>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made about six weeks ago, in the middle of one of the coldest western New York winters in many years.

RG&E customers got a notice from the utility.

It was a kind of warning that energy bills would likely be significantly higher than typical Rochester's.

January was the coldest in more than a decade.

Arjund didn't want customers to be shocked when they saw their next bills, and they did have some advice for customers on energy saving techniques as well.

We asked our genie to come in and discuss what has been going on from the challenge of this past winter, specifically to possible effects of two major wars, to better understanding your billing.

They're here to do exactly that.

And while they can't analyze your specific bill live on the show, they can certainly talk generally about what they do and why they do it.

And we'll take your comments for RG&E in various ways.

If you want to call the program, it's 8442958442958255.

If you want to email us, it's Connections at wxxi.org.

You can comment or chat in the YouTube chat.

If you're watching live on YouTube.

Our guests this hour are the CEO of Nyseg and RG&E Trish Nilsen.

Trish, welcome.

Thanks for being with us.

>> Thanks for having us.

>> And Chris Knospe is regional manager of Nyseg and Rajini, the municipal community and business Relations.

Chris, welcome.

Thank you for being here as well.

Thanks, Evan.

So I'm going to start in generally before we even get to some emails, which we already have.

And I'm going to ask both of you to kind of describe what this past winter has been like.

And then I know part of what you're here to do is help us understand the elements of a bill and how people can better understand their own billing.

But in general, let's start with this.

I'll ask the CEO, how hard was this winter?

>> This winter was cold.

This winter was expensive in terms of supply costs.

And, and for us, supply is a price pass through.

So I've been with the companies Nyseg and RG&E for more than 30 years.

We had to divest our generation.

So we buy energy supply on the market just like just like any other utility in New York state.

Other states, they may own the generation.

So we had adequate supply.

So let's start with that.

We weren't at a point where it was extremely cold and we were unable to get supply.

We were always able to get electricity supply for our customers and natural gas on the cost side though, there are portions of the bill that we can't control and that's supply.

Supply is about 44% of the bill on average.

But my guess is as it got really cold, it's probably more than that.

Maybe something for customers to think about is I hear from people a lot who say, I didn't change my thermostat.

Why is my bill higher?

And for one, it is because that supply price fluctuates each month.

The other is, even if you don't change your thermostat when it's one degree negative degrees, ten degrees versus 20 degrees your heating systems are working harder.

So all of that, your hot water heater, your whatever source you're using to heat your house, that system is working harder.

And if it's electricity or natural gas base, it's using more energy.

>> Before the program began, you talked briefly with me about the effects of wars.

And I think there is in the lay public, there's this idea that, well, we're watching, we're learning in real time about the Strait of Hormuz and what's going on in Iran.

And the the presumption might be, well, this is going to further affect energy prices or could quickly affect energy prices.

Does the war in Iran have any effect on our bills right now?

>> So far, no.

So the electricity supply that we purchase on behalf of customers, about 50% of it is actually based on natural gas.

So natural gas generators that are producing electricity, it used to be only about 40%.

And the rest we're using fuel oil.

But their dual fuel generation.

So they were able to.

And actually before this conflict, they switched over to natural gas.

So we're really not dependent on that.

What did make a difference was the amount of extreme cold and where it was happening.

If we think back to when we were really bundled up earlier this year, it was all across the East Coast.

You were hearing in Florida about damage to crops.

You know, geckos and lizards or whatever.

Falling?

Yeah, falling out of trees.

Right.

Extreme cold.

And that affected the entire East Coast.

It affected into, you know, Texas and other areas that created a tremendous demand for those natural gas supply, you know, the natural gas supply to really serve all these customers that drove prices up.

and our customers saw some of it.

If you're on a, what I'm going to call, and this is going to be a, a tip for customers because I figure people are calling in to say, how can I, how, what's RG&E doing?

And what can I do to affect my energy bill?

To start with, know what rate you're on.

we can't select that for our customers.

So if you're on a straight rate, meaning you're a residential customer and you use energy at 10:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night or 2:00 in the morning, you're paying the same amount for each of those hours.

If you're on a day night, rate your bill on that second page is going to say on and off.

So I'm going to start with if you're on a straight rate, which the vast majority of RG&E residential customers are, if you're on that straight rate, we actually have permission in our rate structure from the Public Service Commission to hedge 70% of that.

That price per year.

So it's, it's, it's like if you went to a farm and said, I'll buy your crops for the next five years, 70%, but give me a good price.

We're able to do that for our customers.

Actually, it's 70% annually.

So when it got extremely cold and when the team was seeing that supply price going up, they actually increased the hedge.

So we were able to save our customers some money.

We have to do 70% annually.

So we moved it up to 80% during this extreme cold.

And as we are seeing now, that price is starting to go down.

So we don't have to hedge as much.

So we were able to save our customers some money.

If you're on that straight rate and we actually we actually did significant savings for our customers, but only for the customers on that straight rate.

>> Why would anybody be on day night then?

>> Well, it over time, that day night rate has been a good thing.

So if you were on that day, night rate for ten years or so, and you really were able to switch your energy use to the night, some customers have heating systems.

Years ago, a lot of people had electric thermal storage heating that would actually come on only at night.

And then you'd use that energy during the day.

That's a great deal.

If you have an electric vehicle, if you have another source of heat and you have an electric vehicle and that thing's going to be plugged in and you can set it on a timer to come on at midnight and, and, and, and power up.

Then if you're able to turn your water, heating your laundry, all the things, if you can get enough use to the night, it's a good, it's a good rate.

However, we can't hedge that price.

So those customers were seeing some price spikes.

It's a very small number of customers in the Rochester area, but the one ask I would have for people is the best way to control your energy costs is to look at that bill.

And I'm looking forward to talking a little bit more about that.

>> Well, so let's talk about that, bill.

First of all, Chris, anything you want to add regarding what this winter has been like?

>> Is it over?

You know, today's a great day, but it seems like we're going to be getting a little bit colder tomorrow.

But now we've seen that too, you know, in our department, what we do is we work with our local elected officials and community groups.

And one of the things that we do is we host what we call community Connections.

So we'll partner with a municipality.

We're actually having one tonight in the town of Sodus in Wayne County.

A few weeks back, we had three here in Monroe County, one in the city, one in the town of Webster and the other in the town of gates, where we'll bring customer service reps with us to that location so that customers can sit down and have a face to face interaction with them to get one on one time to review their bill and go over any issues that they may have.

We'll bring our customer advocates in and so that they can sit down and look at what assistance is out there for them.

You know, and we've also partnered with Department of Social Services, Department of Human Services here in Monroe County.

The, the folks there have been fantastic to partner with us as we try to get people access to heat benefits or our energy assistance programs or our enhanced energy assistance programs that we have.

We'll bring in energy efficiency team to kind of look at.

Here are the options that are available that you can take advantage of if you're looking at that.

So, so when we're sitting down and we're going through, you know, we have had individuals coming in, you know, wanting to know why is my bill higher at this time?

And, you know, 99 out of 100 times it is going to be the usage and the supply rate of what what we're looking at and they're going through.

So and what's great too, is if they have a smart meter, we can look and find out, okay, well, where were your spikes happening and how do you overlay what the temperature was at that time?

So, you know, I can tell you of looking at mine.

I can see where my furnace was running that extra time when we were hitting zero degrees, when, you know, the storms came through at the end of December and beginning of, I'm sorry, end of January, beginning of February.

I can also see where that spikes up.

And my daughter comes home from college and does 29 loads of laundry.

So, you know, it's a, it's a great tool and it's something that we can sit there and show show the customer, you know, this is what we're seeing, this is what your usage is happening.

And here's the supply side.

Remember, we're the energy delivery company.

We're not the supply company, as Trish mentioned, we just do the pass through.

And so we're able to kind of show what's the difference between this is what you're seeing on the delivery side that we control that goes into our infrastructure, which is, you know, approximately 40% of the bill.

And then when you look at the supply side and the government charges or state charges that are on there you know, that make up the other 60%.

>> Talking to Chris Knospe, regional manager of Nyseg and RG&E municipal Community and Business Relations, Trish Nilsen, the CEO of Nyseg and RG&E is also here there in studio with us talking about what has been a challenging winter and talking about your bills.

And before we get to your questions, here's what we're going to do.

I've got one other question for Trish.

I'm going to ask them to talk about understanding your bill, how to really look at your bill and understand it, and then we'll get to some questions from listeners.

Just briefly on the war.

Is there any scenario in the war in Iran where our jinae's bills would be effective?

Because, as you said, for now, you're pretty insulated from what's going on for a number of reasons.

Is there anything that could happen there that would affect what you're charging customers.

>> At this time?

I don't see anything that it really you know, I think that's where the state would step in.

We get our energy supply through the New York Independent System operator up to that point on the savings, we've been able to recognize savings for our customers through the hedging at about $30 million over this cold snap.

What customers may see with with wars and conflicts is if there's any domestic impacts.

So, you know, the thing that we're always worried about is, is if something happens here.

So we are vigilant in terms of our cybersecurity, in terms of our physical security.

And I, I hesitate to think about any of those terrible things, but certainly we're, we're always looking to enter into long term supply contracts where we're allowed to by regulation to try to mitigate any sort of outside impacts.

>> So what do you want people to understand about their own bills?

>> So what I'd like them to understand, first of all, the last time RG&E rates changed was in May of 2025.

So your arjun.p rates haven't changed.

Your supply rates have.

And the supply rate actually is something that is, is not, it's a, it's a price pass through to Chris's point.

What we buy it at is what we put on the bill.

>> it's, it's about 40% of the bill is the energy delivery.

What you pay for pipes and wires.

for us to maintain our system, for us to actually read the meter, deliver the energy to you install a smart meter, all of those things.

that's part of your delivery rate.

The other parts of the bill, it's about 45% that we estimate goes to electricity supply.

It's about 44%.

If you're a gas customer that goes to gas supply, again, those prices aren't as regulated.

The Public Service Commission doesn't have the ability to regulate those the way that they do with us.

Everything we do is highly scrutinized by the Public Service Commission.

and then you have government charges.

I don't think many customers know the amount of government charges that are on their bill.

where the number one tax payer for the city, I believe the county.

but also there's many, many government programs.

so nyserda programs, for instance, are part of your bill.

any sort of energy efficiency programs, those are part of your bill clean energy.

clcpa climate leadership and community Protection Act.

phase one of that is, is part of the bill in our delivery rates.

Phase two will be part of a line item that will eventually appear on all New York state energy, energy payers bills on the supply side, there are some government charges on that part of the bill as well.

and we have a bill explainer that we can share.

We've got copies of it on our website, but we'd be glad to share that share that here.

Share that with our customers.

But what we really want customers to understand is we control about 40% of the bill.

we'd like them to speak out about the other 60 as well.

We are.

>> Okay.

And what's the number one change you'd like to see made then?

>> I'd like to see the same controls over supply charges as we see in the delivery rates.

suppliers are allowed to make profits that certainly you won't see in other businesses for the suppliers their stock prices have seen a 100% increase.

while their combined revenues went to 83 billion.

it's a lot.

>> Okay.

Who has the power to make that change?

>> I think in some cases it's federal government, but we're talking to our state legislators and the governor as well.

I think I think it's something that needs a lot of attention.

I also think that there's a balance that needs to happen.

we I mentioned before, I've been with the company for over 30 years and, and when I started with the company, we were focused on energy efficiency as a, you know, I'm one of the people that remembers Jimmy Carter saying to put your.

>> Put your sweater on.

>> Yeah.

>> I almost referenced that in the introduction there.

>> So and, and I know there's a lot of customers today that are, that are struggling and that they're, they're putting their sweaters on too.

And I get that.

but we energy efficiency our way through the 70s.

80s 90s 2000.

It wasn't really an investment in infrastructure.

And in 2000 we actually had to deregulate and sell our generation.

And that's where it went on a, a private side.

And without the regulation that it had.

So we'd love to see reregulation of some of it in terms of, let the utilities get back into the generation market for renewables, for instance let us help out and then let the benefits of that generation come to customers in terms of, of affordable bills.

>> Looking at the breakdown you've given me to your point about helping what you want the public to understand about the bill, it's actually 62% of the bill that would be outside of the purview of our Gini to make any profit.

Right.

But 38% of the bill is part of the bill that you would have control over 44% of the supply charge of what you said.

RG&E does not make any profit, 18% government required charges.

>> Exactly.

And and even the profit that we can make is highly controlled.

We're capped no more than 9%, and we don't even earn that.

We, we we earn much less.

>> So one other question before I turn the listeners then about that.

I, I take the point on the cap on profits.

One consistent critique is that, okay, all of the strictures you're talking about may be in place, but your parent company is avangrid.

you know, the latest data I have is that the CEO of Arvind Grid in 2023 made more than $10 million.

And people, your customers might say, well, look, if my bills go up, then his salary should go down.

And that doesn't happen.

>> Well, his salary is something I can't speak to, but mine is a matter of public record, and I believe I'm the lowest paid in the state.

And I have two utilities, but that's neither here nor there.

it makes a very small portion of the overall bill impact.

It's, it's infinitesimal on Asven grid.

That company really represents more than just nice and RG&E.

It is both a power company and it's a regulated utility company.

And they're really separate from us.

But what has happened with Avangrid is they have been funneling investments into Nyseg and RG&E, the companies that I'm responsible for.

In fact, to the plus side, more investment has come from Avangrid.

to Nyseg and RG&E than has gone the other way.

>> And I think what you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, is that whether the CEO makes 8 million or 10 million or 12 million, it's probably that probably doesn't have much of an effect at all on an individual bill here in Rochester.

Is that correct?

>> That is correct.

>> Do you understand why people might think it's crass, though, for someone to make 10 million, then 12 million in the next year when their customers energy bills are going up, up, up, and they're wearing sweaters like Jimmy Carter told them to.

>> And again, none of that is actually part of the rate structure for Nyseg and RG&E.

>> Okay, so let's get some feedback from listeners here.

I'm going to start in Newark.

This is Adam on the phone first, and my guests include Trish Nilsen, CEO of Nyseg Energy.

Chris Knospe, regional manager of Nyseg Nardini Municipal Community and Business Relations.

Nyseg are media sponsor of what's the term Megan Mack here?

I can't hear you.

Yeah.

Not here.

Arginine.

Arginine.

Renee Good are sponsors of WXXI.

I didn't know this until last night.

That's not why they're here.

That's separate business entirely from the conversation.

But we do appreciate them sitting down for an hour and taking your calls and questions.

Adam and Newark, first up.

Hello, Adam.

Go ahead.

>> Hey.

Thanks, Ivan, for taking the call.

Yep.

I, I appreciate the CEO and the and the folks that are coming on to talk.

>> Yeah.

They don't have to be here.

That's right.

>> Represent the company.

Yeah.

They represent the company, which is more than some of the, some business owners do nowadays.

And you know, for people to say that, man, it was cold and my heat worked.

Why is my bill up?

Well, what do you want to be a communist?

Do you want a low bill for free?

that's one thing.

But the other thing is that I live in the village here in Wayne County.

Okay?

I have services, gas.

gas and electricity.

I don't want to live.

I would love to live in a place where I have more space per se, but I don't want to pay to get my propane tank filled every month either.

And I like having online service.

And that's part of being, you know, I live in a house that was built in 1890.

It's half insulated.

yes, I do pay more in the winter.

I expect that, I understand that, but that's, that's a that's part of the deal.

And for people to complain that.

Why did the bill go up?

Well, it must be Hochul's fault, right?

No, it's not it's not Governor Hochul's fault.

And it's not it's it's not because of the war.

Well, things come and go.

They.

Is it climate change that causes all this?

No, I don't think that either.

It's every year, you know, people want to be.

I'm a put my sweater on kind of guy, but my girlfriend is not okay.

She's she wants to be warm.

She wants to be comfortable.

And we do we want to be comfortable.

I love the winter time, but I like to come inside when it's warm.

I just do not understand the people that want to claim that they support.

All right, I'll break it down to to what I said to the the answerer here on the call, I said, all right, there's a political point of view as well.

Always nowadays where people that are supporting a war for oil right now are saying, well, we might as well, we got to pay $4 a gallon for gas because it's patriotic right now and it's a small price.

Well, what about your what about your gas at your home?

That is that a small price or is that not worth it?

And I don't know if any of that is really relevant to you guys, but I do appreciate the CEO coming on and saying, this is what we're doing.

And you know, this is where it has to go.

And if you want service, you can have it.

If you want to move to an off the grid place and fill up a propane tank or burn oil, go ahead.

You can do that too.

>> All right, I'll jump in here.

Adam, I appreciate the phone call.

Anything you want to add there, Trish?

>> Well, I would say if you're going to get a propane tank or an oil tank, you have to pay for the energy before you use it.

And that's some of the challenge that we go through.

Adam, I thank you for the call.

I hope that you consider budget billing so that when your bill goes up in the winter time, you're paying a levelized amount.

So basically, I have budget billing.

I pay about the same amount every month.

It is reviewed every three, six and nine months and 12 months to to make sure that, that it's in line with my energy use.

And because I have a smart meter, it's becoming more and more accurate.

But that's something customers can do to avoid those seasonal spikes.

And if you, if you do it now, you're actually paying less.

If you're a winter peaking energy user, your bill will actually be lower now.

And, and it will stay even pretty much throughout the year.

you know, and I, and I do, I do hear you and I understand where our customers are coming from though, too.

You use the energy and you get the bill and it's a month or so later and you can't always remember how cold it was or what you were doing at that time.

To Chris's point, before energy manager, if you have a smart meter, you can go back by day and you can actually see, what did I do during that time period?

In fact, if you have energy manager before you get your bill, if your usage is way higher or way lower than it's supposed to be, we'll send you a text.

>> anything you want to add there?

>> Yeah, I was just going to say, Adam, I can relate.

We have the thermostat battles in my household too, but when you're looking at the overall cost of things, you know, you're looking at over the past five years of the supply costs that have doubled in coming through.

And, you know, so again, just trying to impress upon, you know, to the listeners and our customers, you know, that we have is, you know, we're the regulated delivery company.

And then there's that other portion that's the unregulated energy supply.

>> So when we come back from this only break of the hour, it's your phone calls and your emails.

That's largely what we're trying to do today is just give you the floor to talk directly to RG&E.

They are here for the hour talking to you.

Trish Nilsen, the CEO, Christian Chris Knospe, who is a regional manager of Nyseg and Municipal community and Business Relations.

Right back to your phone calls and emails next.

Coming up in our second hour, a professor of history at Suny Geneseo placed his students and some students in schools across the state with historians in their local towns.

As we approach 250 years of this country, we're not doing all that well in terms of civics and history education.

When you look at the test scores.

But Dr.

Michael Oberg wanted to know what students would learn when they studied history up close, and we'll talk about it next hour.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola, center, proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson.

Believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Cariola.org and Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, providing members with options for in-person and virtual care, creating ways to connect to care when and where it's needed.

Learn more at excellus.

Bcbs dot com.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Your questions for RG&E.

And this is Robert in Fairport next.

Hi, Robert.

Go ahead.

>> Yes, I have a question.

We had one of those smart meters installed.

Right.

And we're on Fairport Electric.

RG&E for gas and we're still getting we're still having the meter read by hand and we're actually being asked to continue to submit readings.

We've been told or I've, I've heard in Fairport here that there's some conflict between the programming for the smart meters and Fairport Electric.

that requires that the only way the smart meter is going to work is if everyone in Fairport switches over to a smart meter.

I don't know if that's true or not, but it sounds it sounds very weird to have your meter have to be read by hand after you've had the smart meter installed.

>> Robert, thanks for the question.

And you have your you're in a, I would say, a very niche area of our business.

You're a gas only customer with without a lot of electricity customers nearby for smart meters, we actually have just reached our target of installing all the smart meters, but we're still getting them tied into the system.

So I've had a smart meter.

I'm electric and gas.

I've had a smart meter now for a couple of years.

The first few months of my smart meter.

We didn't actually get smart meter readings because we had to wait until we had enough.

Enough smart meters installed the, the the meters actually use each other.

It doesn't use your own, Wi-Fi.

It uses a mesh network that's on, that's in the meters and on the poles that we can use to get the readings for our gas only customers.

We need to have the full sector installed and we're still completing those installations for gas only.

We're almost there for the gas only.

we did learn from the vendor who created the, the smart meters that it may take some time for them from a programming perspective to get them all up and running.

We may have to go to a drive by system.

So Robert, rest assured we are going to get your smart meter reading for the gas only areas.

And if we have to do it by driving around and our vendor will be paying that cost, not our customers because they're late in the technology, getting the technology to us, we will do that, but it'll probably be just a couple, a couple months more that we're going to ask you to do that, that, that reading.

>> Okay, anything to add, Robert >>?

>> no.

It sounds like we were told the right thing, that it's not going to happen until there's more installations for this so-called mesh network to work properly.

That's that's very surprising.

Well, thanks for answering though.

>> and I appreciate that we thought it was going to be sooner.

We actually are using some of the newest technology for the smart meters.

it's on the gas side.

It's actually the same meter customers had before, but it has a device that's installed on the front of it.

it if I can get it any sooner, I certainly will.

Part of the challenges we had were which telephone system we might be working with to help get those reads in the meantime.

But Robert, if hopefully I can get your information and I can give you a more detailed update, but we'll take as a note to get more detailed updates for our Fairport Gas only customers.

hopefully we can shorten that window.

It's something that I have a weekly call on because I want to see it happen to.

>> All right, I'll get Courtney next on the phone.

Hang there for one second.

I want to get this email from Lauren who emailed this morning.

Lauren said as customers, we were sent a letter explaining that the company did not foresee such a cold winter.

So they ran out of their negotiated price.

Natural gas.

We, the customers who did not make that mistake, were forced to pay the higher negotiated price for our natural gas needs.

So I have two questions.

Lauren says, why do we, as the customers, have to pay for that mistake?

They are sending millions of dollars to their parent company while we see increases we can't afford.

Let's start with that question.

>> Well, again, the supply price is a price pass through.

We enter into supply prices.

We enter into long term agreements for supply.

It's the same on the gas side as it is on the electric.

We have to pass through the prices that we're able to obtain supply at.

People used a lot more energy than we ever expected because of the extreme cold.

So we did the letter to let customers know that there would be increases in supply price based on the amount of energy we had to purchase on their behalf.

>> The premise from this customer who wrote in is that you should have been able to foresee that we might have a a winter that cold, even though this is the coldest winter we've seen in years, it's not unprecedented to have this in the age of extreme weather.

You should be better prepared, is what she's saying.

Do you disagree with that?

>> I would say that our hedging is reviewed by the Public Service Commission.

I think our hedging team was able to save our customers.

In fact, even on the gas side, we were able to save our customers millions of dollars in terms of being able to hedge a certain amount of supply.

But we are obligated to pass the price through to our customers.

If I could get back into the supply business, I certainly would.

>> Chris.

>> You know, I'll just add on to that.

You know, you can't predict Mother Nature.

And, you know, we do our best on that and being able to.

And I think the savings that we were able to show that we're able to do based on our Teams in the forecast that they had of what they were able to hedge at that time.

you know, shows the value that's in there.

But let's not forget customers have energy choice.

They can go and kind of take a look at, you know, what is best for them for their rates.

So they want to go with an energy services company or an ESCO.

Do they want to get their, you know, their supply through us?

So there are other areas that they can kind of take a look at.

And, and a lot of that is listed on our website.

>> Okay.

And Lauren's second question was she wants to know, can the state pass a law that a utility has to keep a reserve at the reduced price for the next time the situation happens?

>> Well, and that's exactly what we do through our hedging.

And they've allowed us through our rates to be able to do just that, be able to acquire and store natural gas and to acquire energy on the electric side in long term contracts.

So we're doing it.

>> Lauren, thank you for that.

Let's grab Courtney on the phone next here.

Hi, Courtney.

Go ahead.

>> Hello.

Can you hear me?

>> I can yep.

>> Okay.

First I do want to say that I appreciate the focus on also regulating the supplier.

And I think us as members of, of the state can can help in advocating for supplier regulations.

Also.

but I'm really here to go back to the $10,000,008 million conversation from the Avangrid piece.

And it was stated that it probably doesn't affect our bill.

But the PSC audit was also very critical of Avangrid's governance.

And also at the same time, the rate increase.

You said you're not getting to that 9%, but the rate increase is asking for an increase from 9% to 10% of that return on equity.

And I just am hoping you can speak to that a little bit more in the context that the public power movement that is happening is really focused more on the governance and switching the governance over to local rather than the amazing work that everyone who lives here and works at RG&E does.

So I'm just hoping you can speak to that.

>> Thanks, Courtney.

I appreciate the call and I appreciate the thanks for the hard workers that we have here in Rochester that that keep the lights on and keep the power flowing, particularly our IBEW partners in local 36. as far as the costs and the management audit, one of the things the management audit did recommend is to move away from having a, a focus of our resources at the grid level.

And I think it's in line with what people have been asking for with local power control.

And we heard that and we'd actually been hearing it beforehand.

I came into this role in in July, July, June of 2022. and when I came into the role, Chris's team reported to me, the energy supply people reported to me.

But a lot of the business functions reported in a centralized function.

And we actually did move to a jurisdictional model.

So I now have a president at RG&E.

My title changed from president and CEO to to CEO because I have a president Al Langlands here in Rochester and he actually leads electric operations gas as well.

And he leads planning and he leads projects for RG&E.

And those people are located here.

Now, we've been moving everything that isn't a true shared service where we can get a cost savings, like, for instance it or human resources accounting, all of those things now are local.

>> All right.

We could probably do four hours of questions, but I'm just going to get as many as we can in, in the next 15 minutes.

That's what we've got with the team from RG&E, who is here to answer your questions.

Alex writes in to say, Unless I'm reading this wrong, our genie's most recent financial statement lists a net income of 114 million for January to September 2025, after expenses and taxes in 2024, it was 143 million.

I find it hard to accept the company's spin that they need a 30% increase to delivery charges, or else face financial ruin.

I put away at least 20% of my paycheck into savings and future investments.

Why wouldn't a local utility owned by a national company, multinational company do this?

>> Again, we are required to make investments to meet both the requirements to provide safe and adequate service for our customers, as well as to meet various state mandates, including, climate Leadership and Community Protection Act activities, including mandates on the state and federal levels for nurc compliance ensuring appropriate system backups, gas safety main replacements, all the like.

So we have many mandated programs.

We also have mandated energy efficiency programs low income programs, all sorts of things, billing programs, various state legislature that, that we have to carry out and all that's part of our rights.

We also have to maintain and pay all of our vendors and suppliers for materials years in advance.

So all of the system upgrades we have to do are years in advance.

In addition, all the broadband work to put in taller poles to allow for fiber and broadband access for customers.

We had to install those and carry that cost storm costs.

We have to carry those.

We have to pay our storm vendors.

30, you know, 30 to 60 days after, after they do the work.

And it takes us decades to get them.

so while we have, while we do achieve some, some revenues, we actually do expend more money in, in investments than we see in revenues coming back.

>> Okay, back to your emails here.

And by the way there's a few phone lines open at 844295 talk as we talk to the team from RG&E 8442958255263.

WXXI.

If you call from Rochester 2639994.

Linda says, what phone number can I call to actually schedule an appointment for the installation of a smart meter?

I have tried, it does not work and this has proven to be a very frustrating process.

It's not.

The group RG&E contracted with.

I've been told by them that RG&E is supposed to reach out to me for an appointment.

I want to make an appointment for a smart.

>> Meter.

>> Linda.

I would say first of all, I hope that we get your contact information.

We will reach out if we if we have it, we'll reach out to you personally and get that scheduled.

I would suggest going with our customer service number one 800.

7432110.

Starting with that.

that's probably the best way to reach us.

yeah.

>> Okay.

Good luck Linda.

Thank you.

Liz says, Evan, I've got a question for your guests.

I understand that our genie has limited control over the supply charges, but my delivery charges for electricity and gas also went up about 15%.

When I look at the bill from this February compared to February 2025, other months are similar.

Why did this happen?

>> Our last increase as part of the rate case that we're under now was in May.

So he will see a change between February and May.

And the other thing to recognize too, is that portions of the delivery charge are per kilowatt hour.

So if you're using more energy, you're going to have more cost per kilowatt hour.

That's going to be reflected in your bill.

>> Okay, Liz, I hope that answers.

Send me a note if that helps.

Answer that question.

Now, I'm not trying to break what I said at the outset here.

They can't analyze bill by bill line by line.

But there's a general question from Jeff related to his bill that I think can fit in here.

So he says, Jeff says in previous years, our normal winter month bills would range from 6 to $800, which we thought, which we thought was crazy, he says.

This January, our bill was 1700 and in February it was 2300.

We did nothing different.

We live in a 2300 square foot house, all new energy efficient windows, no bad drafts or insulation problems that we are aware of.

How are we supposed to just accept that?

So here's the general question.

I think because you can't you can't figure out Jeff's family's bill without understanding a lot more details.

In general, though, for people who say, look, we didn't really do anything different.

Is it typical to see bills double and then triple in January and February compared to last year?

Chris, you want to jump in?

>> I'd love to jump in on that one because I get that where everybody wants to look at.

Well, my bill used to be $100, now it's $200.

My question to Jeff is what was his usage?

How much did he use?

Because I think that's the real key that you need to take a look at is what was your usage a year ago, that month versus now?

And that's what we would take a look and analyze.

And then looking at on the supply side, what was your cost per kilowatt hour or per therm of what you were using?

So I think it's important for our customers and your listeners to kind of really look at that piece and have an understanding of what was your energy usage at that point, and how does that fit into there?

And then as always, if there's something that is off, we encourage them to contact our customer service line so that we can look at it.

>> Okay.

>> And we have Jeff's email so we can take a look.

We can reach out to Jeff and do that.

The other thing I'd like to make sure that we talk about is, is Jeff getting his energy supply from our genie, or is he getting it from an energy services company?

We've seen some bills where someone signed up with an energy services company.

They may not remember that they did it.

it might have been on an introductory rate.

And then over time, that energy services company may have changed the amounts that they're charging.

So that's another thing.

You know, look at the rate you're on, if you're on a straight rate or a day night rate, day night, again, isn't hedged.

Look at the supplier.

Is the supplier RG&E or is it a company other than RG&E.

And then compare that per kilowatt hour or per therm charge against what you would be getting from RG&E or another supplier.

>> And so let me also just try to ask one other question that I'm going to try to frame this in a way that I think is digestible.

Let's say you have the same house year to year, and you essentially don't make any change from January, February 25th to January, February 26th, other than the fact that it was a lot colder.

>>, 8% at least.

>> Your bill should be at least 8% higher.

>> No, 8% colder.

It was 8% colder.

>> But how much more should your bill be if everything else stays the same?

>> I'm going to say that most likely everything else didn't stay the same.

But your bill is going to be your bill is going to be increased simply because it's colder.

But there's everything is personalized.

>> But could it double?

>> No, I wouldn't expect.

>> You wouldn't expect it to double if truly everything stayed equal.

>> Yeah.

>> Correct.

You wouldn't expect it to triple you 50% higher.

>> It all depends on.

Yeah.

It all depends on what they're using.

But I would say I expect that the bill may be higher.

There may be other fees as well.

If you're not using a smart meter, eventually you're going to see a $13 a month charge on your bill.

I can guarantee you, if you don't have a smart meter, your bill will go up because you'll be seeing a monthly charge.

>> Okay.

all right, I see the phone ringing.

Let me get back there to Tammy and East Irondequoit.

This is Tammy next.

Hi, Tammy.

Go ahead.

>> Hi.

hopefully I can explain this correctly.

I got a generator installed, and when I made the plan to get a generator installed.

I was told I'd probably have to have a meter upgrade, which would cost about $350, which is fine.

I understood that RG&E sent a subcontractor engineer out and they said that I needed to also get an increase to the supply.

I don't know if I can say that correctly, but it's the supply.

So it would be like the total cost for a meter upgrade and the service supply increase would be over $3,000.

And the contractor said I wouldn't be using all the BTUs that they're saying that I would need to have the supply increase for it.

And it's like, I guess I'm wondering why RG&E isn't covering some of the cost of of the supply.

I understand the meter upgrade, but that's a lot of money to be putting on me as a customer.

>> Yeah.

Tammy, thanks for calling.

I think what if what I understand correctly is you have a natural gas generator and we have to have a system built to the amount of potential gas that your generator would use, even if you weren't using all of that energy.

It has the potential to use that much energy.

So we have to make sure the system is sized correctly.

we can talk more offline maybe about that, but we do, we do encourage customers if they're going to install a natural gas generator that they work with us to ensure that they're getting the right size and that they know, they know if there's going to be any cost to them if they have to upgrade their system.

>> Tammy.

Thank you.

Let me get Bill in Rochester next.

Hi, Bill.

Go ahead.

>> Are you there?

Bill?

>> Oh, yeah.

Hey.

It's.

Thank you.

Jeff, how are you?

>> Oh, there you go.

Go for it.

>> Yeah, yeah.

So so I understand a lot of the cost increases are due to the supply side.

And I'm curious who should be talking to about that to potentially help to lower those costs.

as you know, it is a more of a delivery company than a supply company.

So I'm not sure who we should be talking to, to address the cost.

>> I would suggest talking to your elected officials about it.

Talk to your state and your federal legislators and let's see what they can do.

certainly we're trying to add our voice to the mix to say, let's all work on the portions of the bill that aren't highly regulated and get those examined and controlled.

>> Okay.

Jeff, I hope that helps there.

Let me, let me there's a lot on people have a lot on smart meters.

So let me just read this from c t RG&E installed smart meters here in Brockport.

Y r meter readers still coming here and leaving tags on our doors, telling us to read and report meter readings again.

>> We will switch over to the smart meters in certain areas.

As we get full sectors installed.

That should be very soon, especially if it's electricity and natural gas in their area.

We do take a few smart meter readings, along with the old fashioned regular bi monthly meter readings, just to make sure that smart meters are all operating as they should.

We'll take a few test reads and then we'll switch over.

>> okay.

I hope that helps there.

CT Patrick writes in to say he wants more of an explanation on some charges here.

So I'm going to read his full email.

He says to me, it sounds like our Gini is conjured up a clever way to hit residential units with demand charges, which is typically what a commercial outfit would receive for peak usage.

Demand charges are reflective of peak usage times, and was my understanding that apartment renters and homeowners wouldn't pay demand charges.

And then what we're hearing is, well, it costs more money because it's cold outside, which is a twist on, hey, most people are using electricity between 9 a.m.

and 5 p.m.

and if you're in an office building, yeah, your kilowatt hour rates may fluctuate depending on the demand that occurs on the grid.

So please explain the demand charges for residential units.

>> not quite sure.

the details, maybe we'll dive into his specific email offline, but I'd say that customers are charged demand only if they have demand meters.

And that is, that is a case where we have to, we have to give a demand charge based on the potential energy that, that a business, if they have everything up and running.

So I'm not quite sure on an a on a residential side, what he's talking about, he might be talking about day night which, which again, that's a price we're not allowed to hedge.

>> Okay.

Patrick, if that answers that, I will follow up.

Yeah.

Send me a follow up if you can there.

Graham writes in to say the CEO mentioned that they have to adhere to the clcpa.

Is that the right term?

Yep.

Clcpa several times.

However, the audit completed of our Gini and published last summer questioned our Jeannie's compliance with the Clcpa, stating, quote, Avangrid initially represented that New York regulatory matters, including Clcpa considerations, are discussed by a committee that does not exist, but later clarified that these topics are discussed in the New York President's leadership meeting, for which no documentation was provided.

Given these findings, how can we trust our Gini is actually doing what is best for ratepayers and the planet?

>> Again, we are highly regulated.

Anything we're doing in terms of our projects, whether they're RG&E projects specifically or they're part of clcpa, are provided to the Public Service Commission.

We have regular meetings with the Public Service Commission, regular routine reports, where we have to provide all the details on every purchase we make.

>> Okay, Graham, there you go.

CT follows up to say so based on the show, our smart meter doesn't work as RG&E does not supply electricity in Brockport.

Is that correct?

>> It's that we have to wait until we have the ability to gather the gas reads for the gas only areas.

So.

So essentially, yes, it's coming, but it's not ready yet.

Those are our last group.

>> CT wants to know will we get fined for not having the smart meters working.

>> Oh absolutely not.

It's it's as long as you get that smart meter installed until we can get it working, that's all we ask is just let us get it installed and there will be no, no additional charge.

And the faster we can get those reads, we certainly will be doing so even if we have to have vehicles driving through the streets to get automated reads through our own technology.

>> let's see if we can do this one in 30s.

Nikki says, I'd love to hear an explanation for why my bill seems to go up with with the weather, whether I use energy or not.

If the temperature goes down and gets very cold and I decide not to turn on my heat at all and just deal with it myself by using extra blankets, putting socks on, wearing warm pajamas, my bill steam bill still seems to go up by hundreds of dollars.

Not a small amount.

Why is that?

>> Essentially, it's probably because the heating system is still working harder.

Even if you're not raising that thermostat when it's colder outside, the system is working harder.

>> Okay, so you can do the Jimmy Carter thing, but you may still have bigger bills.. >> And again, supply supply prices went up during that time frame.

So you're also going to see per per kilowatt hour price increases likely on supply in those in those colder months.

>> Charlie and Pittsford says the last time RG&E was on your show, you read a very pointed email I had written over my frustration of being unable to get a bill sent to my house.

I tried for almost a year to get a bill sent.

Miss Nilsen gave me a phone number, I called it, and within two weeks I started receiving my bill.

However, I lost the phone number and I couldn't call the.

I couldn't call to thank her for solving a very frustrating issue, so I'm going to thank her in public.

Thank you, Miss Nilsen.

That's Charlie and Pittsford.

>> You're welcome Charlie, and thanks for reaching out.

>> Okay, down to our last 30s here for people who have more questions that we couldn't get through and get answered here, what's the best way to communicate with RG&E?

>> I would say giving us a call one 807 432110.

>> Okay.

and what do you feel in these last 30s or so people get most confused about it?

What do you want to leave with your customers who are listening today to maybe better understand billing?

>> Again, if you have a if you have a smart meter, your bill is going to be accurate and you'll be able to look in Energy Manager, whether online or on our app, and you'll be able to really see how your energy use is, is being calculated and, and what your bill is going to be.

>> Well, I mean, I, I take Chris's point earlier, it's a nice day today for a little while.

I know you're hoping for warmer weather, but thank you for at least answering questions from listeners.

I know there's a significant amount of people who can get frustrated by bills or don't understand.

I hope you will keep coming back and answering no matter what the questions are.

>> Thanks, Evan.

We appreciate the time.

>> Thanks for.

>> Having us.

Thank you very much.

That's Trish Nilsen, the CEO of NYSEG and RG&E Chris Knospe, regional manager of Nyseg and RG&E municipal community and Business Relations.

More Connections coming up in just a moment.

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