Electricity Maine will have to refund about 20,000 customers and pay a $315,000 fine for what a state agency is calling “unfair billing practices”

The Maine Public Utilities Commission approved a settlement Wednesday after a lengthy investigation when the utility switched its customers to variable rate contracts without their consent.

The state’s public advocacy agency received more than a hundred complaint calls and emails from Electricity Maine customers inside of four months between 2022 and 2023.

The agency says Electricity Maine was charging some customers a rate more than double the standard offer rate, without obtaining customers’ consent or notifying them that the rate had increased or that their contracts had been extended.

In 2000, the Maine Legislature restructured the state’s electric industry by taking power companies out of the generating business, allowing them only to deliver electricity.

For the supply of electricity, consumers can choose either the standard offer rate, which is set annually by the PUC, or alternatively, choose a competitive electricity provider (CEP) such as Electricity Maine, whose rates are not subject to PUC review or approval.

In its complaint to the PUC, the OPA showed that Electricity Maine was charging some customers a rate more than double the standard offer rate, without obtaining customers’ consent or notifying them that the rate had increased or that their contracts had been extended.

The financial penalty of $315,000 is also part of the settlement. “Maine customers were overcharged by millions of dollars compared with what they would have paid had they paid the standard offer price for electricity,” said Maine Public Advocate William Harwood.

“Given the company’s unsatisfactory practices in Maine over the last few years, it’s my fervent hope that this will remind them to respect our laws of fair trade.”