#National grid bill pay torrent

Those households will be notified that their overdue bills accumulated through May 1 of this year will be paid off, even debts incurred before Covid-19 arrived. Working with the governor and legislature, the Public Service Commission last month put together a plan to pay off the $587 million in unpaid utility bills racked up by low-income households that qualify for utility programs for the poor. In May, utilities started shutting off residential customers for nonpayment for the first time in more than two years. There’s pressure to find a solution quickly.

#National grid bill pay torrent

Without some resolution, utility companies warn, all those unpaid bills could set off a torrent of service terminations, impede economic recovery and spur utilities to seek rate increases to cover uncollectable bills. In the two years after Covid-19 arrived in March 2020, unpaid utility bills nearly tripled from $794 million to $2.3 billion statewide. The scale of the debt crisis is something never seen before. “But they are definitely looking at the people … who aren’t eligible for any of the assistance programs.’’ “Are they going to completely wipe it out? I don’t know,’’ said Bill Ferris, a legislative representative at AARP, one of the groups in the discussion. The PSC has pulled together representatives from utilities, state agencies and consumer groups to come up with a way to pay off some or all the debt. If the commission chooses to pay off all or most of their debts, ratepayers are likely to pick up at least some of the cost. The PSC is looking to help those customers, too, in a second phase of the bailout. Other residential customers and small businesses account for three-quarters of the record-setting $2.3 billion in unpaid bills that piled up during the pandemic. But the debts of customers with known low incomes are not the biggest problem.