Customers shocked by electric bills

Rockville Centre residents expressed their frustration with a recent hike in their electricity bills at a recent village board meeting.

Mayor Francis Murray and the trustees discussed the jump in the cost of electricity at a session on Oct. 11. Several community members said they were concerned, and confused, about how much their bills have risen over the past couple of months, and the board explained why that is happening and touched on possible solutions.

“Most of the village’s power demands are met by hydro power, purchased from Niagara in New York,” Trustee Emilio F. Grillo said. “This has been the case since the mid-1950s.” The village leadership at the time negotiated the purchase of hydropower because it was inexpensive to generate, which, according to Grillo, is still true today.

“With the added benefit of being a cleaner, greener way to produce power, hydropower provides 70 percent of our power at peak times and closer to 100 percent during usual demand periods,” Grillo said. Historically, that is why the village’s electricity rates have been less expensive than PSE&G’s. But the price of electricity in the village has increased sharply, while PSE&G’s rates have not, leaving neighbors puzzled.

“When I moved to this town in 1985, I was told by my realtor at the time that our water and electric was about half (the cost) of LIPA, and it really was,” Juliann Zipkin, a real estate agent, said. “For years and years and years, we would tell people when they were looking at houses, it’s a fabulous town, fabulous community, we have our own electric, have our own water. I can’t say that anymore.” Zipkin added that given the increase in energy costs, she doesn’t see the point in promoting village electricity.

Zipkin said she paid $1,400 to $1,500 for electricity over the summer months, which is as much as three times what she has paid in the past. “And I’m in a moderate three-bedroom, and not in a 5,000-square-foot home,” Zipkin said, “so something is wrong with the picture.”

The trustees explained that the coronavirus pandemic, record heat, global instability and high demand have affected the supply of fuel not only in New York, but globally. “We’re at the mercy of the price of the day,” Murray said.

“So the production of power, the transmission, and congestion due to high demand, are all outside of our control as a village,” Grillo said. “And they all grow significantly and cause an increase in our statements.”

To help residents better understand what is going on, Grillo detailed the electricity bills. “There’s a base rate and there’s a fuel adjustment surcharge,” he said, explaining that the base rate — controlled by Rockville Centre Electric — has not increased in the past 12 years, but the village has no control over the surcharge.

Several attendees said they would have liked to receive a letter along with their bill that gave them options for paying it off. But Village Administrator Nancy Howard said the board didn’t see the price spike coming.

Michael Gallo, a new resident of the village, said he wanted to know how the board was going to solve the problem. “I think we all understand what’s going on with the world and gas prices and everything,” he said, “but how are you going to fix this? You guys did a great job explaining the problem, but I didn’t hear a solution.”

Grillo explained that there are too few electrical lines from Niagara Falls — where the power is generated — to Rockville Centre. “There’s only two lines that come down to transport power,” Grillo said. “The goal and the hope is that a third line will be opened in the spring.” According to Grillo, that would reduce energy congestion, and with it the cost of electricity.

But some residents had some suggestions of their own. One woman, Elizabeth Arnott, recommended that RVC get its electricity from PSE&G, because the rates in other towns aren’t spiking as high Rockville Centre’s. She suggested a hybrid system, and asked the board if it would be possible to use PSE&G for everyday power and switch to the current electric plan only for emergencies. Arnott said that a lot of people agree with her, that the current system is great for dealing with power outages, but they aren’t sure if it’s worth the high price.

A hybrid system could be a potential solution, Grillo said, but he added that the board wanted to consider every option. Grillo mentioned thatsaid that the board must consider future PSE&G rates, and that trustees believe that the village’s own rates will come down to the point where a hybrid system would not be beneficial.

And as it turns out, the most economical PSE&G service is not available to the village. “The detriment is that we’re not allowed to be part of the compendium of protective consortium communities that purchase in bulk,” Grillo said.

Other suggestions included looking into different forms of renewable energy. “If you allow everyone to put solar panels on the roofs and allow battery backup systems,” Gallo said, “we can fluctuate this peak power problem we’re running into.”

Trustee Katie Conlon said that she and the board were talking about using solar energy. “We’ve also been discussing, as a board, putting solar panels on some of our municipal buildings with battery backup, battery storage,” she said.

But the board doesn’t want to disturb the town’s aesthetics. “We don’t want to interfere with our treescape,” Conlon said. “So it’s a little bit challenging, because we don’t want to damage that.”

The federal Build Back Better Act would give the village enough funding to install solar panels, according to Murray. “We have gotten more grant money — $40 million — for the size of our village than any other village in the state of New York,” the mayor said. “When the guidance comes down, we’re all over that money. We will be putting solar panels on all our flat roofs.”

Adding a power transport line and installing solar panels are not short-term fixes, but is hopeful that electricity bills will be noticeably smaller by early to mid-2023.