(The Center Square) – A group that lobbies for utility companies in Wisconsin claims that recent reports on the increase of transmission rate increases in the state were presented out of context and legislation to create right-of-first-refusal laws in the state would actually lower rates.
The Wisconsin Utilities Association is a registered lobbying group on behalf of gas and electric utilities.
“Rates vary based on generation mix, geography, and investment levels,” the group said. “Wisconsin’s rates reflect its commitment to reliability and a diverse generation mix, not just transmission costs.
“If this group was interested in the facts, they would note that average customer bills, what people actually pay, are significantly below the regional and national averages, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.”
The transmission rates for American Transmission Co. have gone up 43% since 2019 while the consumer price index has increased 27% over that time, according to the Ratepayer Protection Coalition.
The utility group said that comparison was improper because “transmission infrastructure is a capital-intensive investment with long-term benefits, unlike consumer goods tracked by CPI.”
The group also said that the ROFR legislation requires competitively bid engineering, labor and materials rather than creating a monopoly.
The legislation would allow companies doing business in Wisconsin the chance to bid on work on the electric grid before any out of state companies can offer a price.
But the utilities group said that ROFR would be a good thing to lower consumer costs.
“Its passage will enable Wisconsin’s existing transmission providers to spread out more of their costs associated with new transmission lines among the states that benefit from the construction of the transmission lines,” the group said. “Developers without existing Wisconsin customers cannot spread costs across the region at the same scale that Wisconsin utilities can. ROFR laws, far from being anti-competitive, reduce project risk, streamline execution, and ensure accountability by relying on experienced incumbents.”
The ROFR legislation has been introduced in multiple forms but has yet to gain enough footing to pass the Wisconsin Legislature.
