Despite boosting its power grid last year with $760 million in improvements, Northeast Utilities plummeted in J.D. Power and Associates”™ annual study of business satisfaction with electricity service.
The Berlin-based company owns Connecticut Light & Power Co. (CL&P), the largest electricity company serving Fairfield County.
Northeast Utilities ranked 12th of 14 large utilities in the east studied by J.D. Power. A year ago, the company ranked fifth.
Northeast Utilities swam against the national current ”“ utilities achieved an all-time high in satisfaction among business customers in the latest survey.
J.D. Power ranked utilities by:
Ӣ power quality and reliability;
Ӣ customer service;
Ӣ company image;
Ӣ billing and payment;
Ӣ price; and
Ӣ communications.
Connecticut Consumer Counsel Mary Healey said she was concerned by the J.D. Power rankings.
“They have had serious issues with the culture in their customer service, at least in ”¦ CL&P,” Healey said.
The latest surveys come against a backdrop of Northeast Utilities installing new electricity transmission lines in Southwest Connecticut that have stabilized the region”™s power grid.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the price of power,” said Mitch Gross, a CL&P spokesman. “I think we are seeing it again with these numbers. No one is pleased with the price of power, including us.”
New power lines between Bethel and Norwalk saved Connecticut ratepayers $150 million in federally imposed “congestion” charges last year, according to Northeast Utilities. NU completed the project in October 2006 at a cost of $335 million.
Work is roughly 70 percent complete on three additional lines connecting Norwalk with Middletown, Stamford and Long Island, N.Y.
Northeast Utilities reported a $73 million profit in the fourth quarter and $1.3 billion in revenue, but lowered its 2008 earnings forecast after Connecticut regulators did not allow CL&P to charge customers for certain operating costs.
For the year, the company had net income of $247 million and revenue of $5.8 billion.
CL&P is spending up to $10 million this year on advance meters for 2,000 customers, intended to provide opportunities to cut power bills. The company cautioned that it could be years before it undertakes a wide-scale rollout of the devices.
“I think it would be ”¦ some years before we get to the point where we are going to be swapping out 1 million meters,” said David McHale, chief financial officer of Northeast Utilities, in a conference call last month with analysts.
New Haven-based UIL Holdings, whose United Illuminating Co. utility provides service in the Bridgeport area, was not included in the survey. Consolidated Edison Inc. took over Northeast Utilities”™ fifth-place slot in the east; in 2006 Con Ed ranked next to last due to extended blackouts in its service territory in New York City and Westchester County, N.Y.
New York”™s Long Island Power Authority ranked next to last nationally.
Allentown, Pa.-based PPL Utilities was the best performing company among Northeast Utilities”™ peers, a position it has held five of the last seven years. California”™s Sacramento Municipal Utility District led the nation on the poll by J.D. Power, which is based in Westlake Village, Calif.
