Read the latest stories covering PSEG Long Island or LIPA.

Long Island

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Mark Harrington

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office is examining a slate of potential candidates for the LIPA board that could include former officials of the authority in a move that could have wider implications for LIPA's future direction. 
 A spokesman for Hochul&nbsp;confirmed the governor’s office routinely “reviews candidates for vacancies on all state boards and agencies,&quot; but emphasized that as of Thursday it had &quot;not finalized appointees for the LIPA board.” 
 Newsday earlier this month&nbsp;reported that a review&nbsp;on the governor’s appointees had advanced for the first time since Hochul took office in 2021. Hochul gets five appointees to the board. Appointees of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo remain in place despite expired terms.&nbsp; 
 People familiar with the situation say top among those being considered for board seats&nbsp;are&nbsp;Kevin Law, a former LIPA chairman and chief executive who also served as president and CEO of the Long Island Association, a business group. Law, who currently serves as executive vice president for real-estate company&nbsp;Tritec Real Estate Co., also serves as chairman of Empire State Development's board.&nbsp; 
 Two other potential candidates for the board, according to the sources, are former LIPA general counsel Lynda Nicolino and former board member Larry Belinsky.&nbsp; 
 Nicolino now serves as chief legal counsel for Bethpage Federal Credit Union, while Belinsky is managing director&nbsp;at financial firm Frasca &amp; Associates. They&nbsp;either couldn't be reached or declined comment.&nbsp; 
 Anticipated&nbsp;changes to&nbsp;the LIPA board come&nbsp;as a state commission has been reviewing steps&nbsp;needed&nbsp;to transition LIPA to a fully public authority, an effort that stalled during this year's legislative session. Hearings on the effort are slated for September, and a final report to the State Legislature to craft legislation is due out before year's end. 
 LIPA on Thursday said it had canceled its July board meeting&nbsp;because of a lack of a quorum.&nbsp; 
 Last year, Hochul approved a bill passed by the legislature that created the commission to study the prospect of a fully public LIPA, which would remove PSEG Long Island as the contractor overseeing the grid and instead put LIPA in charge. 
 A new board of Hochul appointees could potentially alter the direction of the municipalization effort if, for instance, Hochul’s office determines that she wants her own review of all of LIPA’s options. Some, including former KeySpan chief executive Robert Catell,&nbsp;have been pushing for LIPA to be sold outright to a public company, while PSEG has been lobbying to keep the existing public-private partnership, which&nbsp;brings it up to&nbsp;$80 million a year in management fees alone. PSEG's contract expires in 2025. 
 Lisa Tyson, executive director of activist group&nbsp;the&nbsp;Long Island Progressive Coalition and a co-chair of the LIPA commission’s advisory council, expressed concern that a potential&nbsp;Hochul&nbsp;shakeup of the LIPA board could provide PSEG with an opening to derail the fully public LIPA, which her group favors.&nbsp; 
 &quot;It's not a good look for Gov. Hochul if she caves to … PSEG and lets it prevail on her to change the LIPA board's leadership, which has called PSEG out for unacceptable performance,” she said.&nbsp; 
 PSEG didn't respond to a request for comment at press time.&nbsp; 
 Tyson noted that PSEG &quot;simply ignored the LIPA trustees last year when they required [PSEG] to cease all lobbying immediately.&quot; Newsday has reported PSEG in the past three years has grown its lobbying spending to more than $200,000 a year, and its own officials, including vice president of external affairs Christopher Hahn, have participated in that lobbying. 
 CORRECTION:&nbsp;Former KeySpan chief executive Robert Catell’s name was misspelled in an&nbsp;earlier version of this story.

Environment

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Hochul nears new LIPA board appointments that could affect the utility's future

Hochul nears new LIPA board appointments as utility weighs becoming fully public

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Despite sharp pushback from LIPA and its trustees last year over its lobbying activity, PSEG Long Island and outside entities have&nbsp;continued to heavily lobby state government&nbsp;as a&nbsp;state commission prepared legislation to&nbsp;make LIPA a fully public utility. 
 State records indicate that a top PSEG Long Island official and at least two outside lobbying firms met with legislators and the&nbsp;governor's office&nbsp;as the state approved a commission on LIPA’s future that would focus on transitioning the utility to a fully public model. PSEG’s contract with LIPA ends in 2025. If LIPA moves to a public model,&nbsp;it would put PSEG Long Island out of the&nbsp;job of managing the Long Island electric system. 
 The activity comes as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office is said to be&nbsp;moving to engage more fully on LIPA issues, and could start with new appointments for&nbsp;the governor’s five seats on the LIPA board as soon as this summer. The governor's office effectively controls the LIPA board with five trustees appointments. All current governor appointees are holdovers from&nbsp;former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and are operating on expired terms. 
 Hochul’s press office didn’t respond to a request for comment. 
 LIPA and its trustees were in open confrontation about PSEG’s lobbying efforts in 2022, when a state law took effect requiring the utility to report on advertising and lobbying activity. Trustees and officials at a March 2022 LIPA board meeting accused PSEG of lobbying for studies on LIPA’s future, which included selling the utility to a private entity — studies that LIPA said could have limited its access to the bond market. 
 Trustees told PSEG officials their efforts weren’t in the best interests of ratepayers. PSEG said it had been advocating instead for a full review of all options for LIPA, including keeping the public-private model in which PSEG currently manages the electric grid. 
<h2> PSEG exec&nbsp;met with state legislative staff members </h2> 
 A report submitted by PSEG at the end of March shows that&nbsp;Christopher Hahn, PSEG vice president of external affairs,&nbsp;met with state Assembly and Senate staff members on seven occasions in February for “updates on PSEG Long Island activities.” 
 Hahn also met with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman for the same reason that month as the state commission was finalizing a report on so-called municipalization and considering legislation that would convert LIPA to a fully public utility, managing all operations and a force of some 2,500 employees. 
 “We are talking to key stakeholders and other groups about the successes we’ve had, about the benefits of keeping this model,” Hahn told Newsday’s editorial board in February. 
 At the same time, two lobbying firms were working behind the scenes on PSEG and LIPA matters, according to a separate state lobbying database. Tonio Burgos &amp; Associates, the firm that previously employed Hahn, was paid $82,500 to lobby for PSEG&nbsp;in 2022, on issues including “PSEG updates” and “increasing utility prices.” At the same time, Mercury Interactive was paid about $120,000 to lobby the governor’s office and more than a dozen state legislators with PSEG listed as the client, according to state lobbying records. 
 Mercury for 2023 was paid $10,000 a month, the records show, to lobby on “issues related to energy.” The Burgos firm has been paid $30,000 from January to the end of May, records show. 
 Mercury in its January through June filings for 2023, reported “direct lobbying” six state legislators, four of whom are members of the LIPA commission, on “utility regulation.” It billed PSEG $60,000 thus far for 2023, and $120,000 for all of 2022. By comparison, Mercury billed PSEG $50,000 for all of 2019&nbsp;and $60,000 for 2020, state records show. Its fee increased to $10,000 a month in 2021. 
 A separate entity, PSEG Services, lobbied for PSEG Long Island on “updates on PSEG Long Island activities,” according to the state database, with Hahn listed as lobbyist&nbsp;for the January-February 2023 period. 
 PSEG declined to say how much or even whether its lobbying included advocating for its widely stated position that PSEG should continue as LIPA’s service contractor, but in a statement it said, “PSEG Long Island does not use customer dollars for purposes other than providing services covered under its agreement with LIPA.” 
<h2> LIPA resolution bars PSEG from lobbying on privatization </h2> 
 A resolution passed by LIPA trustees last year specifically required PSEG to “immediately cease and desist all lobbying and advocacy activities with elected officials, public officials, customers&nbsp;and, other stakeholders related to privatization.” The resolution also required PSEG to “provide LIPA prior written notice of all lobbying and advocacy positions and activities by senior managers” and staff to “determine whether those lobbying and advocacy positions and activities are at all times in the best interests of LIPA and LIPA’s customers, as determined by LIPA, and are not in furtherance of any conflicting interests.” 
 LIPA in a statement said PSEG has not provided prior-notice reports on planned lobbying activities. 
 PSEG is a member of the Long Island Association, which has released a report on privatization by financial firm&nbsp;Lazard, which found the prospect feasible. LIPA then&nbsp;prepared a critique of that report, which found while there could be rate freezes for several years, rates would skyrocket after a half decade. 
 Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor), who co-chairs the state commission on the future of LIPA, said that while he believes PSEG has “given up on lobbying me,” he has seen the company working “behind the scenes” in Albany and elsewhere to advocate for its position relative to LIPA. 
 “Their footprints are hard to miss,” Thiele said of PSEG. “It’s an inside baseball strategy. They’re not trying to convince the public that PSEG is the best option … They’re trying to lobby members of the Senate, the Assembly and the governor’s office.&quot; 
 A decade ago, Thiele said, PSEG met with him and other lawmakers on Long Island to discuss the company’s eventual interest in buying the LIPA system, which Cuomo had supported at the time. 
 “They met with us in Bridgehampton and they were then lobbying for full privatization,” Thiele said. 
 In a letter to LIPA chief Tom Falcone last year, former PSEG Long Island president Dan Eichhorn pointed to LIPA’s own previous studies on privatization in saying that it would be “appropriate for the legislation to consider privatization as a possible structuring option,” along with other options. 
 PSEG Long Island spokeswoman Katy Tatzel declined to say whether PSEG has an interest in buying the LIPA system, referring questions on the matter to PSEG corporate. 
 Marijke Shugrue, a spokesperson for PSEG’s corporate parent, said the company “does not comment on rumors or speculation, including past, present or future business plans.” 
<h2> Edison Electric Institute lobbied public for PSEG </h2> 
 It’s not just local and statewide firms that have been working on PSEG’s behalf. The Washington, D.C.-based Edison Electric Institute, of which PSEG is a member, in a campaign on Facebook urged Long Island readers to “Stop Albany’s Latest Power Grab.” At a page linked to that message, by an EEI-affiliated group called We Stand for Power, readers were urged to: “Tell your legislator to oppose a full government takeover of LIPA!” 
 Brian Reil, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, said campaigns like the one it ran on behalf of PSEG are “part of EEI's regular activities, which include efforts to explain how electric companies deliver benefits to customers on a variety of issues across the country.” 
 Fred Harrison, a Merrick ratepayer and an advocate for a fully public LIPA, found the campaigns and questions about how they are being paid for “very concerning.” 
 “It has to be concerning to anybody who follows this topic and wants to see improvement” by the utility, Harrison said. 
 The LIPA commission has set four public hearings on the future of LIPA for September.

News

Region/State

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PSEG lobbies state officials as LIPA considers becoming a public utility

As LIPA considers becoming a public utility, PSEG lobbies state government

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LIPA trustees on Wednesday&nbsp;expressed frustration with&nbsp;recent increases in wait times at PSEG customer call centers, as the utility prepares to roll out a&nbsp;complex new rate plan&nbsp;that's expected to prompt a jump in telephone inquires. 
 But PSEG Long Island officials during a LIPA trustee meeting Wednesday disputed and downplayed the concerns. They pointed to a recent increase in customer satisfaction scores and took&nbsp;issue with comparisons to 2019 results that showed significantly&nbsp;lower wait times despite higher call volumes. 
 PSEG operates the LIPA-owned grid under an $80 million annual&nbsp;contract that expires in 2025, and&nbsp;a state commission is eyeing a plan to transition to a fully public utility&nbsp;that would sideline PSEG. 
 In a report to trustees, LIPA director for customer experience, Carolyn Mackool, said the amount of time customers waited to speak to a PSEG call-center representative, after declining in April, jumped in May to 147 seconds and 183 seconds in June, even as PSEG implemented a call-center “Get Well” plan aimed at driving down wait times. 
 “We do have concerns because everything seems to be slipping from a timing as well as an expectation” standpoint, Mackool said. 
 Trustee Nancy Goroff called the wait times “obviously very concerning.” 
 Goroff continued: “It seems there was a reasonable plan but any plan is only as useful as its implementation.” 
 Trustee Laureen Harris, calling the results “extremely disappointing,” said it was the board’s “top priority” to have the call center at peak performance before&nbsp;new rates based on time of electricity usage&nbsp;are rolled out next year. 
 Harris&nbsp;asked for monthly reports on progress in&nbsp;reversing the response time trend. “It’s a high priority for us,” she said, questioning PSEG’s perception that service was improving. 
 But Louis DeBrino, vice president of customer operations&nbsp;for PSEG, noted that the call centers received&nbsp;20,000 more calls in May, but said call-center improvements were “a work in progress.” DeBrino did not give a reason for the jump in calls last month. 
 DeBrino said: “I think we’re getting to where we need to get. We’ve got work to do. We’ve got a plan and we’ll continue to adapt that plan so that we can provide that level of service that everybody is looking for.” 
 LIPA Vice Chairman Mark Fischl noted that the call center performed considerably better in 2019, with fewer employees. 
 “You can see where we’re a little confused, right?” Fischl said to DeBrino. “You had less people, more calls and better results than where we are today and yet you’re painting this rosy picture about where we are.” 
 DeBrino said the 2019&nbsp;numbers were &quot;flawed&quot; and not apples-to-apples comparisons, in part because 2019 figures didn’t include tens of thousands of emails that representatives now field. 
 Fischl in an interview after the board meeting&nbsp;expressed disappointment with PSEG's performance.&nbsp; 
 PSEG is “agitating for keeping the contract,&quot; with LIPA, Fischl said. &quot;But why would you want to hire these guys? What have they done to prove you should hire them? They’ve done a terrible job. If this was a contractor I’d hired in my house I would have fired them years ago.” 
 It’s not just LIPA trustees pointing&nbsp;to problems at&nbsp;the call centers. At the May LIPA board meeting,&nbsp;two call center trainees who'd recently been let go by PSEG complained about shortcomings in training procedures.&nbsp; 
 In a packet given to the board, they complained about classes that were all online, and Zoom meetings with&nbsp;“connectivity issues.” They said trainees lacked the ability to review materials because meetings were not recorded. 
 PSEG in a statement at the time said it was reviewing the trainees “concerns,” but declined to &quot;publicly discuss ongoing personnel matters.&quot; The company cited its “rigorous training program” that trains and tests the “competencies and behavior” of representatives to “ensure high-level service.”

Politics

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LIPA trustees hit response times at PSEG call centers

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PSEG Long Island qualified for only $14.8 million of a potential $21 million in bonus compensation for 2022 after failing to meet 23 performance targets for the year, the state Department of Public Service found. 
 PSEG had disputed previous assertions&nbsp;by LIPA that it had missed eight of the 2022 performance targets, saying it was eligible for $16.8 million. 
 Overall, PSEG missed performance targets such as call center answer times and minimum&nbsp;scores for customer satisfaction in a JD Power survey that are required in a contract the PSEG&nbsp;and LIPA signed&nbsp;in 2021. 
 PSEG still gets $56.7 million in fixed compensation under the contract.&nbsp; 
 The contract came after&nbsp;a lawsuit by LIPA alleging performance and management failures by PSEG during Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020, which left more than 500,000 Long Island&nbsp;customers in the dark, some for up to a week. 
 PSEG, headquartered in New Jersey, operates the electric grid under a contract with&nbsp;LIPA that expires in 2025. A state commission is exploring the prospect of making LIPA a fully public utility, ending its reliance on a big outside service provider such as&nbsp;PSEG. The effort stalled at the end of the state legislative session this year. 
 PSEG met 73 of the 96 new performance targets LIPA required. 
 PSEG spokeswoman Kathryn Tatzel said the company was reviewing the LIPA and Public Service Department reports. The company&nbsp;called itself the top utility with overhead lines in the state and &quot;one of the most reliable utilities in the nation.&quot;&nbsp; 
 &quot;It is unfortunate that LIPA and others are framing the metrics as anything other than a stretch target and continue to ignore and denigrate the hard work our 2,500 employees do every day on behalf of our customers,&quot;&nbsp;Tatzel said. 
 In its own 90-page report on PSEG’s performance released last month, LIPA found PSEG’s performance scores “would have been significantly worse if LIPA had not granted PSEG considerable flexibility.” 
 LIPA found PSEG performed well in areas such as grid reliability, but said “poor planning hampered many projects, resulting in delayed starts and schedule adjustments, further aggravated by weak project controls and management.” 
 Lisa Tyson, executive director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition and co-chair of an advisory committee to the commission on LIPA's future, said the state's and LIPA'S findings&nbsp;were worrisome. 
 &quot;It reconfirms that they [PSEG] are doing a poor job and they do not deserve this contract and are not a qualified contractor to be running this system,&quot;&nbsp;Tyson said. &quot;It's very disappointing and scary. It most definitely justifies the need for a fully public LIPA.&quot; 
 LIPA in its report said PSEG needed&nbsp;“much more sophisticated project management, better control and oversight of vendors, better cost management, and better control and assurance processes.” 
 Of five categories, PSEG scored worst in information technology performance,&nbsp;at 29% of metrics fully met, while transmission and distribution performance was best, at 85%. Also, PSEG fully met 47% of customer service metrics, the report found. 
 PSEG met 34 of 40 metrics for transmission and distribution work last year, LIPA said. 
 In information technology, PSEG fully met only two of seven metrics, LIPA said, asserting that “weak project management and organizational maturity significantly hampered” the effectiveness of the IT organization. 
 Also, LIPA&nbsp;said, disaster recovery plans submitted last year were “inadequate.” 
 PSEG met nine of 19 customer service metrics, LIPA reported. Well-documented issues with the PSEG call center, where customer wait times increased&nbsp;last year, were among the reasons PSEG missed the target.&nbsp;

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PSEG Long Island out millions of dollars for missing performance targets, state says

PSEG Long Island out millions for missing performance targets, state says

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LIPA customers could see rate savings for four years if the utility were sold to a private entity, but those reductions would&nbsp;turn to significantly higher bills starting in 2031, a new analysis by the authority&nbsp;indicates. 
 LIPA has repeatedly said&nbsp;the concept of privatization would ultimately hurt ratepayers by depriving it of savings through loss of its tax-exempt status and access to federal emergency funds. 
 But the latest <a href="https://www.flipsnack.com/lipower/lipa-fact-sheet-on-privatization.html">report</a> from LIPA responds directly to an analysis by financial firm Lazard released earlier this year that indicated customers would see big benefits from a potential $16 billion buyout of LIPA, including payoff of its $10 billion debt and other cost-saving measures. 
 The Long Island Association has helped publicize the privatization initiative, even as it says it hasn’t taken a formal stance on LIPA’s options. This week, the LIA briefed members on the Lazard analysis, its president, Matthew Cohen, confirmed. A Lazard spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 LIPA’s warning against privatization and its questions about the <a href="https://nylipa.gov/storage/comments/2pSo7PBQoXAsAiwiF7cYoNj9BiXv2EkvcK0ZqqTa.pdf">Lazard analysis</a> are clear&nbsp;in a fact sheet released this month. It comes as a state legislative committee looking into LIPA’s future as a fully public entity was unable to finish its work and pass legislation to expedite the shift in this year’s session. The issue is expected to be taken up in January. 
 LIPA’s analysis found the prospect of a rate freeze in the privatization mode by Lazard would cost customers around $1 a month in 2026, then result in lower monthly bills, from $2.81 in 2027 to $9.11 in 2030, before bills begin to climb markedly. 
 The Lazard model proposes creating a public benefits trust from proceeds of the sale to fund the bill reductions. But once that trust runs out in 2030, LIPA projected, bills will jump by $30 in 2031, $45.02 in 2032 and $47.17 in 2033, before&nbsp;climbing at that scale “indefinitely.” 
 “Privatization would increase the cost burden on customers,” LIPA said in its report. 
 Conversely, LIPA has previously said, shifting to the fully public power model, by eliminating the annual management fee of around $78 million paid to PSEG each year, “reduces customer bills.” 
 LIPA in its report said the Lazard analysis “omits key details and context, creating an inaccurate assessment of how a sale to private investors would affect customers, their bills and electric service to the region.” LIPA noted there’s nothing to indicate a private utility would perform better than a fully public LIPA, and a privately owned utility would mean loss of local control by customers. 
 LIPA likened a private sale of LIPA assets to someone who decides to sell a home on which they have a 2.6% mortgage, then leasing it back and paying the new owner an 8.7% rate of return. “The future stream of higher payments to the new investor makes the transaction a loss,” LIPA’s report says. 
 LIPA explained that its own analysis is so different from Lazard’s because Lazard’s didn’t account for factors such as the newly private entity’s loss of sales and property tax exemptions and federal grants, while “improperly accounting for LIPA’s cost of tax-exempt debt.” 
 A report commissioned by the state legislature studying conversion of LIPA to a fully public entity also&nbsp;had issues with Lazard’s analysis, saying potential synergy cost savings were “significantly overstated,” while future borrowing costs estimate was “simply incorrect.” 
 “Every independent analysis, including our own, and common sense, says that ratepayers will be left holding the bag if we turn our grid over to a for-profit utility that can’t finance its debt through tax-exempt bonds, isn’t exempt from corporate sales, income and most property taxes, isn’t eligible for billions of dollars in federal disaster assistance, and is guaranteed a hefty annual profit over-and-above the cost of operating the system,” said Rory Lancman, executive director of the state legislative commission. 
 Asked to comment on LIPA’s report, Cohen, the LIA president, said, “We are not going to get in a back and forth with LIPA in the media on an issue so critical to Long Island’s future.” 
 He said the LIA’s position “remains the same — every option needs to be fairly and thoroughly examined with an independent financial analysis and the LIA will support the model that is proven to be in the best interests of ratepayers, whichever model that may be.”

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LIPA report says privatizing utility ultimately would led to higher rates

New LIPA report says selling utility to a private bidder would raise rates

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Utility rate hikes that have driven customer bills to record highs the past two years show&nbsp;few signs of easing, as essential services such as water, power and communications continue to eat up more of Long Island consumers’ monthly income. 
 The soaring costs have led to customers&nbsp;—&nbsp;especially those living on limited and&nbsp;fixed incomes — being late paying their gas and electric bills. The state has stepped in with relief programs, but experts say arrears, while tamped down, could begin to rise again. 
 “You combine the cable, the water, the power the gas, it all hurts when you have a limited budget,” Mary Comparato, a widow from Setauket. Her&nbsp;electric bill is budgeted at $227, her gas bill at $185, Optimum at&nbsp;$100 a month and the water bill $60 per quarter, she said. 
 National Grid announced it is&nbsp;seeking a 21% increase, or $34.66 a month,&nbsp;in gas bills next year, after commodity prices tied to then-tighter gas supplies&nbsp;and the Russian invasion of Ukraine&nbsp;spiked during the past two years. That comes despite a notice from the state Public Service Commission last month that energy prices could decline slightly this summer, as prices for products such as natural gas come down. 
 National Grid said the increases, which could be offset by $6 or $7 a month by lower gas prices,&nbsp;were &quot;largely driven by a combination of inflation and cost factors beyond National Grid’s immediate control.” 
 Meanwhile, Liberty Utilities, the company that took over a large section of Nassau County’s water customers, announced it, too, would hike rates an average 34% next year, after customers of the former New York American Water bemoaned price hikes for years.&nbsp;Liberty in May said the requested increases were tied to&nbsp;“necessary plant investments, high tax burdens, the installation of advanced metering infrastructure, proposed low-income and arrearage management programs, and a fee-free program for electronic payment of Liberty NYW invoices.” 
 Rates for Suffolk County Water Authority customers jumped 4.8% in July, while a monthly service charge jumped 4.9%. 
<h2> Electric, gas prices not expected to decline </h2> 
 Experts following the trends say they don’t expect prices to come down anytime soon, if ever. 
 “The horizon doesn’t look good,” said Bill Ferris, the New York legislative representative for AARP, which advocates on behalf of seniors. “The utilities continue to come in and ask for double-digit rate increases. It’s happening in upstate and New York City and Long Island. We don’t see that changing anytime soon. And that is a problem of how rate cases are done in New York.” 
 Advocates for businesses and their employees say that while rising expenses&nbsp;for electric, water, gas and communications are only part of the consideration when considering where to locate, the greater share they can take is making an impact.&nbsp; 
 &quot;Utility costs are always at the forefront when businesses analyze&nbsp;whether to remain on Long Island and our&nbsp;ability to attract businesses&nbsp;to relocate to Long Island,&quot; said&nbsp;Kyle Strober, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island, which represents developers who are among LIPA’s biggest customers. 
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 But it's not just businesses feeling the sting.&nbsp; 
 Alan Ascher of Wantagh has felt it too, and is doing what he can to trim utility costs. 
 “My wife and I no longer work, and when you’re no longer working and prices start jumping all across the board a great deal, you do start taking a much harder look at what you’re paying,” Ascher said. He recently signed up for a community solar program called Common Energy that cuts his electric bill by 10%, a small amount but cheaper than if he had to buy solar panels himself. 
 Community solar programs are popping up across the state, giving those who can’t put solar panels on their own roof access to remotely located solar arrays. 
 “The cost of living here is ridiculous,” Ascher said, “and my experience is nothing is ever going down.” A year ago, he and his wife looked at homes in Delaware based on costs and taxes, but that's been put on hold 
 When his PSEG bill spiked more than&nbsp;$200 in April, Ascher called at once and the utility acknowledged an error.&nbsp;The monthly PSEG bill is usually around $30, while his Common Energy&nbsp;bill&nbsp;is around $130 a month. “When you’re no longer working and making sure you’re not going to run out of money, you take a much closer look” at the bills, he said. 
<h2> Arrears on bills are increasing </h2> 
 Ian Donaldson, a policy aide for the New York Public Utility Law Project (or PULP), which advocates for low-income customers in utility matters, said that despite increased state funding for affordability, “We’re seeing arrears start to go up” again as the weather warms and the summer cooling season nears. 
 “People’s usage is going to rise and electric bills could go much higher,” Donaldson said. “It’s just going to put people further and further into debt.” 
 In April, PSEG reported to the state that there were 116,528 residential customers more than 60 days late paying some $90 million in back-due electric bills, and 7,850 had received final termination notices that month. 
 For National Grid, there were more than 55,550 residential customers of its 600,000 on Long Island at least&nbsp;60 days late paying around $46.5 million in gas bills as of April. About&nbsp;17,000 had received final termination notices that month. 
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 The arrears problem isn't exclusive to energy. At the Suffolk County Water Authority, more than&nbsp;$13 million is past due over 90 days,&nbsp;up from $4 million before the COVID pandemic, chief executive Jeff Szabo said. 
 &quot;Certainly the [SCWA]&nbsp;board and I are extremely concerned about the amount of overdue bills we are seeing right now,&quot; Szabo said, even though the water authority bill is likely &quot;the lowest utility bill that most of our customers pay, and because we bill quarterly, we may not be at the forefront of our customers' mind.” 
 Some of those arrears are being alleviated through a federal&nbsp;Low Income Household Water Assistance Program, for which eligible customers can receive up to $2,500 to help pay&nbsp;overdue bills.&nbsp; 
 Most utility relief programs to help stem the tide of shut-offs are aimed chiefly at the most vulnerable customers who are already receiving social services to help with other costs, such as health care and food. 
 Most utilities offer programs, some with state and federal funding, that help low- and moderate-income customers pay their bills when costs balloon beyond their ability to pay. Programs are aimed at making sure low-income customers don’t spend more than 6% of their income on utilities. The state also recently passed a $200 million budget item that will fund arrears forgiveness for those who were not eligible under prior low-income programs, an attempt to help address affordability issues for a bigger cross-section of customers in the state. 
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 In regulatory circles, affordability is becoming an increasingly loud refrain. AARP has been on a yearslong campaign to help lower the amount customers pay for utilities, including energy, in their monthly budgets. 
 The campaign includes advocating for new laws such as a bill&nbsp;currently in the State Legislature that automatically would enroll lower-income customers into programs that offer energy discounts. At present, utilities require prospective participants apply and provide proof of eligibility, which can lead to many who are eligible failing to enroll because of lack of awareness. 
 But there are larger, looming concerns. AARP is among groups that, while supportive of climate goals, are concerned about how the programs will impact customer bills. The state just passed a measure that calls for a study of the impacts of recent climate legislation on customer costs. 
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<h2> Consumer representation: A push for legislation </h2> 
 AARP also is pushing for bills that would help fund greater consumer representation in rate cases. As it stands, Ferris said, customers pay all the costs for utilities to present rate cases, but consumer advocacy groups have to pay their own way. 
 “You can’t have a process in Albany completely dominated by companies seeking to increase customer rates every three years without having a robust representation by consumers who actually are paying the bills,” Ferris said. 
 A state bill to help fund advocates for consumers in rate cases is needed, added Donaldson, of PULP, because there’s currently little incentive for groups like PULP to get involved. 
 Beyond that, Donaldson said, PULP believes legislative work is needed to make sure fixed charges on utility bills cover only the cost associated with the services customers&nbsp;are receiving, and to reward those who use less energy, rather than offer discounts when usage increases. 
<blockquote> 
 You can’t have a process in Albany completely dominated by companies seeking to increase customer rates every three years without having a robust representation by consumers who actually are paying the bills. 
 — Bill Ferris, New York legislative representative for AARP 
</blockquote> 
 Middle-class customers with affordability concerns aren’t without options. Programs backed by the state allow customers to cut the cost of energy utilities by participating in community choice programs for solar, and municipal programs for natural gas discounts. 
 Brookhaven Town already has begun a community choice program that will allow natural gas customers to buy gas at an anticipated discount from National Grid’s price through an administrator that works with the town. Gas customers in the town are automatically enrolled but can opt out. 
 Comparato, the Setauket ratepayer, had the chance to potentially save on her natural gas bill when Brookhaven kicked off the program earlier this year. 
 But the two-year lock-in rate was higher than the current price of National Grid gas, which has hit recent lows after spiking last fall and winter. The program is designed to temper the volatility that saw gas prices rise to record levels last fall. In the end, Comparato, frustrated with the process, opted to stay with National Grid. “I got mad,” she said. 
 Solar companies have been offering customers who subscribe a 10% to 20% discount on PSEG power if they opt for community solar power from specially contracted providers. SUNation chief executive Scott Maskin said the company has been subscribing upward&nbsp;of 700 customers a month for the service. 
 A growing number of Long Islanders — some 60,000 — have opted to put power plants on their roofs with solar panels that can provide all or most of their power, and pay for themselves in three to five years with reduced bills. 
 Southampton is moving ahead with a community choice program that will allow enrolled residents to not only opt for more renewable power for their energy but also potentially discounted power. Councilman John Bouvier said he expects the first requests for proposals for solar farms to supply energy to the program to go out this summer. 
<h2> Electricity rates: LIPA's perspective </h2> 
 Utilities themselves are particularly sensitive to affordability issues. LIPA, which owns the electric system, last month gave a presentation that put its rates in perspective. LIPA noted its average rates have increased 55% over the past 25 years, while nearby utilities such as Eversource and Con Ed saw increases of 132% and 95%, respectively. 
 LIPA’s all-in cost per kilowatt-hour last year was just under 24 cents a kilowatt-hour, while ConEd’s stood at 27.4 cents, and PSE&amp;G of New Jersey’s stood at around 15 cents. PSEG Long Island, a sister company of PSE&amp;G, manages the LIPA grid under a contract that expires in 2025. 
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 The LIPA/PSEG power supply charge, which accounts for roughly half of customers' bills, is composed&nbsp;chiefly of costs to fuel Long Island power plants, most of which operate&nbsp;mainly on natural gas. Gas costs have moderated in recent months, but have seen highs since the February 2022 start of the war in Ukraine. Fuel oil prices also have seen record spikes. 
 The delivery portion of electric bills has seen moderate increases, too, in the past decade, but recent increases below 2.5% haven't been enough to trigger a rate review by the state. 
 Some argue that a plan currently under review by the State Legislature that would fully municipalize LIPA could be one of the factors that pushes the plan toward final approval. The utility could save close to $1 billion over a decade if it were to eliminate the profit incentive of the current public-private partnership that has PSEG running the system. By “making the switch, LIPA will save money, and Long Island ratepayers will get lower bills and better service,” said Lisa Tyson, executive director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, an advocacy group. 
 A bill to facilitate the plan is expected to be introduced later this year or early next. PSEG says the current model is best for customers, and some even say selling the utility to a private entity could do the trick. 
 Whichever model is chosen for LIPA, advocates for businesses and consumers say, the savings have got to revert to customers in the form of lower rates. 
 “LIPA needs to keep&nbsp;ratepayers' wallets&nbsp;in mind,” said Strober, of the ABLI business group, which advocated for LIPA’s 10-year push to lower the taxes it pays for power plants, with the hope of real bill reductions for ratepayers. 
 Strober conceded that the reductions thus far haven’t shown up, saying, “But I hope there will be reductions.” He’s pressing for LIPA to lower its debt and the $350 million or so a year it pays in interest payments. 
 “Until we address high taxes and high utility costs, they will always be a hindrance on our ability to attract and retain businesses in our region,” he said. 
 Newsday wants to hear from Long Islanders about how they face the region's cost of living. <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdB9J6H362mYiE4Pr6VI5sDsskY62zwKMI_2V7xDO1n1de1Lw/viewform">Tell us your story here</a>.

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National Grid among utilities hiking rates as Long Island residents struggle to pay bills

'The cost of living here is ridiculous': LIers grapple with rising utility rates

A state commission on the future of LIPA will “reset the schedule” for future hearings and production of a final report to later this year, ending the prospect that legislation to enable a fully public LIPA will be approved&nbsp;in the legislative session that ends June 8. 
 In a release following a&nbsp;meeting in Albany on Tuesday, the commission also cited the firing of GDS Associates, one of two consulting firms that&nbsp;helped prepare the draft report on LIPA’s future. The commission cited “misconduct of a GDS employee during a Zoom meeting” of the commission’s advisory committee last month, when the employee reportedly disrobed and masturbated. 
 “The legislature and the commission have a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual harassment and related wrongdoing,” said Sen. Kevin Thomas (D-Levittown)&nbsp;in a statement. 
 A fully public LIPA could save ratepayers tens of millions of dollars in costs a year by eliminating the profit motive of an investor-owned utility, such as PSEG Long Island, to operate the grid under contract, the commission found.&nbsp;PSEG’s contract to operate the grid expires at the end of 2025. 
 LIPA has&nbsp;discussed making contingency plans to solicit bids from new service providers by year’s end, if the State Assembly and Senate don't act in the current session to approve new legislation required to make LIPA&nbsp;fully public. LIPA can still pivot to a fully municipal model if&nbsp;legislation is approved in early 2024, officials said, but the prospect could complicate the bidding process. 
 Under the new schedule for the commission, public hearings will take place in September&nbsp;and the deadline for producing a final report to the legislature will shift to November. 
 “This will allow the commission to continue to proceed with transparency and deliberation, while still delivering a plan well in advance of the next legislative session,” which starts in January, the commission said in a statement. 
 PSEG, which has been extensively advocating to keep the current public-private operating model,&nbsp;last week argued that the commission “failed to resolve many critical questions” before new legislation could be drawn up and voted on by the legislature. 
 Lisa Tyson, executive director for the activist Long Island Progressive Coalition&nbsp;and a co-chair of the commission’s advisory committee, said she believes a fully public LIPA can “absolutely” still happen under the new timeline. 
 “It still works,” she said. “There’s still plenty of time to transition to a fully public LIPA.”&nbsp; 
 Added the commission co-chairman, Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor), “We look forward to continuing our robust efforts to engage the public and stakeholders in helping us shape our final report to the Legislature..&quot;

POLIPA230517

Legislative panel delays hearings, final report on moving to a fully public LIPA

Commission delays hearings, final report on fully public LIPA to later this year

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State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has released an analysis that raised no serious obstacles to the future of LIPA as a fully public power utility, but uncertainty remains about whether lawmakers can pass legislation required for the transition in the current legislative session, officials said. 
 Commission members are slated to meet in Albany on Tuesday and are expected to decide then whether to continue pushing for legislation this session or wait until next year.&nbsp; 
 DiNapoli, in a letter and 10-page report to legislators and the state commission formed to lay the groundwork for a fully public LIPA,&nbsp;offered a series of recommendations and observations for&nbsp;the commission’s final report, drawing on assertions contained in a draft report filed in April. 
 For instance, DiNapoli’s report noted the commission’s finding that the new structure could save ratepayers from $45 million to $75 million a year&nbsp;if PSEG were to be&nbsp;eliminated as the service provider, and&nbsp;he called for greater levels of transparency and accountability to make sure the utility followed through on its promises. 
 “LIPA will have to operate under a greater level of transparency, with clearer lines of accountability, and with enhanced local engagement and responsiveness,” DiNapoli wrote. “Both progress toward long-term goals and information on routine operations should clearly and regularly be communicated, with the LIPA board held directly accountable for successes or failures.” 
 Legislation is&nbsp;being drawn up that would begin the process of transitioning to a fully public LIPA, said commission executive director Rory Lancman, but unresolved issues such&nbsp;as governance and labor are still being finalized. DiNapoli’s office indicated that “if there is a desire to [transition LIPA] during this legislative session,” it would be best to include all needed legislation in the final commission report. 
 But whether the commission can hold required&nbsp;public hearings and complete a final report and legislation before the June 8 end of the current legislative session remains an open question. 
 LIPA itself at a board of trustee meeting on Wednesday indicated that it may have to make preparations to put a&nbsp;contract to manage the electric system out to bid if the legislature hasn’t resolved whether to make LIPA fully public by year's-end or even earlier.&nbsp;PSEG’s contract expires at the end of 2025. 
 “Either way, by the fourth quarter of this year, we need to go in one direction or another,” LIPA chief Tom Falcone told trustees, noting the decision is ultimately the governor and the legislature’s to make. 
 “If the commission does not change our business model, then we will proceed, in the fourth quarter or some time before that, with a new contract solicitation,” Falcone said. He explained&nbsp;LIPA would need time to draw up a new solicitation and review bidders, among a long list of to-dos. 
 “We have to have a contract approved by this board, the state comptroller, the attorney general, and then begin a transition. All the work leading up to that takes at least a year,” Falcone said. “And then you should try to leave a year for transition.” 
 Lancman said the commission is still working out whether all its&nbsp;work can get done by June 8, but he also noted that there’s also the possibility of passing a comprehensive LIPA package early in the 2024 session and still completing the process. 
 “It’s really in everyone’s interest to resolve this in, if not this legislative session, then as early as possible in the next session,” Lancman said. 
 He added that DiNapoli’s analysis provided “very interesting and worthwhile ideas to explore,” and noted that the comptroller &quot;took no issue with our data, methodology or analysis,&quot; indicating that the draft report's&nbsp;findings about the benefits for LIPA ratepayers are &quot;solid.&quot;&nbsp; 
 PSEG, which had been advocating for LIPA to keep the current operating structure in which it manages the grid under contract,&nbsp;in a statement said &quot;it’s clear&quot; from DiNapoli’s report that the commission has “failed to resolve many critical questions before it can be considered for legislation.” 
 Last week, some business groups&nbsp;raised questions about the draft report&nbsp;after one of the report’s consultants disrobed during a commission advisory committee Zoom&nbsp;meeting last month. 
 DiNapoli recommended that the commission address the question about how the new LIPA board would be comprised, whether an appointed or elected board, and how “independence and accountability would be insured.” He suggested, “A more thorough review and analysis” of appointed or elected boards may be in order. 
 Lancman said the final report would address that as well as questions about the union workforce, making sure that 2,500 unionized employees keep their status, benefits and job protections. “I think there’s an understanding that you need to have an appointed board, at least to be able to protect the labor issues,” Lancman said. 
 DiNapoli also recommended the new LIPA leverage other state agencies and their expertise to operate and advise the utility, including the New York Power Authority&nbsp;and the Department of Public Service, and even suggested including the chair of the Public Service Commission and the president of NYPA on the LIPA board. 
 He&nbsp;suggested the commission provide more specificity as to how LIPA will guarantee that the new entity’s employees “retain all their existing terms and conditions of employment,” and that LIPA “fully identify how ratepayers would be protected” in the case of future rate increases. 
 And he urged LIPA not to roll back a review by the comptroller’s office of LIPA contracts over $50,000, as it remains an “important deterrent to waste, fraud and abuse.”&nbsp; 
 The comptroller indicated that the new LIPA “must commit to operating under a greater level of transparency” than it has in the past, with provisions to regularly publish performance metrics, communicate with customers in emergencies and hold itself more accountable. 
 Whether the state DPS would have&nbsp;the same “advisory” role it now has at LIPA also remains an open question, but DiNapoli’s office suggested, “At a minimum, provisions should be included to ensure that LIPA provides the same level of information and public access that was provided by DPS, and that regular management and operational audits performed by an outside, independent entity continue to be required.”

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DiNapoli sees no obstacles to fully public LIPA, but officials are eyeing backup plan

PSEG Long Island’s top four executives received bonuses exceeding $130,000 for&nbsp;2022 — the same year that a new LIPA report says the company missed key customer service metrics. 
 Total compensation packages for the top seven PSEG LI executives ranged&nbsp;from&nbsp;$442,000 to nearly $700,000 for 2022,&nbsp;according to filings with the state obtained by Newsday. 
 The pay and performance reports come as a state commission is pondering the future of LIPA as a fully public entity, and the figures may&nbsp;provide fodder for some who say the public-private relationship between grid-owner LIPA and its contractor, PSEG, needs to be scrapped.&nbsp; 
 In a&nbsp;filing with the state this month, PSEG reported pay packages for the top Long Island executives, including&nbsp;bonuses and &quot;other&quot; perks. 
 For example, interim president and chief operating officer Dave Lyons’ total compensation package for 2022 was $699,779, including $275,520 in salary and a bonus of $144,400. The value of his “other” pay was $125,478.&nbsp;The &quot;other&quot; pay category includes&nbsp;long-term incentive grants, special achievement awards, vehicle/housing/mobile phone&nbsp;stipends, relocation&nbsp;costs and a hiring bonus, the filing says.&nbsp; 
 Meanwhile, a&nbsp;report&nbsp;released Wednesday&nbsp;shows that PSEG scored an overall 70% in fully meeting a list of 96 new performance metrics for 2022, with one of the lowest overall scores (47%) in customer service. Notably, PSEG did not meet JD Power Customer Satisfaction Survey metrics for the year, “indicating that&nbsp;customer satisfaction did not reach the desired level of improvement&quot; in the top 25% of Northeast utilities. 
 PSEG also failed on all three call-center metrics &quot;due to inadequate leadership decisions, planning and performance management related to the call center,&quot; LIPA said in its report. 
 LIPA vice chairman Mark Fischl said, “It’s disappointing that after delivering these barely passing results for our ratepayers that they [PSEG executives] are getting these huge bonuses.” 
 PSEG spokeswoman Katie Tatzel,&nbsp;noting that the company is&nbsp;paid a fixed management fee to run the&nbsp;electric system, said, &quot;We target executive compensation to be competitive with other large energy services and utility employers.&quot; 
 As for the performance metrics, Tatzel said LIPA “has not reviewed their response to our metric submission with us” as of Tuesday night, and added, “We are confident that an independent review will show greater success in metric achievement than LIPA is presenting here today.” 
 The metrics will be reviewed by the state Department of Public Service.&nbsp; 
 PSEG, after years of declining to publicly release its Long Island division's executive pay amounts, began to report it following passage of a state law in 2021. LIPA, the system owner, always has reported employee and executives pay in accordance with state law.&nbsp; 
 Among other top PSEG Long Island executives: 
<ul> 
 <li> Paul Napoli, managing director and vice president of power markets,&nbsp;received a total pay package of $683,905, including $265,776 in salary and $162,200 in bonus pay. His “other” pay was $113,623. </li> 
 <li> Gregory Filipkowski, managing director and chief information officer, had total pay of $667,348, including $323,039 in salary, $130,100 in bonus pay and $195,057 in “other” pay. </li> 
 <li> Margaret Keane, the managing director and vice president of construction and operation services, received a total compensation package of $642,468, including $242,658 in salary, $145,300 in bonus pay and $199,063 in “other” pay. </li> 
 <li> Michael Sullivan, managing director and vice president of electric operations, had a total pay package of $564,179, including $249,581 in base salary, $90,000 in bonus pay and $126,524 in “other” pay. </li> 
 <li> Louis Debrino, managing director of customer operations, had a total pay package of $442,208, including $246,493 in salary, a $90,800 bonus and $73,065 in “other” pay. </li> 
 <li> Andrea Elder-Howell, managing director and vice president of legal, received a total pay package of $415,358, including $219,646&nbsp;in base salary, $98,100 in bonus incentive pay&nbsp;and $87,242 in “other” pay. </li> 
</ul> 
 The packages also include&nbsp;items such as savings plans, life insurance premiums and a change in value of pension benefits. 
 The pay packages compensated PSEG executives during a year in which LIPA set in place a list of 96 metrics as part of a&nbsp;new contract to settle a&nbsp;lawsuit&nbsp;over PSEG’s failed performance during Tropical Storm Isaias. 
 The overall 70% score for the metrics includes an 85% score for transmission and distribution, 78% for power supply and clean energy, 71% for business services and 29% for information technology. Those figures are for fully met metrics.&nbsp; 
 Overall for the 96 metrics, PSEG met 67, missed 22 and partially met seven, LIPA said. PSEG stood to earn $21.02 million in compensation for meeting those metrics, but LIPA said it is awarding the company $14.8 million. PSEG claimed it was eligible for $16.8 million in compensation. The state Department of Public Service will review the report and issue a recommendation on the final compensation level.&nbsp; 
 Tatzel said that from PSEG's view, LIPA and PSEG &quot;have a disagreement over only seven&nbsp;of 96&quot;&nbsp;metrics. It's PSEG's position, she said, that &quot;we fully met performance on 75 metrics with five&nbsp;partial, containing 634 total deliverables. We are proud of the work that our employees have done to continue to improve upon our results year after year.&quot;&nbsp; 
 But LIPA in its report on the metrics noted&nbsp;it went out of its way to help PSEG meeting the metrics, including granting “flexibility” and “exceptions.&quot;&nbsp; 
 “The metric outcomes would have been significantly worse if LIPA had not granted PSEG Long Island considerable flexibility and instead adhered strictly to the established metric standards and requirements,” LIPA said in the&nbsp;report, which will&nbsp;be released at a LIPA board meeting Wednesday. 
 The PSEG executive pay packages were generally up from 2021, when most total compensation packages ranged between $336,389 and $571,737, with the exception of then-retiring PSEG Long Island president Dan Eichhorn, whose package totaled $899,867. 
 While the&nbsp;salary levels are similar to those of LIPA employees, where the top pay is about&nbsp;$355,000 for the chief operating officer, the PSEG bonuses and other perks nearly double the compensation of LIPA employees.

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Top PSEG LI execs got bonuses in 2022 as company missed key customer service metrics

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Compensation packages for the top&nbsp;PSEG Long Island executives ranged&nbsp;from&nbsp;$442,000 to nearly $700,000 in&nbsp;2022, NewsdayTV&#39;s Mark Harrington reports.

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PSEG LI execs got bonuses in 2022 as company missed key customer service metrics

Newsday

PSEG LI's top four executives received bonuses exceeding $130G

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Converting LIPA to a fully public power model would result in an “overall positive benefit” for LIPA customers, with “important financial benefits” including lower rates, more accountability and greater local control, a draft study by a legislative commission found. 
 In a report due out Monday and obtained by Newsday, the&nbsp;commission found that&nbsp;all the major challenges of converting LIPA to a&nbsp;fully public model&nbsp;are doable, but special legislation and amendments to the original LIPA&nbsp;Act would be&nbsp;required to make it happen. 
 The commission found that an appointed board, as is the current model, would be the best&nbsp;for utility governance, though it left open&nbsp;how an appointed board will be structured. Currently, the governor controls the LIPA board with five of nine trustee appointments, with two each from&nbsp;the state Senate and Assembly. 
 The report said the new LIPA model would provide for more transparency and accountability, with the chance for more local input on investments, system hardening and future power choices. The report cited years of storm-related outages, despite overall good system reliability, in saying customers need “an improved level of system resiliency.” 
 The commission&nbsp;said the potential annual savings could be &quot;more conservative&quot; than some LIPA estimates, but could amount to&nbsp;$48 million to $78 million annually. There would be&nbsp;a one-time transition cost of $16 million to $59 million, with the payback time over 3 to 16 months. 
 “Over the long term, favorable rates should also result from operational excellence, adherence to industry-proven models and the consistent implementation of reliability and public power industry best practices,” the report found. 
 The move toward a fully public LIPA kicked into high gear following admitted missteps by PSEG Long Island following Tropical Storm Isaias, which left more than 500,000 customers without power for up to a week, with many unable to report outages and get restoration times in the first hours of the storm. LIPA ultimately sued PSEG over its handling of the storm, and the suit was settled with a new contract that puts more of PSEG's annual compensation at risk for a broad list of failures.&nbsp; 
 Contained in state recommendations to LIPA following the storm was one that LIPA considered fully municipalizing, taking advantage of the potential increase in service that public power entities generally show over investor-owned utilities&nbsp;while potentially lowering&nbsp;rates by eliminating the utility contractor.&nbsp; 
 PSEG, at public hearings and elsewhere, has said the current public-private model of managing LIPA works best, and it has raised questions about risks LIPA faces on its own, including loss of a critical check and balance on the state authority. 
 &quot;We believe it is a proven, tested model for PSEG Long Island to continue to provide the people of Long Island and the Rockaways the outstanding electric service they expect and deserve,” PSEG&nbsp;senior director/vice president Christopher Hahn said at a hearing in November.&nbsp; 
 But Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor), one of the authors of the LIPA commission legislation, has pushed back against PSEG and the public-private model, telling PSEG at one hearing, &quot;It wasn’t just your lack of performance” during Isaias that was a problem. “It was the fact that you didn’t tell the truth to LIPA,&quot; when LIPA was investigating PSEG's failures. &quot;And you didn’t tell the truth to the public. And maybe the reason your performance ratings are so low is that people don’t like being lied to.” 
 PSEG's contract&nbsp;with LIPA, valued at more than $121 million a year including management and other services, expires in 2025.&nbsp; 
 Thiele on Friday said the report identified no major obstacles to a fully public LIPA, which he has noted was the original plan for the utility after its takeover from the Long Island Lighting Co. a quarter century ago. A fully public LIPA “clearly has the potential to save money and reduce rates, and there’s the potential for more locally based decision-making and governance,” Thiele said. 
 But he also noted, “We have some decisions to make,” including what role the state Department of Public Service will have in LIPA oversight. 
 The commission report suggests keeping the current structure of triggering a rate review by the state Department of Public Service when LIPA’s proposed rates increase by more than 2&frac12;%. “Operationally, the transition to a fully integrated public power model should not materially impact the methodologies and best practices that are currently utilized in the LIPA rate-making process,” the report said. 
 Further, the report draws a limit on any increased scrutiny by the state. “Public power authorities are rarely subject to regulatory oversight by a public utility commission,” the study says. “The potential that increased regulation could impact LIPA’s cost of borrowing, and correspondingly, adversely impact the ratepayers, means there should be no increase in DPS’&nbsp;level of regulation of LIPA as it transitions to a public power model.”&nbsp;At present, the DPS has a &quot;review and recommend&quot; role at LIPA, but the Public Service Commission has no jurisdiction over the Long Island utility, which PSEG manages under contract. 
 The report found there should be “no impact” on the level of LIPA’s current indebtedness as a result of the transition. The utility’s current long-term debt exceeds $9 billion. 
 Taxes and payments in lieu of taxes also shouldn’t be impacted, the report found. LIPA has spent years challenging tax assessments on properties&nbsp;and has settled payments for the largest plants. 
 Going fully public&nbsp;also&nbsp;&quot;will allow LIPA to evaluate renewable energy sources, including battery storage, internally while increasing transparency and community involvement,” the report said. 
 About&nbsp;1,500 PSEG employees, employed in a subsidiary known as ServCo, can be transitioned to LIPA without shifting them to state employees. “Selection of the most appropriate model remains an open issue,” the report found. “Once the future ServCo structure is identified and secured through legislation, the transition requires collaboration with IBEW Local 1049 and PSEG LI.” 
 New legislation is required to make the transition, in part because LIPA’s staffing authority is currently “not sufficient” to run the bigger utility. LIPA will need to increase staffing above&nbsp;its current 63 employees, though it’s unclear how many more will be needed. 
 LIPA may also need to eliminate&nbsp;its current requirement to have all contracts over $50,000 audited by the Office of State Comptroller. “Amendment of the existing approval requirement is necessary,” the report said. 
 New legislation also would be needed to expand the role of the LIPA board, with the board’s role and function needing to be “revised to account for compliance with the roles and responsibilities of a board of a public authority … ,” the report said. 
 There’s also the need to amend the LIPA&nbsp;Act so that employees&nbsp;are not&nbsp;required to transition to Civil Service status and aren’t members of the state retirement system. Legislation also may be needed&nbsp;to ensure transition of ServCo retirement plans.

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A fully public LIPA would mean lower rates, more accountability, study says

Making LIPA a fully public utility would mean lower rates, study says

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LIPA's&nbsp;new time-of-day rates were approved last month despite a series of questions and concerns by the state Department of Public Service, including that the new plan&nbsp;could increase the rates of those who opt out by 4.6%. 
 Documents filed as part of the new rate plan, which is set to take effect next year, show the state agency had raised issues about the&nbsp;plan&nbsp;and PSEG Long Island’s readiness to carry it out, including problems plaguing its call centers. Nevertheless, the state didn’t object to the LIPA board approving the new rate at its regular meeting last&nbsp;month&nbsp;after LIPA staff provided assurances the concerns would be addressed or, if not,&nbsp;the plan would be delayed.&nbsp; 
 The state's issues were sent in a letter from&nbsp;Department of Public Service chief executive Rory Christian, who is also chairman of the Public Service Commission, one day before the LIPA board voted on the new rate plan on March 29.&nbsp; 
 LIPA is not obligated to adopt the state recommendations because DPS, under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s LIPA Reform Act, has only review and recommend authority over the Long Island Power Authority. 
 LIPA has said that most customers would see a $3.50 monthly bill reduction just by being switched to time-of-day rates, without any change in their behavior. 
 But in his&nbsp;letter to&nbsp;LIPA board vice chairman Mark Fischl, Christian&nbsp;noted that if more than 85% of customers choose to remain on the main time-of-day rate, LIPA would “under-collect revenue&quot; to pay for its budgeted costs. 
 The shortfall would be made up by higher charges to those who opt out, through an increase in a portion of LIPA bills called the revenue decoupling mechanism, according to the letter. &quot;In other words, customers who remain on the flat rate under LIPA’s time-of-day proposal will experience higher bills due to increased delivery charges,” Christian&nbsp;wrote. 
 LIPA chief executive Tom Falcone, in an interview, called the rate impacts&nbsp;presented in the DPS letter a &quot;worst case&quot; scenario that would occur only if 15% of customers opt out, a scenario LIPA isn't expecting. He also noted that LIPA will revisit the plan each year&nbsp;to work out any such discrepancies in rates. &quot;LIPA plans to review the actual cost to service the customers in the time of day and flat rate plans, and will make annual updates based on actuals,&quot; he said. 
 Fischl, the LIPA vice chairman, agreed, saying LIPA spent more than a year with DPS and other stakeholders to make sure the plan was right.&nbsp; 
 &quot;I was very surprised we received a 21-page letter the night before the board meeting after a 15-month collaborative process in which DPS was at the table,&quot; Fischl said Friday. &quot;We worked to give everybody a voice.&quot;&nbsp; 
 Under the&nbsp;time-of-use plan, customers will get relatively lower rates for all but the four peak hours between 3 and 7 p.m. weekdays. The peak rate, based on 2023 figures, would be 39 cents a kilowatt-hour during the summer starting June 1 and ending Sept. 30. That rate drops to 37 cents in the non-summer period.&nbsp;The off-peak rate, which also applies for all weekend hours and holidays, is 20 cents during the summer and 18 cents during the non-summer months. Average customers, LIPA said, would see a $3.50-a-month benefit without changing their behavior, and LIPA itself could save upward of $30 million a year on power costs.&nbsp; 
 LIPA will begin enrolling all residential customers with smart meters into the plan next February, with 25,000 ratepayers. It will enroll another 50,000&nbsp;before the summer and then gauge the success before adding another 100,000 per month starting in October. By&nbsp;mid-2025, nearly all of LIPA’s 1.1 million residential customers will have been switched over. 
 Customers can opt out of the time-of-day rate for a standard rate, which, under the current budget, would cost customers 24 cents a kilowatt-hour in the summer and 21 cents a kilowatt-hour for all other months. 
 LIPA, in the resolution passed&nbsp;by the board, said the&nbsp;time-of-day&nbsp;rate &quot;is designed to have no impact on the revenues paid by residential customers in total in the first year,&quot; though in later years &quot;participating customers will realize greater savings.&quot;&nbsp; 
 But, Christian wrote, “Both the delivery and power supply revenues would be affected by any change in customer usage that occurs in response to the new time of day rates, and customers will make up any shortfall.&quot; He noted that power supply costs are a &quot;pass-through, meaning customers are responsible for the cost.&quot; 
 LIPA assured the state that cost studies will be “updated in the future” as more is learned about the impact&nbsp;of time-of-day rates. It noted that time-of-day and flat rates would be updated annually, and that&nbsp;revenue impacts for 2024 would be a “small fraction of the 1.9% potential increase&nbsp;in the typical monthly bill for flat-rate customers&quot; if a lot of customers opt out. 
 But DPS nonetheless said it “has concerns regarding the lack of uncertainty of the [time-of-day]&nbsp;rate impacts to revenue requirement and the lack of a precise time frame for cost studies to be conducted.” 
 DPS spokesman James Denn in a statement said that DPS &quot;strongly supports&nbsp;LIPA’s decision to move forward&quot; with the new rates, adding,&nbsp;&quot;Our letter also explained the need to address certain issues, and DPS is working with LIPA and PSEG LI to ensure those issues have either already been addressed or will be.&quot; 
 DPS also urged LIPA to fully assess the costs of the new rate plan, including changes needed to billing systems and customer education. “LIPA and PSEGLI have not realized the total cost associated&nbsp;with several important steps in the transition,” Christian wrote, noting other utilities have spent upward of $40 million on such implementations. 
 DPS asked LIPA to develop and include a budget forecast for the full implementation of time of use, and to present it to DPS and the LIPA board by Sept. 15. 
 LIPA in its response noted that computer investments were&nbsp;budgeted for 2023&nbsp;and that the implementation plan for the transition is&nbsp;part of PSEG’s performance metrics&nbsp;and is due to be in place before Sept. 15. A comprehensive customer education plan is due from PSEG by June 30, LIPA said. 
 LIPA in its proposal for time-of-day rates included a “bill-impact analysis” for the transition, but the DPS staff expressed concern about it, saying the sample size was too small and “insufficient to draw valid conclusions that can be applied to the broader customer base.” 
 DPS noted that even with existing time-of-use rates&nbsp;the utility is currently offering, only 2,100 customers have enrolled&nbsp;in the program, a figure that is “significantly lower than participation rates for other parts of the county that have” such rates. 
 LIPA noted “there has been substantial research from other utilities that have implemented time-of-day rates around the world, and there is no reason to believe the Long Island customer base would react significantly differently than other studies.”&nbsp; 
 The state also raised questions about LIPA’s analysis of impacts to customers with solar panel installations and others with so-called net metering, which tracks their production. In LIPA’s analysis, 52% of its sample would pay the same or less under a&nbsp;time-of-day rate, while 32% would see a bill increase of greater than 4%. 
 “It’s worth noting that many [net metering] customers pay the minimum bill [customer and meter charge only] and hence the bill impact can be relatively high as a percentage, but not in terms of actual dollar increases,” Christian wrote. “It’s difficult to estimate the precise dollar amount of the bill impact on customers since it may vary depending on their behavior and detailed usage patterns.&quot; 
 LIPA worked with solar industry groups to adjust the rate to allow those customers to apply solar credits earned in the off-peak time to the peak, at a 2-for-1 exchange ratio, and vice versa, a plan the solar-industry largely applauded.&nbsp; 
 DPS also recommended that LIPA fix potential problems to a successful rollout, including issues with the PSEG call center that led to “significant increases in wait times” last year in 2022. “As customers move to the time of day rates, the call center may anticipate a significant impact,&quot;&nbsp;Christian wrote. “It is extremely likely this will increase call volume to the call center and the increase in call volume may lead to longer wait times and changes in the types of calls received.” 
 LIPA responded that PSEG’s performance issues were a “legitimate concern,” but said the way to work around them was to “establish clear performance expectations” with “suitable financial resources to meet those expectations,” including compensation for meeting the goals. 
 In any case, LIPA noted, the migration to time-of-day rates will occur based on operational readiness. If PSEG Long Island fails to achieve that operational readiness, as independently verified and validated by LIPA and DPS, the time-of-day migration will be delayed.”

PORATE230412

State agency: New LIPA rates could hike bills for those who opt out

New LIPA rates could hike bills for those who opt out, state agency says

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Efficient new electric heating and cooling equipment have seen&nbsp;a miniboom across Long Island over the past two years, on the back of increased subsidies for heat-pump and geothermal systems as the state and LIPA advance plans to displace fossil fuel-burning systems. 
 While the new systems still make up just a fraction&nbsp;of Long Island's heating and cooling market, an increase&nbsp;of more than 20% in the past two years suggests a momentum that PSEG Long Island, which administers the program, is celebrating.&nbsp; 
 Mike Voltz, PSEG's director of energy efficiency and renewables, said spiking oil&nbsp;prices were likely the biggest drivers of 2022's growth, which is continuing into 2023.&nbsp; 
 &quot;It's a combination of very high oil prices and increased education,&quot; said Voltz. &quot;There's definitely a greater awareness of heat pumps and how they work.&quot; In addition, he said, &quot;The rebates are fairly generous,&quot; and a new federal tax credit up to $2,000 went into effect Jan. 1. 
 The systems, which can cost anywhere from $5,000 for small systems to $45,000 for geothermal installations, have experienced uneven sales in the region over the years as the technology has improved and newer customers experience the benefits. 
 Total heat pump figures for 2022 were 7,385 units, which includes 4,060 home heating/cooling devices, 350 heat-pump water heaters, 1,217 pool heaters, 1,554 commercial efficiency systems and 204 geothermal units, PSEG said. LIPA has about&nbsp;1.1 million customers, and the vast majority heat with natural gas or oil.&nbsp; 
 In 2021, total 6,722 heat pumps were installed across Long Island and&nbsp;5,955 were installed in 2020, PSEG said. 
 Reviews of some prior generation units have been mixed, but some customers who’ve stuck with them say they’ve paid off. 
 Richard Hucke, a Brightwaters retiree, said he’d rate his conversion&nbsp;to a three heat-pump system for his home an “A-plus” after tangling with an installer and bringing the utility to small claims court. In the end, he got three high-efficiency units installed for free under a low-income program, and now has a reduced home heating rate that has allowed him to cut his&nbsp;to $73 a month from an average of $100. 
 Hucke keeps an old gas furnace system for the coldest days, but his gas consumption is down more than 40%, he said. 
 “All in all the heat-pump program was good for me,” Hucke said. 
 Included in PSEG's total&nbsp;heat-pump figures are more expensive geothermal systems, which require temperature-sensitive piping up to 350 feet below a customer’s home and can cost upward of $45,000. 
 PSEG reported that 88 home geothermal were installed across Long Island last year, benefiting from $1.18 million in rebates. That compares with 64 projects in 2021&nbsp;with $774,435 in rebates. Prior years saw even fewer: just 55 projects in 2020&nbsp;and 76 in 2019. 
 Geothermal is still relatively small&quot; compared to the greater heat-pump market, said PSEG's Voltz. He predicted geothermal is &quot;probably never going to be mass market because of its cost,&quot; but noted it's considered the most efficient of the heat pumps, especially for summer cooling. 
 The geothermal systems are seeing a resurgence led by companies seeking to spark a mass market for the units and capitalize on state, federal and utility tax credits and rebates. This year’s increase hasn’t been seen since a high of 128 new projects were begun in 2008. Sales of new systems fell off a cliff in the subsequent decade but have begun to climb again. 
 While geothermal installations generally favor new home construction given the amount of indoor and outdoor work needed, some do opt for geothermal on existing home installations, and one company, Dandelion Energy, is seizing on that market. 
 One person who signed up&nbsp;was Joseph Farhangian of Merrick, who has spent tens of thousands of dollars turning his Merrick home into one of the most green buildings around. He’s got solar panels on his roof and a battery storage unit inside. Geothermal energy seemed a natural fit to cut out fossil fuels entirely, he said. 
 But the installation in his 67-year-old home as been problematic, he said. Temperatures vary by 6 degrees or more per floor, and the air leaving his complex warren of ducts comes out so forcefully at times that he can’t stand it. “It’s really windy” in his house, he said. &quot;It's uncomfortable and loud.&quot; He’s hired a consultant who found the installer, Dandelion Energy, may have installed too large a system. 
 Now, he said, it can't be fixed and he'd prefer&nbsp;to go back to his old fossil-fuel based system. He said he would even pitch in to pay Dandelion a fee to remove it. He's paid only part of&nbsp;the&nbsp;$45,000 bill. 
 Dandelion chief executive Michael Sachse acknowledged that duct work for the initial installation was “not up to our standards,” and said the company has addressed it. As for the claim of an oversized system, he said the company has “doubled checked our math,” consulted with outsiders and found “the sizing is correct.” 
 “If we switch the size, I suspect he’ll be even less happy,” said Sachse. PSEG continues to work with the homeowner and Dandelion to work out a solution. 
 But Dandelion said problems issues such as&nbsp;Farhangian's are the exception. One customer who's &quot;super happy&quot; with his geothermal system is Sidney Blank of Springs. His 1970s-era house had a new system put in last year,&nbsp;he said, replacing his old oil burner with a system. The old system had a lot of &quot;cold spots&quot; throughout the house that Dandelion worked to eliminate. 
 He said the geothermal system is &quot;a little bit noisier&quot; and the air isn't as hot as that from the oil heater, but the issues are &quot;nominal.&quot; His only beef was a pile of sand left in the driveway for a period after the excavator finished his work. Otherwise, the system is &quot;perfect for this house,&quot; Blank said. 
 As for the bigger market, Sachse acknowledged the company hit a road bump as material costs increased last year, but said&nbsp;the 500 installations across the U.S. in 2022 could double to 1,100 this year. PSEG said 20 Dandelion systems have been installed across Long Island.&nbsp; 
 &quot;We've seen good demand on Long Island, but feel we haven't yet hit our stride,&quot; Sachse said.

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LI sales of heat pumps, geothermal systems jump 20%, PSEG says

LI sees 20% jump in sales of heat pumps, geothermal systems: PSEG

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In less than a year, PSEG Long Island will begin enrolling electric customers in&nbsp;a new LIPA rate plan that offers discounts for shifting usage to off-peak times, while hiking energy costs during a four-hour weekday peak. 
 While there’s plenty of time to decide whether you want to stick with the new rate, it’s a good time to review the plan to see if you can save money or if it could&nbsp;increase the amount you pay for electricity. 
 Most customers will save money just by allowing the automatic switch and keeping their habits about the same — somewhere about&nbsp;$3 less a month, according to the Long Island Power Authority. Some could save even more. But big peak users could see increases.&nbsp; 
 Here’s a list of questions to consider before opting for one of two time-of-day rates. 
<h2> How will the time of day rates work? </h2> 
 Put simply, customers will get relatively lower&nbsp;rates for all but the four peak hours between&nbsp;3 p.m. and 7 p.m. each weekday. The peak rate, based on 2023 figures, would be 39 cents a kilowatt hour during the summer starting June 1 and ending Sept. 30. That rate drops to 37 cents in the non-summer period. 
 The off-peak rate, which also applies for all weekend hours and holidays, is 20 cents during the summer and 18 cents during the non-summer months. 
<h2> How can I save under the new plan? </h2> 
 Shifting more of your usage to off-peak will save you, and LIPA,&nbsp;money. LIPA is also offering a separate super off-peak rate that provides greater discounts to those who can shift some usage to 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.-- a plan that could benefit electric vehicle owners who charge at night.&nbsp;&nbsp;The more you shift to those lower-cost periods, the more you save. 
<h2> Could my bill go higher? </h2> 
 Absolutely. Most people return from work during that peak time and for many the first action during a hot summer day is to turn on the air conditioner, then start cooking at the electric stove. LIPA says those customers can save by &quot;pre-cooling&quot; their homes, and then turning the AC off between 3 p.m. and 7 pm. But not everyone can. AC units and electric ranges&nbsp;are big users of electricity, and customers could see their bills increase if they concentrate lots of usage into that four-hour period, especially since cooking is largely a daily occurrence. The same applies to&nbsp;always-on high-usage appliances such as&nbsp;refrigerators and heaters. 
 LIPA says it has built assumptions about cooking and refrigerator usage into its model on&nbsp;the impact on rates, and the vast majority of customers will come out about&nbsp;$3.50 a month ahead under the new rates without changing their behavior. The utility is still working on how to address customers who currently heat their homes with electric heat, and could resolve it by year end.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
<h2> Can I get off the time-of-day rate? </h2> 
 Yes. Customers who don’t like the scheme or see unexpected increases can call PSEG to opt out&nbsp;for a new&nbsp;standard flat rate, which would charge&nbsp;24 cents a kilowatt-hour in the summer and 21 cents a kilowatt-hour for all other months. Commercial customers won't be part of the 2024 rollout. Nor will customers who don't have smart meters.&nbsp; 
<h2> What if I have solar panels? </h2> 
 The new rate plan will apportion solar&nbsp;energy produced during peak and off-peak times into two different buckets, with peak and off-peak usage drawing separately from each bank. Some solar companies balked at the concept and as a result LIPA devised&nbsp;an &quot;exchange&quot; plan&nbsp;to allow customers to shift some off-peak energy into the peak bank, or vice versa if they come up short. Off-peak credits would be exchangeable to peak&nbsp;at a 2 for 1 exchange rate.&nbsp; 
<h2> How does the time-of-day rate save the utility money? </h2> 
 LIPA and other utilities are required to build the system to accommodate the highest projected peak usage periods, usually during the hottest summer days. If the utility&nbsp;can shift more customer usage to non-peak hours, it can save money not only on power purchases but also on future capacity&nbsp;needs. In the case of time-of-day rates, LIPA says it plans to save the equivalent of an entire power plant of capacity, amounting to&nbsp;$30 million to $60 million a year, and at least theoretically pass those savings onto customers. 
<h2> What kind of savings can I expect if I go along with this plan? </h2> 
 Washing clothes off-peak can save $1.75 per month, LIPA says. If you turn off the AC and “pre-cool” your home before 3 p.m., you can save $12.75 per month. If you have an optimized battery storage unit in your home and charge it during the off-peak, expect to save $40 a month. And electric cars optimized for off-peak charging can save another $43.50. Those who opt for super off-peak can save even more, LIPA says. 
<h2> What isn’t LIPA telling us? </h2> 
 The new rates&nbsp;are based on 2023 budget assumptions, and account only for the two largest components of bills: the power supply charge and the delivery charge. Other fees and charges&nbsp;such as taxes, renewables, storm costs and assessments --&nbsp;some of which fluctuate year to year&nbsp;or month to month -- could drive bills higher, or lower.&nbsp; 
<h2> What happens if my bill soars? </h2> 
 LIPA is offering a one-year guarantee for customers on the plan. If your&nbsp;bill goes higher than it would have had it&nbsp;remained under a standard flat rate, it will refund the difference, promising even to send ratepayers a check, not just offer a credit. After the one-year period, you’re on your own. So watch your PSEG bill carefully, and switch back, or change your behavior, if costs go off the chart.

PORATE230402

What LIPA's new time-of-use electric rates may mean for you

LIPA's new time-of-use electric rates: What they may mean for you

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LIPA trustees on Wednesday unanimously approved a plan to shift nearly all of its more than 1 million residential customers to a new electric rate starting in 2024 that offers lower costs&nbsp;for those who switch more of their power usage to off-peak hours. 
 Under the plan, power would cost&nbsp;the most during the four-hour weekday summer peak, but off-peak rates would be lower year-round. Customers who don’t want&nbsp;the time-of-day plan can opt out by calling PSEG Long Island, which manages the grid for LIPA, after the rates take effect. 
 LIPA says when the plan is fully in place, it could save the utility the equivalent of a 300-megawatt power plant, or from $30 million to $60 million a year.&nbsp; 
 Also during the board meeting Wednesday, the utility briefed trustees on preliminary proposals for the New York electric grid that would create at least one new power line from Long Island to bring&nbsp;offshore wind energy to New York City, Westchester and other parts of the state over the next decade. 
 The time-of-use plan, set for a phased-in rollout in January, will come with a one-year guarantee by LIPA to refund the difference to customers whose bills are higher under the new rate compared with&nbsp;their prior standard fixed rate. &quot;We'll send you a check, no questions asked,&quot; said&nbsp;LIPA Chief Executive Tom Falcone. 
 LIPA and PSEG will gauge the success of the rollout in stages&nbsp;before proceeding with the next phase, Falcone said. 
 Under the plan, the highest prices for power will come between 3 and 7 p.m. during summer weekdays from June 1 through Sept. 30. 
 Using rates adopted this year as the standard, LIPA said the peak&nbsp;3 to 7 p.m. summer rate&nbsp;this year would have been&nbsp;39 cents a kilowatt-hour. The rate includes&nbsp;only the power supply and delivery charge, and not other fees and charges, LIPA noted. 
 Non-summer peak power would cost 37 cents a kilowatt-hour. 
 All other hours both during the summer and the rest of the year are considered off-peak&nbsp;and offer discounts from what’s considered the standard rate of around 25 cents per kilowatt-hour. 
 Off-peak rates would be&nbsp;20 cents a kilowatt-hour in the summer&nbsp;and drop to 18 cents in the non-summer periods. 
 The new rate plan also includes what’s called a super off-peak rate plan, which offers larger&nbsp;discounts for those who shift usage to evening hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. It’s especially beneficial to those who charge electric cars during the evening hours. 
 Customers can opt out of the time-of-day rate for a standard rate, which, under the current budget, would cost customers 24 cents a kilowatt-hour in the summer&nbsp;and 21 cents a kilowatt-hour for all other months. 
 Falcone said average customers would probably save around $3.50 a month without big changes in behavior, but those who maximize use-shifting could saveup to $90 to $125 a month, though each customer's results&nbsp;may vary.&nbsp; 
 Meanwhile, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nyiso.com/documents/20142/36774179/LI_PPTN_ESPWG_2023-03-24.pdf/5033e1d6-90ae-131c-b4d9-48f39cc894cb">list of more than a dozen proposals by the New York Independent System Operator</a>, which manages state energy markets, to create at least one new power line from Long Island put the cost of the project between $2 billion and $17 billion. LIPA ratepayers, under a state Public Service Commission ruling, will pay a 12.5% share of the costs of the line, suggesting a potential cost of between $240 million&nbsp;and $2.04 billion, were the state to choose the most costly line. 
 Falcone said the new power line is&nbsp;essential to make sure energy from more than 9,000 megawatts of planned offshore wind energy,&nbsp;about 3,000 megawatts of which will land on Long Island,&nbsp;isn't wasted because of transmission bottlenecks.&nbsp; 
 &quot;These projects will reduce curtailment,&quot; said Falcone, which means that &quot;even though the wind can produce [energy], we can't take it, so you just kind of shut down the turbines.&quot;&nbsp; 
 The need for the new transmission line could be particularly acute when a new generation of offshore wind farms&nbsp;is producing its most power. Without the new pipeline, about three terawatt hours of energy, or around 15% of LIPA's total load,&nbsp;would be curtailed from planned wind farms each year, Falcone said.&nbsp; 
 In the United Kingdom, the inability to transmit power from offshore wind turbines off the coast of Scotland to where it’s needed in the south of the country has resulted in hundreds of millions in additional costs to UK ratepayers. According to <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/britons-paying-hundreds-of-millions-to-turn-off-wind-turbines-as-network-cant-handle-the-power-they-make-on-the-windiest-days-12822156">a report in SkyNews</a>, National Grid UK spent around $264 million last year to pay wind generators to turn off their turbines, cutting production by around 6%. In addition, the company spent $883 million “turning on gas turbines located closer to the source of demand, in order to fill the gap,” SkyNews reported.

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LIPA time-of-day rates to offer lower costs to those who shift power usage

LIPA to phase in new rates that offer lower costs to those who shift power usage

PSEG Long Island will replace&nbsp;five more giant steel poles in Eastport with underground power lines after safety complaints&nbsp;and a vehicle fatality at one of them. 
 PSEG on Monday&nbsp;confirmed it will spend $7.6 million to remove the poles, some nearly 90 feet tall, on&nbsp;a stretch of County Road 51 in Eastport at the intersection of County Road 111. 
 Some residents had complained one of the poles blocked views of oncoming traffic, an official said.&nbsp; 
 Katy Tatzel, PSEG Long Island spokeswoman, said&nbsp;the move would &quot;mitigate potential safety issues.&quot; 
 The company &quot;is committed to the safety of our customers and employees,&quot;&nbsp;Tatzel said. 
 The project will involve removing seven poles in all. The two largest poles will be replaced with riser poles that will accept underground transmission lines to connect with taller poles along the high-speed road. 
 The original $31.7 million project, completed in 2017, brought a 69,000-volt transmission line along the county road, from Riverhead to Moriches.&nbsp; 
 At the time, officials said putting the line on tall steel poles was cheaper than going underground, which they said would have cost $6 million to $9 million per mile.&nbsp; 
 Residents and public officials have&nbsp;been complaining about the poles for years, referring to them as &quot;monster&quot; poles. 
 “To this day I question how such large metal structures that are installed with enormous concrete bases can exist just off the shoulder of a roadway where speeds clearly reach in excess of 55 miles per hour,” Brookhaven Town Deputy Supervisor and Councilman Dan Panico told Newsday. 
 PSEG's initial&nbsp;project to install 175 poles along a seven-mile stretch of CR-51 and a business district in Eastport prompted numerous complaints and lawsuits by Brookhaven and Southampton towns. 
 Eventually, the utility&nbsp;agreed to spend&nbsp;$12 million to remove 31 of the poles from a mile of roadway in&nbsp;Eastport south of Sunrise Highway. 
 There have been at least two fatalities from vehicle collisions with the poles since 2018. 
 The first was in December 2017, when a driver hit one of the largest poles at&nbsp;the intersection of County Roads 51 and 111. That dented pole will be removed. 
 In 2020,&nbsp;a couple driving in an SUV struck a pole in the early morning hours of Nov. 8, killing a passenger and severely injuring the driver, according to authorities. 
 Of the approximately&nbsp;140 poles that remain a few feet off the road on the west side of County Road 51,&nbsp;many are unprotected even by guardrails. 
 PSEG, which operates the electric grid under contract to the Long Island Power Authority, has said it has received all needed approvals for the pole project, including from Suffolk County's Department of Public Works. 
 Roy Reynolds, an engineer and president of the East Moriches Property Owners Association, in 2020 issued a report saying the poles were &quot;dangerously too close to the shoulder of the roadway,&quot; creating a &quot;serious safety hazard to those using the roadway.&quot; 
 The report pointed to &quot;inconsistencies&quot; with the&nbsp;placement of the poles compared with standards published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the New York State Highway Design Manual. 
 Reynolds noted most of the poles on County Road 51 are about&nbsp;3&nbsp;feet from the road shoulder and are &quot;unprotected from vehicle crashes.&quot; 
 The Highway association recommends a clear zone between the poles and vehicle traffic of 26 to 32 feet.

POPOLE230322

PSEG to remove more 'monster' utility poles in Eastport

PSEG to remove more 'monster poles' in Eastport

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The Shinnecock Indian Nation on Monday breathed a collective sigh of relief after PSEG Long Island said it would forestall shutting off the power to more than 120 late-paying tribal accounts, some of which are seeking access to arrears forgiveness programs. 
 Shinnecock Indian Nation members and tribal offices had accumulated arrears of around $169,000 on electric bills through March, PSEG said, as some tribal economic development projects remain stalled by state litigation and a tribal leader researches potential tax overpayments to the utility. 
 Tela Troge, a tribal attorney and director of health and community services, said the nation last week faced shutdown of electric service not only to customers who rely on electricity for lifesaving health equipment but also to government offices and functions, such as a warming shelter and food pantry. 
 “We made a minimum payment so we didn’t get shut off,” said Troge. The tribe is fighting costly state litigation over its Sunrise Highway monument/billboards, she said, while working to get other projects, such as a gas station, hotel/convention center, cannabis initiatives and a reservation casino, underway. 
 But some help could be on the way to help the tribe generate enough power on its own to offset or eliminate electric costs. In coming weeks, SUNation Solar Systems of Ronkonkoma &nbsp;is donated 2,000 solar panels decommissioned from a local job site to the tribe to generate its own power, said Scott Maskin, chief executive officer of SUNation. 
 The company is talking to the Long Island Power Authority and the state to devise a plan to deploy the panels, which can generate 800,000 kilowatt hours a year, on tribal land. 
 Meanwhile, Troge said&nbsp;she is researching how much tribal members and government have made in past tax payments to the utility to see if the nation could be due a refund. Tribal members are exempt from taxes on purchases, but utilities, retailers and others rarely recognize the exemption, she said. 
 “We’re being heavily taxed by PSEG,” Troge said. “I’m asking them to refund taxes incorrectly assessed.” 
 LIPA said only one Shinnecock member is paying sales tax on their bill, after filling out an exemption form incorrectly last year. Troge said members are paying tax other items, such as payments in lieu of taxes, that should also be excluded. 
 PSEG spokeswoman Katy Tatzel declined to comment on the tax matter, but said the utility was working with the tribe to see whether members may be eligible for a second-level arrears forgiveness program recently launched by LIPA. “We are going to hold off right now to see if the applications come through,” she said, noting that 58 tribal members previously received about&nbsp;$111,000 in arrears forgiveness. 
 In addition, LIPA in the fall provided a $30,000 grant to the Shinnecock nation to “encourage sign-ups for the New York State Energy Assistance Program (EAP).” Getting the assistance automatically qualifies customers for arrears forgiveness. “LIPA awaits reporting by the nation for how the funds were utilized under the terms of the grant,” a spokesman said. 
 The tribal government in the past has used COVID-19 and other grant programs to help members pay electric and food bills, but many of those grants have run out, Troge, said. 
 Troge said she was preparing more than 100 applications for the&nbsp;second-level arrears forgiveness program. But some accounts are commercial and may not be eligible. 
 LIPA said 105 residential customers on the reservation have $152,000 in past due bills, and 28 are on payment plans as low as $10 a month. About 57 have already received arrears forgiveness credits, while 48 didn’t have balances prior to May 1, 2022, and can’t qualify. Around half of the arrears, about&nbsp;$75,000, LIPA said, relates to the post-COVID period and would not be eligible. About 17 accounts&nbsp;classified as commercial have past due bills totaling $17,000, LIPA said. 
 Earlier this month, state Attorney General Letitia James toured the tribe’s 1.3-square-mile reservation, which has more than&nbsp;200 homes and 800 residents. James’ office is handling litigation against the tribe by the Department of Transportation seeking removal of the tribe’s monument/billboards on Sunrise Highway, a major economic project. James' office&nbsp;didn’t respond to a request for comment.

poPSEG230314

PSEG won't shut off power to Shinnecock Indian Nation amid growing arrears

Power will stay on at Shinnecock nation — for now — amid arrears on electric bills

poPSEG230314_photos

The Long Island Power Authority has named a second-in-command with the promotion of Mujib Lodhi to chief operating officer, while the State Senate has appointed two new members to the LIPA board as the state authority takes steps toward becoming a fully public utility. 
 LIPA on Wednesday confirmed to Newsday that Lodhi, who had been chief information officer and senior vice president of customer experience, received the promotion in recent weeks 
 Lodhi has been one of the more visible LIPA officials in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Isaias, when PSEG Long Island computer and communication systems experienced breakdowns&nbsp;and more than 500,000 customers lost power, some for up to a week. LIPA formed a task force to look into the issues&nbsp;and required PSEG to upgrade systems and performance in the aftermath. 
 A new PSEG contract also put half the company’s annual $80 million compensation at risk based on performance. 
 In the interim, a state legislative committee has begun marking out a course for&nbsp;LIPA to a fully public utility, ending the public-private arrangement that has kept PSEG in place since 2014. PSEG’s contract ends in 2025, and the legislative committee could propose legislation to facilitate the fully public model this spring. A draft of the report on that plan is due&nbsp;in coming weeks. 
 Lodhi joined LIPA in 2018&nbsp;and previously worked at utilities including the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, DC Water and Riverside Public Utilities. Lodhi’s annual salary increases to a top-level $355,000 from $339,750 in 2022. Newsday last year reported that Lodhi maintains a home in Fairfax, Va.&nbsp;LIPA said he has an apartment on Long Island, but declined to say where. 
 In his new position, Lodhi maintains his chief information officer and customer experience roles, along with prior duties managing PSEG service metrics, clean-energy programs and enterprise program management, LIPA said. He reports to LIPA chief Tom Falcone. 
 LIPA said Lodhi’s duties include developing and executing its corporate strategy&nbsp;and work plans, and business process optimization processes. 
 The chief operating officer role had been vacant since 2013, when John McMahon&nbsp;became&nbsp;chief executive. He resigned two years later. 
 LIPA is also expected to welcome two new trustees to its nine-member board. Dominick Macchia, international representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and treasurer of the Long Island Federation of Labor, will replace trustee Ali Mohammed, a Senate appointee. 
 Also new is Mili Makhijani, principle law clerk for Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Randy Sue Marber. Makhijani was previously an associate in the Law Offices of Frederick K. Brewington, and will replace trustee Drew Biondo. 
 All but two LIPA trustees who remain on LIPA’s nine-member board have expired terms, and all of those are appointees of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

poLIPA230311

Mujib Lodhi named LIPA operating chief, Senate appoints 2 trustees

LIPA names new operating chief, State Senate appoints 2 new trustees

Lower-income energy customers who have been anxious to make the switch from fossil fuels to more efficient heat pumps for heating and cooling lost a big incentive to switch after PSEG this month said it would sharply reduce a popular rebate program. 
 A notice sent to installers across Long Island on Feb. 16, and obtained by Newsday, said a prior rebate of $5,500 for the equipment would be reduced to $2,000 for low- and moderate-income customers. The reduction applies to cold-climate air-source heat pumps installed for a customer's&nbsp;entire house. 
 In addition, a rebate for geothermal heat pumps for lower-income customers would be reduced to $2,000 a ton from $5,500&nbsp;a ton for “tier 1 projects,” and $4,000 a ton for tier 2. Total systems can cost anywhere from $8,000 to more than&nbsp;$40,000 for geothermal systems. 
 PSEG in a statement indicated the reason for the reduction was that LIPA's budget for the program&nbsp;was depleting faster than anticipated. 
 LIPA's&nbsp;budget for low-income heat pumps was $7.3 million for 2023.&nbsp;But customers quickly signed up for the program. By&nbsp;Feb. 14, PSEG said, $2.7 million had&nbsp;been paid and another $10&nbsp;million was preapproved. 
 &quot;This total of $12.7 million is significantly above the approved budget so PSEG Long Island reduced the rebates,&quot; PSEG said, noting that the&nbsp;new rebate levels for income-eligible customers is &quot;double what non-income-eligible customers would receive for the same installation.&quot; 
 The reductions come as PSEG customers opening their bills this week&nbsp;received flyers urging them to &quot;stop by our home for savings,&quot; including &quot;warmer, cooler, cleaner comfort&quot; with heat pumps that offer&nbsp;&quot;substantial savings,&quot; notably for&nbsp;&quot;income-eligible customers.&quot;&nbsp; 
 The cuts come just as the state, and LIPA, say they are trying to vastly increase the use of heat pumps and other green-energy solutions to&nbsp;meet aggressive new climate goals while weaning customers off oil and gas heat. 
 “Rebate programs are offered to customers to assist in the adoption of new technologies and programs,&quot; said Michael Voltz, PSEG's director of energy efficiency and renewables, in a statement. &quot;As they become more successful and utilized, rebates are lowered to offer additional customers the ability to take advantage of the new programs at a reduced cost.&quot; 
 Installers say the drastic cuts in rebate amounts could apply to projects they had already begun to process but had not completed. PSEG in its letter noted the lower rebates “apply to projects that have not yet received a pre-inspection from PSEG Long Island. You will be notified if your submitted project rebate amount will be reduced.” 
 One potential customer caught in the rebate cutback&nbsp;was Edward Olaie of Great Neck, who qualified for the program and had been preparing for a new two-zone, two-unit heat-pump system in his home when he got a call from his installer last week saying prior prices no longer applied. 
 Suddenly, he said, the two-unit system that would have cost $7,500 would now cost more than $14,000, or $7,000 for just one unit that would cover only part of his home. He put the whole project on hold.&nbsp; 
 &quot;I'm definitely not spending $15,000 without the rebate,&quot; he said. &quot;We're just going to have to stick with oil for now and figure something out.&quot;&nbsp; 
 Jay Best, founder and president of green-energy firm&nbsp;Green Team LI in Holbrook, said the changes not only will have a “very significant impact on our low-income customers,&quot; but also affect&nbsp;Long Island’s &quot;energy-efficiency contractors and our ability to reduce pollution and meet climate goals.” 
 Long Island’s low-income population, he noted, is already the most impacted by the higher costs of energy, and the rebates provided by PSEG for the low- and moderate-income customers had been “a bright spot to provide them with sustainable energy efficiency upgrades in an affordable way.” 
 Best said Green Team LI has “dozens of customers who have signed up for this program and started to make plans, and now will have nowhere to turn.”&nbsp; 
 At the very least, Best said, he’s asking that the changes apply only to new contracts filed&nbsp;after Feb. 16, not those prior, because the way PSEG is now applying the lower rebates&nbsp;could affect between 50 and 100 projects he’s already begun processing.

POHEAT230222

PSEG slashes heat-pump rebates for lower-income customers

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Wait times to get through to PSEG telephone service agents spiked more than 1,500% during 2022 amid staffing problems and call-volume fluctuations, just as LIPA is preparing a complex new rate plan that could send phone inquiries even higher. 
 Figures released Wednesday show customers waited an average 545 seconds, or slightly more than 9 minutes, for a rep to answer their phone call during 2022, with fewer than 29.2% of calls answered in less than 30 seconds. That compares with an average&nbsp;33 seconds in 2021, when around 80% if calls were answered by an agent in 30 seconds.&nbsp; 
 An increase in call volumes last year was only partly to blame. Call volume in 2022 topped 1.4 million, compared with 1.12 million in 2021. A moratorium on shut-offs during the COVID-19 pandemic in&nbsp;2021 helped reduce customer inquiries, but collections and other matters were restarted in 2022.&nbsp; 
 The average time for a rep to handle customer issues once they had answered the call also jumped last year, to 7.25 minutes, from 6.5 minutes in 2021. In the August through December period, the average handle time for a call was up to 8 minutes, LIPA reported at a recent board of trustee meeting. 
 Acknowledging 2022 was “not a good year” for the PSEG call center, LIPA chief executive Tom Falcone told trustees: “I had people call me personally saying, ‘I can’t get through to the call center. Can you have somebody call me?’” 
 LIPA trustees weren’t happy. 
 “This is outrageous to me,” said trustee Laureen Harris. “I see these statistics as incredibly unacceptable.” 
 “This is such a huge item for us,” said LIPA vice chairman Mark Fischl. “This is the place where we touch our customers most to interact with us. We have to get this right.” 
 Problems in the call centers could affect PSEG’s compensation from LIPA. A report card for 2022 presented at the board meeting shows at least two service metrics tied to the call center performance could be missed as a result of the problems, affecting some $289,000 in compensation. 
 A perfect storm of factors, including staffing shortages,&nbsp;recruitment challenges, increased call volumes, long training times and new work habits during the pandemic, combined to the tank the numbers, said Carolyn MacKool, director of customer experience oversight for LIPA. The problem is so pronounced that she has been working with PSEG’s on a “Call Center Get Well” program designed to reduce customer wait times. 
 There has also been&nbsp;management turnover issues at the call centers, a decision by call center leaders “not to hire for open positions” as volumes increased, and a “poor forecast model [that] indicated fewer people were needed” to staff the call center, according to a LIPA briefing on the matter. 
 Dave Lyons, interim president and chief operating officer of PSEG Long Island, noted the Get Well plan “has contributed to a month-over-month improvement for customer hold times since September.&quot; In January, he noted, hold times were cut to 6 minutes, and are expected to be cut further, to 5.8 minutes in February.&nbsp; 
 He noted 25 new call center agents completed training in December and joined the staff in January. There are also 30 temporary agents that will help fill in at least through June. And he noted that the average time to handle customer calls is also decreasing, helping to free up more agents to handle calls. 
 PSEG, which operates the grid under contract to LIPA, also plans to implement programs to reduce repeat and abandoned calls, including repairing a callback feature and adding a new credit card vendor, while increasing self-service options. 
 Problems with the call center come at a particularly critical moment for LIPA. Next year, the utility plans to roll out new time-of-day rates, which will shift residential customers to plans that offer discounts for shifting their usage away from the 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. summer weekday. Call center reps are expected to play a big part in explaining the plans, which will permit ratepayers to shift out of a flat rate if they opt out of the time-of-day rate. 
 &quot;In 2024, when we go to time of day, that could be a more complicated, longer call,” MacKool said. “I would expect longer handle time.” 
 The forecast for 2023 isn’t rosy, either. Average speed of answer this year is forecast to be between 180 and 264 seconds, with a slightly improved 41% of calls answered in 30 seconds and an average handle time of the same 7.25 minutes as 2022. 
 “The forecast is horrendous,” Harris said. “This is just not acceptable for our customers.”

POPSEG230218

PSEG call center wait-times spiked more than 1,500% in 2022, new data shows

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As a state legislative committee works to&nbsp;finalize&nbsp;a plan to transition LIPA to a fully public utility, an investment banking firm working with&nbsp;the&nbsp;Long Island Association&nbsp;has issued a study that examines &quot;dissolving&quot; LIPA and selling its assets to an investor-owned company. 
 Both a fully public and a privately owned LIPA are different&nbsp;from the utility's current structure as a public-private partnership, with PSEG Long Island operating the utility under contract to LIPA, a state authority that owns the assets.&nbsp; 
 The newly released report by investment banking firm, Lazard, postulates that a sale of LIPA &quot;has the potential to generate proceeds of a magnitude that could enable full retirement of existing LIPA debt as well as funding&nbsp;a&nbsp;Long Island Public Benefit Trust to reduce/freeze rates and/or advance local initiatives for decades to come.&quot; 
 The plan would use an&nbsp;anticipated $16.4 billion in sale proceeds to pay off LIPA’s&nbsp;$9.8 billion debt, eliminate LIPA and PSEG management and operation fees, among other expenses, create the $5 billion trust, or even make lump-sum payments to ratepayers. 
 Lazard says the plan would “improve decision making” while transferring the risks&nbsp;of operating LIPA to a “private entity, ending the transitional role of LIPA as originally envisioned.” Under the new structure, an investor-owned utility would be under the jurisdiction of the state Public Service Commission.&nbsp; 
 Skeptics of the plan were quick to note that LIPA had&nbsp;been investor-owned once before — by&nbsp;the Long Island Lighting Co., which also had been under PSC review&nbsp;— and the results had been disastrous, including the assumption of billions of debt for the&nbsp;mothballed Shoreham nuclear power plant, among other problems. 
 Tom Falcone, LIPA's current chief executive, at a board meeting Wednesday&nbsp;likened the Lazard&nbsp;plan to refinancing&nbsp;a cash-out mortgage with an interest rate three times higher than the original.&nbsp;Lazard, Falcone said, &quot;overstates the benefits and significantly understates the cost of privatization.&quot; 
 Another observer agreed. 
 &quot;If we go back to the days of LILCO, we're going have all the same issues LILCO had,&quot; said&nbsp;Arthur Abbate, a former utility director who started at LILCO in 1975 and stayed with iterations of the company for 37 years.&nbsp;&quot;All you're going to do is change the name and add the profit motive.&quot;&nbsp; 
 But George&nbsp;Bilicic, vice chairman of Lazard's investment banking group, said the new analysis&nbsp;envisions rate savings &quot;even before we address the extra&nbsp;pool of money&quot; remaining&nbsp;after paying off LIPA's debt. As for a $16.4 billion sale price, Bilicic said he believes &quot;plenty of buyers would pay that,&quot; with the new owner helping with the state vision to &quot;drive an energy transition&quot; to green energy.&nbsp; 
 The Lazard study says in its&nbsp;first year of operations&nbsp;the new entity could save $949 million by eliminating LIPA's debt, $50 million by cutting PSEG's management fee, another $57 million by eliminating LIPA, and drawing from a pool of &quot;efficiencies&quot; of some $2.9 billion to show total first-year cost savings of some $1.34 billion. It would borrow $5.5 billion to fund operations and upgrades. 
 &quot;All we're showing is that privatization works, it's an option and that it should be considered,&quot; Bilicic said.&nbsp; 
 Other observers say the Lazard analysis minimizes&nbsp;the impacts of losing LIPA's current tax-free debt ability and access to federal subsidies for storm restoration and hardening that only public utilities can receive. They also note that Lazard&nbsp;makes suppositions that a potential buyer could well ignore.&nbsp; 
 &quot;As Long Islanders have painfully learned from many previous studies, conclusions depend on the initial assumptions,&quot; said Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor), who co-chairs the legislature's LIPA committee, &quot;Depending on assumptions, you can prove that an elephant can hang from a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy.&quot;&nbsp; 
 But the commission’s goal, Thiele said, &quot;is to provide a realistic approach to an accountable, affordable, transparent energy future. Any solution must provide long-term energy stability, not short-term gimmicks in a hypothetical world. We are going forward to better future, not backward to a failed past.”&nbsp; 
 A decade ago, then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo also considered selling LIPA to a private investor, with the help of a Lazard study, but the effort ultimately failed. At the time, the LIA under Kevin Law, who was also a former&nbsp;LIPA chief executive, took a formal stand against privatization, adopting a resolution that instead called for PSEG to replace National Grid as LIPA’s primary operator. PSEG took over management of the grid in 2014.&nbsp; 
 Current LIA president&nbsp;Matthew Cohen on Wednesday noted the business group was not specifically endorsing any particular model for LIPA, including privatization. &quot;This report is another tool in the toolbox to help guide the legislative commission,&quot; he said. &quot;We do not have a horse in this race.&quot; 
 LIA board member Robert Catell, who in the past has urged consideration of privatization,&nbsp;said he joined the state committee's LIPA advisory council with the promise that all options would be examined. &quot;We're talking about the long-term future of Long Island,&quot; Catell&nbsp;said. 
 LIPA itself has found privatizing the utility would be costly for ratepayers. A 2021 LIPA&nbsp;study found privatization would raise customer bills by an average $32 a month, chiefly because public ownership now saves them $447 million a year in financing costs. “Privatization would significantly raise customer costs,” the LIPA study found. 
 Any efficiencies claimed for a privatized LIPA “will not offset higher financing costs and loss of federal grants,” such as the $1.8 billion LIPA has received in storm restoration and hardening subsidies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency over the past 10 years. Investor-owned utilities aren’t eligible for those grants. LIPA’s study also estimated it would cost $1.45 billion just to retire tax-exempt bonds earlier than their retirement dates. 
 Falcone on Wednesday noted Lazard's proposed efficiency savings would&nbsp;be felt by the local job market and the economy. 
 &quot;Synergies are job cuts,&quot; Falcone said. The Lazard transaction&nbsp;&quot;takes a locally based business headquartered and governed on Long Island for the best interests of Long Island and the Rockaways, and sells it to the highest bidder.&quot;&nbsp;

POLIPA230216

Study sees benefits to selling LIPA to investors instead of going fully public

Study sees benefits to selling LIPA to investors rather than going fully public

poLIPA230216_photos

Long Island ratepayers who fell behind on their electric bills because of the COVID-19 pandemic may be eligible for a new one-time credit of up to $2,000 under a state-devised program that LIPA plans to begin next month. 
 The new program, which applies to all customers who haven’t previously received arrears forgiveness in the first round of credits last year, will fund around $42 million in bill credits starting next month, about&nbsp;$33 million of which LIPA said will come from existing reserves. 
 The credits will apply to arrears had accrued up through May 1, 2022.&nbsp;Past-due bills that have accrued after that date “are still owed,” LIPA said. 
 LIPA in a statement Friday said the plan would help about&nbsp;44,000 residential customers across the service territory, over and above the roughly 11,000 low-income customers already helped with $25&nbsp;million in arrears forgiveness last year, about&nbsp;$9.8 million of which was state-funded.&nbsp;A similar program for small commercial customers also will be available in 2023, LIPA said. 
 Ratepayers who are eligible don’t even need to apply for the credits, LIPA said, adding that credits will post on customers bills starting next month. 
 LIPA said the program also includes a shut-off moratorium for &quot;all residential customers until at least March 1, 2023 to avert potential service terminations for the 44,000 residential customers that will receive bill credits.&quot; In addition, ratepayers who were shut off due to a COVID-19-related issue will have power restored through a moratorium period through June 30, LIPA said.&nbsp; 
 &quot;It's a great program to help people who have gotten behind on their bills,&quot; LIPA chief Tom Falcone told Newsday Friday morning.&nbsp; 
 LIPA disclosed the program Friday, a day after the state Public Service Commission approved a similar forgiveness program for regulated utilities across the rest of the state. LIPA, which does not come under the PSC’s jurisdiction, isn’t obligated to follow its&nbsp;recommendations. 
 In an unusual rebuke, two PSC commissioners took sharp aim at LIPA and grid manager&nbsp;PSEG Long Island&nbsp;over concerns that the LIPA program could be delayed or weakened because it was handled&nbsp;outside the PSC process. 
 “I’m troubled,” said PSC commissioner Diane Burman, a former Long Islander. “This is not the first time, and it continues to happen with PSEG Long Island that they wait and then pick and choose what they are and aren’t going to do and it gets lost after the fact, and for me it’s important enough that I’m disappointed.” 
 Falcone noted&nbsp;that LIPA participated in the PSC's Energy Affordability Policy Working Group that devised the arrears forgiveness programs, and has adopted all seven recommendations of the group. 
 &quot;There's nothing we did differently,&quot; he said. &quot;We even did it on the same timeline.&quot;&nbsp; 
 Commissioner Tracey Edwards also took aim at LIPA and PSEG, saying their not coming under the jurisdiction of the PSC led to questions about how and when the utility will roll out its program. 
 “If there’s anyone that is hesitant, if there’s anyone that doesn’t understand the need for this commission to regulate utilities, they should look no further than what did not occur with LIPA and PSEG,” she said, “and how we are now waiting for them to decide to take action. Look no further to why we need this commission to regulate utilities. Look no further.” 
 Burman noted that while LIPA and PSEG had indicated their intent to implement a bill-credit program that would follow “the same general parameters” as state-regulated utilities,&nbsp;she added, “I find it incredulous that they are waiting until after we act to start” the program. 
 “They should have already started the proceeding,” she said. “They could have made sure they were aligning themselves so they’d be ready to go in real time right after we decided what we were doing.” 
 Falcone, calling the comments &quot;misinformed,&quot;&nbsp;said all LIPA/PSEG information for the working group was &quot;uploaded and available to anybody in the working group.&quot;&nbsp;LIPA's information wasn't in a final paper for Thursday's PSC vote because LIPA isn't regulated by the PSC, he said.&nbsp; 
 LIPA, Falcone&nbsp;noted,&nbsp;is implementing its program without the approval of the LIPA board, which has been informed about it,&nbsp;because the utility&nbsp;has already set aside most of the reserves for the latest arrears forgiveness program. All LIPA reserves are paid for by LIPA customers, and LIPA may have to increase reserves in future budgets to pay the roughly $9 million not covered by 2023 reserves, Falcone said.&nbsp; 
 Burman said she had also hoped the Long Island utility would have provided an “apples to apples comparison” of its plan so that other state utilities could have examined and possibly replicated it. 
 “There’s no reason it could not have been done simultaneously,” she said, “and that leaves me frustrated.”

POLATE230121

Electric bill forgiveness: LIPA to roll out arrears plan for up to 44,000 customers

LIPA to roll out new arrears forgiveness plan with credits for up to 44,000 customers

poBILL220928_photos

Ratepayers will get a another chance to weigh in on the future of LIPA as a fully public utility at a hearing in Southampton Friday before a state commission moves to formalize a plan&nbsp;for&nbsp;the 2023 legislative session. 
 The commission is working to finalize a draft report on a plan that would put the power authority fully in charge of running the utility, which is now managed by PSEG Long Island. Three public hearings took place late last year, and a fourth was added to allow Long Island’s East Enders to weigh in, said the commission co-chairman, Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor).&nbsp;Another round of hearings will take place before the final report is issued in the spring.&nbsp; 
 The draft report had been scheduled for completion by Dec. 31, but now is expected by mid&nbsp;to late February, Thiele said. The commission has hired outside counsel and a consulting firm to examine the logistics, governance and potential dollar impacts of the move, which LIPA has said could save ratepayers upward of $80 million a year. 
 PSEG, during hearings, has argued the best path forward is to keep it in the driver's seat, citing its past accomplishments for ratepayers and the potential pitfalls of&nbsp;LIPA going&nbsp;it alone. Thiele during hearings has dismissed PSEG's arguments, calling them &quot;unconvincing and most of the time misleading.&quot;&nbsp; 
 Thiele said he expects a final report with recommendations on any legislative action that would be needed this session could be concluded sometime in mid to late April (it was originally expected April 1). “The most important thing is that everybody be heard before we have that final report,” Thiele said. 
 LIPA has said it could take over control of the entity known as Servco — which is now operated by PSEG and consists of the more than 2,000 employees (mostly unionized), trucks, equipment and logistics — by hiring around a dozen new top-level managers and potentially working with outside contractors for specific tasks. 
 The move, which would happen when PSEG’s contract expires in 2025, may require legislation to allow LIPA, which owns the grid, to be among the entities legally allowed to take over day-to-day operations. In the past, the operation was managed by National Grid and its predecessors&nbsp;before PSEG won the contract in 2014. 
 Rory Lancman, a&nbsp;former state lawmaker&nbsp;who is executive director of the LIPA commission, said that while past public hearings provided a forum for entities such as PSEG and a labor union to express their reservations about a fully public LIPA, his job is not to determine if LIPA becoming&nbsp;a fully public utility is a good idea. 
 “It’s important for the people to understand that this is not a study commission,” he said. “We’re not examining the feasibility or advisability or fundamental wisdom of the public power model for LIPA. 
 “Our job is to deliver a plan that makes sense from where we&nbsp;are today for LIPA to run the electric grid on its own without paying tens of millions of dollars a year to a middleman,” Lancman said. 
 Lancman said, “We’re not capable of being influenced by PSEG or their lobbyists. It’s not our mission to decide whether or not PSEG or any other investor-owned utility should continue to act as middleman. Our job is to give the legislature a plan for cutting them out.” 
 The hearing starts at 11 a.m. at the Southampton Town Hall. 
 More information about the commission can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://nylipa.gov/home">nylipa.gov</a>.

POLIPA230120

Southampton hearing on future of LIPA set as panel prepares for action

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Complete coverage: PSEG Long Island and LIPA

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A judge is considering a request by the New York Attorney General's Office for a temporary restraining order to block an "emergency evacuation" of a Woodbury nursing home. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

Judge's decision expected Friday

Michael Koutsoubis bought 10 acres of Manorville in the 1980s, which he turned into his home and his Christmas tree farm. Newsday real estate reporter Arielle Dollinger gets a tour of the property.

Christmas tree farmer: 'This is my happy'

The money will go to 12 former Bay Shore students who had accused the district of failing to protect them from alleged sexual abuse by elementary school teacher Thomas Bernagozzi.

Decades after alleged teacher abuse, $35M in settlements OKd

A jury found the Bay Shore Union Free School District liable for failing to investigate sex abuse allegations against former teacher Thomas Bernagozzi. 

Jury unanimously agreed the district was 100% liable 

Ex-LI teacher is facing new child pornography charges after investigators found negatives of nude photographs he took of a former student. 

Ex-LI teacher accused of sexual abuse facing new pornography charges

A settlement was reached in a lawsuit against the Bay Shore school district in an alleged sexual assault case involving former teacher Thomas Bernagozzi.

Update: Lawsuit against Bay Shore school district

Victims who say they were abused by former Bay Shore teacher Thomas Bernagozzi say the district ignored their complaints. Now the community is demanding accountability. NewsdayTV's Macy Egeland reports.

'It's a huge tear in the fabric of our community'

Former Bay Shore teacher is at the center of 45 lawsuits against the school district under the Child Victims Act. NewsdayTV's Macy Egeland reports.

Former teacher arraigned on sodomy, sexual conduct against a child charges

A dead humpback whale washed ashore in Amagansett. This is the 11th whale to wash up in the area. 

Dead whale washes up in Amagansett 

Nassau County police Arson Bomb Squad detectives are searching for a male suspect who set a portable bathroom on fire outside a home under construction in Levittown.

Male set portable bathroom on fire, police say

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Suffolk Police Officer David Mascarella is back on the job after causing a 2020 crash that severely injured Riordan Cavooris, then 2. NewsdayTV's Andrew Ehinger and Newsday investigative reporter Paul LaRocco have the story.

'It's disappointing and it's unfortunate'

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