Utilities: Winter Moratorium Voluntary Extension

At the request of National Consumer Law Center, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has asked electric and gas companies to extend the winter moratorium (hold on shut-offs of utilities related to home heating) to April 16.  The DPU did not order the companies to extend the moratorium until April 16, but merely requested that they do so. However, in the past the companies have always complied with this type of request.

Also, note that the DPU has apparently only sent these letters to the regulated investor owned companies (NSTAR, NGRID, Unitil, WMECO, Bay State, New England Gas, Berkshire Gas, Blackstone Gas), not to the municipal utilities.  Some advocates have reported that even in the absence of a request letter from the DPU, some municipal utilities have agreed to extend the winter moratorium.

- Adapted from “[NCLC UtilNet] DPU extends winter moratorium to April 16”, e-mail, from Charlie Harak, owner-utilitynetwork@lists.nclc.org, March 07, 2010 and ” [NCLC UtilNet] RE: Winter moratorium/munis”, e-mail from Charlie Harak owner-utilitynetwork@lists.nclc.org, March 11, 2010.

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