MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • December 12, 2021
The recent lawsuit against Avangrid, Central Maine Power’s corporate parent, only strengthens the argument for a consumer-owned utility, where the utility is responsive to its customers, who are the shareholders in the company. Avangrid is in trouble because of trying to raise profits in order to satisfy shareholders rather than their customers. They used an incentive that was, originally, put in by the Public Utilities Commission to use capital investments as encouragement to improve services to the electric infrastructure. Avangrid perverted this incentive to drive up profits by buying equipment they had no intention of using. This has to be looked into and revised by our state consumer advocate and the PUC. ~ Jake Hawkins, Arundel