Aberdeen in White Plains

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ES/financials?p=ES

Where do you see excessive profits? Their profit is literally regulated by the state.

Eversource did not cause natgas to go from $1 to 6 (or $30 in the winter in NE). Imagine being in Europe where it is $40+. I think there's a lot of fat in the system just as much as anyone, but geopolitics is the driving factor for most of the cost increase in the last couple of years. Eversource's problems were already reflected in everyone's baseline power bill.

Agreed, good point. One fiber run but free choice of data providers. Muni/coop or investor owned utility owning the actual fiber doesn't matter too much, as long as you have a choice in data provider. Sort of like you have a choice of power provider but Eversource owns the power lines so you pay them for transmission and distribution.

Public utilities are monopolies by necessity. It would be stupid to have multiple companies compete to build pipelines, data lines, and power lines to your house.

The difference between a free market monopoly (ie Google for search) and a public utility (ie Eversource) is regulations and oversight by a public utility commission (a function of CT govt) which allows the utility to pass through operating costs and collect a rate of return on capital invested to build new infrastructure.

One issue is with the type of oversight. There is no incentive to reduce operating costs because they are passed through to us. There is a perverse incentive to build as much as possible and for it to cost as much as possible so that they can collect an annual investment return on a bigger base of assets.

So don't be furious at the utility, be furious at the ineffective regulation. That being said, utility regulation is no different here than anywhere else. Plenty of places in the US have cheap utility bills.

The main difference relative to other regions of the US is that infrastructure cost in the northeast is more expensive (labor, permitting, regulatory compliance, etc) and natural gas (which drives power prices) is far more expensive, especially in the winter. The Northeast, particularly NY has essentially banned any new pipeline build which causes gas to be constrained in the winter when home heating demand is heaviest. The justification is the anti-fracking movement, NIMBYism, and lack of open space and right of ways to build this infrastructure. Same goes for power transmission lines that could import cheap hydro power from Quebec or other cheap power sources.

So for your high utility bills, blame NIMBYism, environmentalists, and other opposition to cheap power and natural gas. And if you believe we shouldn't build more gas pipelines, wind farms off the Cape (because they're an eyesore), transmission lines to bring in cheap power or reach remote solar/wind, etc., then don't blame yourself, but just recognize that's the price we all pay to make the world a less carbon intensive place and to not have power and gas lines buried in our backyards.

Oh and I forgot to mention natural gas is just expensive across the US now because European gas is through the roof (again, underinvestment coupled with loss of Russian gas), driving our gas higher since we can export some of it via LNG. It's hard to get companies to invest in more gas wells because ESG pressure to reduce gas consumption makes it a dubious long term investment.