On March 10th, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission held a public hearing on electricity rates. The hearing was picked up by several news outlets and some excerpts from the news coverage were disseminated through social media. We heard one thing that we suspected was wildly incorrect. While covering this hearing, John Perik of NBC 10 News stated that “clean energy costs” on the electric bill were going to rise 43%, and it implied that those charges were the main reason that electricity delivery charges were going up. We will explain why the implications in that statement are incorrect.

We were shocked by the reporter’s specific number on the rise in “clean energy” costs, so we investigated. What we found by looking at a table from the Public Utilities Commission was that one clean energy program will see an increase of 43% from March to April. That program is called Renewable Energy Growth (REG), and it is just one of Rhode Island’s ways of supporting in-state solar energy development. While 43% seems like a lot, the monthly cost of the Renewable Energy Growth program is going from just $4.02 to $5.75 for the average consumer, a difference of $1.73.  

Clean Energy Programs Costs on Electric Bills 

At $5.75, the REG will be just 4% of the average consumer’s total electricity bill. The Renewable Energy Growth charge is not a volumetric charge, so the charge will not fluctuate with a customer’s electricity usage. Ratepayers on the regular residential rate will only be paying $5.75 each billing cycle. Below, we have broken down a typical bill and looked at how programs billed to ratepayers are projected to change for the summer rate.

Table created from data provided on the Public Utilities Commission agenda from March 10th, 2025.

The key point is that the REG program is not the only “clean energy program” that Rhode Islanders fund on their electricity bill. The reporter made it sound like REG was everything. A larger program is the Renewable Energy Distribution Charge (REDC), which funds two policies, one involving the cost of long-term contracts with generators such as Block Island Wind, and the other involving net metering, which is similar to the REG program and you can see that charge is decreasing by 10% in the proposed summer rate.  

While we see that the increase in the REG charge is the largest percentage increase in delivery charges on electric bills under the proposed new rate, the distribution and transmission charges (including the fixed monthly charge) contribute the largest shares of the delivery charges on these bills (shown above).  

Clean Energy Programs Are Only Increasing 2.7% - Not 43%! 

So, when looking at these bills, we found that the REG charge will increase and the REDC charge will decrease. Another clean energy program that was not recognized by the reporter is the Energy Efficiency Charge, which is not changing at all. When you add up the REG program, the long-term contracts for renewable energy generation, net metering, and energy efficiency, the increase in the cost of clean energy programs is just 2.6%, not 43%. It is important to get this distinction correct because ratepayers have been made to feel that these clean energy programs are responsible for increasing bills, when there is much more to the equation.

Table created from data provided on the Public Utilities Commission agenda from March 10th, 2025.

Benefits of Clean Energy Spending 

Make no mistake, Rhode Island’s clean energy programs are not exploding in cost, but they are helping the Ocean State to gradually reduce our overdependence on fossil fuels that we import from other states and countries. These programs are creating jobs for Rhode Islanders. Development in our offshore wind industry creates jobs in manufacturing and construction, and energy efficiency programs funded in 2023 through ratepayer funds had benefits such as: 

•  $495 million in total benefits to Rhode Islanders
• 749 full-time equivalent jobs created
• $21.1 million in lifetime electric bill savings

These benefits point to the fact that investments in clean energy and energy efficiency save money over time and can often work together. Cutting investments would have negative impacts on our environment and energy affordability – for example, energy efficiency helps reduce demand on our electric grid which can reduce the impact that price volatility with fossil fuels has on electric bills. Rhode Island also has a 100% by 2033 Renewable Energy Standard (RES), and to meet that mandate, ‘obligated entities’ (investor-owned utilities or retail electricity suppliers) must either purchase new Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) or pay an alternative compliance payment (ACP). In 2022, 46.5% of the RECs purchased to meet this obligation were sourced in-state, which indicated continued investment in our clean energy future and money spent on clean energy programs remaining in-state.   

Here’s another relevant fact: In 2022 (this is the most recent data year available from the federal Energy Information Administration), Rhode Island’s total energy tab was $4.3 billion. According to WPRI, electric ratepayers paid $335.5 million for all clean energy programs in 2023. Simple math shows that clean energy is less than 8% of our total energy bill. At a time when fossil fuel bills are rising, it’s irresponsible to blame renewable energy and energy efficiency. Without clean energy programs, Rhode Islanders would need to rely on other energy resources, mainly fossil fuels, to fill the gap in demand.