financial stability and predictability for our customers,” Ball said in a written statement.
The utilities commission scheduled an initial conference about the request for Oct. 1.
A pair of hearings for public comments will be held on the evenings of Oct. 14 in Freeport and Oct. 15 in Hallowell. Those who would like to offer comments virtually must register in advance by emailing [email protected] or calling 207-287-3831 and providing an email address.
Sanborn urged residents to voice any concerns they may have.
“The voices of everyday ratepayers are essential to making sure decisions about our power system put people first,” she said.