September 5, 2025 (Hardwick, VT) – On April 16, 2025, the Town of Hardwick Electric Department (HED) filed for a 13.24% rate increase. This rate increase is primarily driven by three main increases in costs: Power Supply (Transmission, Generation, Distribution), Personnel (Wages & Benefits), and Interest Expenses (resulting from increased financing for project and program expenses).
HED continues to uphold the mission to deliver safe, reliable and affordable electric service to the customers and communities it serves.
According to this infographic published by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) on August 5, 2025, “…the past five years have been a period of exploding costs for the electric utility industry…”.
In addition to rising wages and benefits necessary to recruit and retain a qualified workforce, the sheer cost of building, maintaining, and purchasing wholesale and in-state generated electricity has skyrocketed.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), as of July 23, 2025, annual ISO-NE regional whole-sale energy market costs weighted averages are nearly double that of 2024, at $83.28/MWH (compared to $42.88/MWH in 2024).
Even with the exploding costs and devastating flooding of recent years, since 2009 HED’s rate increase equates to 1.79% per year – still well below the rate of inflation. In comparison, the cumulative rate of inflation in the United States between 2009 – 2025 totals 48.64% or an average of 2.51% per year.
According to the Annual Vermont Utility Residential Rate Comparison published by Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, as of January 1, 2025, HED’s rates for a typical 200 kWh monthly bill still remain lower than 8 of 14 of Vermont electric distribution utilities.
Nonetheless, HED understands and remains empathetic about the mounting cost pressures of all our customers and communities, especially as we approach the winter months.
We hope you can understand that, as a community-owned public power utility, this rate increase is NOT being pursued for the sake of any profit, rather to sustain operations and grow in order to implement much needed and long-awaited grid modernization projects and system improvements to better serve our customers.
As the new General Manager, I have had the pleasure of hearing from many customers since joining HED in January and I hope those conversations, and the feedback continues. Your voices matter, your energy democracy matters, and I will continue to pursue improvements which support a stronger and more sustainable public power utility for the next hundred years.
