During its September 2020 meeting, the Board of Commissioners for Norwich Public Utilities (NPU) approved new rates for the four services we provide our customers. Through a very thorough, ‘cost-of-service’ analysis, the NPU Board set rates based on the actual costs of providing safe and reliable utility service to our customers every day.

The very modest increases put in place for the next three years will be invested in maintaining the reliability, safety, and exceptional customer service that NPU has demonstrated – and our community has come to expect. And by approving three years of rates at one time, we can offer our customers – particularly our business customers – far more certainty than we have in the past.

These new rates, which took effect on November 1, 2020, keep NPU very competitive with the investor-owned utilities in our state. The NPU Board approved:

• No increase to our electric rates this year for the third consecutive year; our rates are now approximately 24% lower than those of investor-owned utilities in the region; in the following two years, increases of 1.5 percent are proposed.
• No increase to our natural gas rates this year, which are very competitive with other utilities in the region; in the following two years, increases of 2.3 percent are proposed. The rate plan implements very modest increases over the next three years covering all costs except the Purchased Electric Adjustment (PPA) or Purchased Gas Adjustment (PGA) which are adjusted at most 1-2 times a year and are market-driven. We are expecting a small PGA increase to go into effect in January.
• No increase to our water rates for the next three years – following significant investments to modernize our infrastructure over the past few years
• Increases of 6% to our sewer rates in each of the next three years. This increase is needed to help fund a long-overdue and state-mandated project that will modernize our entire wastewater system that will serve the next generation of our community. And we are hopeful that by having our new facility serve some of our neighboring towns, we will be able to reduce the overall costs of this critical project.

If you have any questions regarding our rates or service-related issues, please feel free to reach out to us at any time and we can arrange for the appropriate member of our team to speak with you.