Is the Maine PUC Covering Up for Renewables Effect on the Standard Offer Price Increase?

by Dan McKay

on Monday

Why does the Maine PUC keep telling people that Standard Offer costs are solely tied to natural gas costs?
 
Here the PUC tells Legislators on the EUT Committee that a new program initiated by ISO-NE will increase Standard Offer Prices:
"Suppliers indicated that certain ISO-NE program costs increase risks as the costs are highly variable, uncertain and are not costs that can be easily hedged. For example, ISO-NE introduced a new program, Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Initiative (DAAS or DASI), in March of 2025." 
 
Why not tell us why DAAS and DASI are needed? Here is an explanation uncovered from the internet:
"The new day-ahead ancillary services (DA A/S) market design will directly improve the ability of system operators and generation owners to respond to the system’s sudden energy shortfalls by dispatching fast-ramping, reserve-capable resources. This phenomenon will occur more often as more intermittent resources supply energy needs and unexpected spikes in demand increase." 
 
And here is the PUC telling the EUT Committee that Net Energy Billing is another culprit raising costs:
"Suppliers Paid for Load Served (pass-through of NEB risk) Suppliers indicated that they include a risk premium associated with the Net Energy Billing (NEB) kilowatt-hour (kWh) credit program. Their risk comes from an imbalance between load obligation and billed load resulting from the load settlement process."