Historic COVID-19 Crisis Requires Innovative Reform for Utility Customers

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to highlight the cracks in utility systems and society as a whole. Hundreds of deaths, rising unemployment, and unprecedented economic instability have left far too many Oregonians struggling to survive. Oregon’s communities of color are both most vulnerable to the virus and hardest hit by the resulting economic crisis. Low-income households have fallen deeper into financial crisis as debts continue to mount.

This once-in-a-century crisis requires once-in-a-century public policy solutions. Many public and private Oregon utilities have voluntarily halted service disconnections and made other moves to assist customers. Though commendable, it is not enough for utilities to focus on short-term relief given the potentially long-lasting customer impacts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Oregon needs reform.

CUB is pushing decisionmakers to address the needs and underlying inequities of our utility systems, beginning with a COVID-19 Energy Utility Customer Protection Plan. CUB submitted this plan to the PUC within the context of their COVID-19 customer impact process that began in June and will wrap up in September. We appreciate the input other stakeholders have provided during development of this plan, which is targeted to private, investor-owned energy* utilities. It combines short-term crisis management with the long-term solutions we believe are necessary to rebuild a more resilient and equitable energy utility system.

CUB’s COVID-19 Energy Utility Customer Protection Plan first urges the PUC to act swiftly to manage the immediate needs of the crisis. With rapidly increasing numbers of customers with unpaid utility bills and the winter heating season approaching, many Oregonians could lose vital energy services. CUB urges the PUC to adopt and extend the current voluntary shutoff moratoriums from the investor-owned, regulated energy utilities until next spring unless the economy improves significantly.

Finding solutions to mounting debt will also prevent shutoffs once CUB’s proposed (and PUC-mandated) moratorium ends. Oregon should also create a $100 million COVID-19 Customer Impact Fund that prioritizes financial assistance for low-income customers to reduce their past due bills. Energy utilities should allow more time for payment, with agreements of up to three years to manage past due obligations. Utilities should also allow customers who stay current on their utility bills to defer payment of their past due amount.

To build a more resilient and equitable energy utility system for the future, CUB’s plan also calls for reforming flawed systems. Though energy utilities cannot solve the broad issues of income inequality and structural racism that aggravate the COVID-19 crisis, they should not make it worse. For example, energy utilities should retire policies that impose additional and questionable costs on low-income customers. Specifically, CUB advocates for eliminating deposit requirements, de-incentivizing disconnections, and removing fees for reconnection.

Low-income households and communities of color face a greater energy burden than other populations. Low-income energy burden must be addressed by expanding programs for weatherization and community solar, access to high efficiency demand response resources like electric hot water heaters and heating/cooling systems, as well as manufactured home repair or replacement. Rate discounts and other policy tools must be considered to address low-income energy burden, even if they require legislative authorization.

CUB led efforts in 2018 with Community Action Partnership of Oregon and Northwest Energy Coalition to require energy utilities to report service disconnection data to the PUC on a quarterly basis. CUB and other stakeholders pushed the PUC to request more data from energy utilities early in the PUC’s COVID-19 customer impact process. This data revealed the extent of unpaid bills and customer impacts due to COVID-19.

CUB’s COVID-19 Energy Utility Customer Protection Plan calls for monthly reporting from energy utilities to highlight additional data points such as customers’ past due amounts, disconnection notices, disconnections, and reconnections by zip code. These new data points will help CUB and others track the impact of program improvements in the long term to identify best practices.

Parallel to discussion of CUB’s COVID-19 Energy Utility Customer Protection Plan at the PUC’s August 1 COVID-19 Workshop, PUC Staff proposed their solutions based on stakeholder input in previous workshops. There are similarities between CUB’s Plan and PUC Staff proposals, but many of the PUC suggestions do not go far enough.

While CUB’s COVID-19 Energy Utility Customer Protection Plan has certainly helped shape the conversation around energy utility responses, there is still much to be done. In September, the PUC will release a report on the findings of their COVID-19 customer impact process. While CUB expects the regulated energy utilities, in particular, to push back on many reforms, we will continue to urge strong action from the PUC.

To create meaningful and lasting change, the PUC needs to see a groundswell of support for CUB’s proposals and suggestions from other groups, especially those representing impacted communities. CUB will also reach out to our members to provide on-the-ground reports of COVID-19 customer impacts.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown a bright light on the existing fissures within our society. Now is the time to fix those cracks in the energy utility sector and build a better future together.

(*CUB’s COVID-19 Energy Utility Customer Protection includes suggestions applicable to other utilities regulated by the PUC - traditional telecommunications utilities and the relatively few private water utilities in Oregon - and could be a model for providers of unregulated utility services: public power, municipal water and sewer, and broadband internet access service.)

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