Connecticut is beginning a process that could influence how residents heat their homes, power their cars and pay for energy for years. They already know expensive energy when they see it; the evidence arrives every month.
Now they have a chance to say what should — and should not — go into the state’s next four-year energy plan.
The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) is preparing that plan, called the Comprehensive Energy Strategy (CES). The name sounds destined to collect dust on a government shelf. It is far more consequential.
The CES can shape legislation, regulations, utility programs and state spending involving electricity, natural gas, heating fuels and transportation. It will not outlaw a gas furnace or change electric rates the day it’s published, but it sets up the decisions that could.
Written comments are due Oct. 16 at 4 p.m.
The Assignment Is Bigger Than Climate
State law does not ask DEEP to produce another list of energy goals. The CES must take inventory of Connecticut’s energy supplies, demand and costs, look at what could change them and report the progress made toward the goals in the previous strategies.
Then comes the harder part. DEEP must recommend policies and possible changes to state law while balancing emissions targets against consumer prices, reliability, fuel diversity, public health and Connecticut’s ability to compete. The statute also calls for the least-cost mix of energy sources, an assessment of natural gas and a strategy for meeting the state’s energy-efficiency goals.
DEEP has released 12 draft questions to help determine what the strategy will cover.
DEEP put nearly every live energy fight on the list: affordability, utility rates, who pays for energy programs, who benefits from them and how much new demand could come from electrification and data centers.
The agency asks whether Connecticut can permit and build projects quickly enough, whether workers and supply chains can keep pace, how electricity should be planned alongside natural gas and heating fuels, and whether utility incentives reward the least-cost choices.
Some of the biggest variables are outside Connecticut’s control. Federal policy can change funding, tax credits and permitting rules. Decisions by neighboring states and regional grid operators can affect electricity supplies and prices. Global fuel markets and extreme weather can send costs higher with little warning.
This is the public’s chance to weigh in before DEEP decides without them.
The Grid Still Runs on Gas
Electrification, one of the proceeding’s central themes, means replacing equipment powered by gasoline, heating oil, propane or natural gas with equipment powered by electricity.
Electrification sounds simple enough — until you ask where the electricity comes from.
Natural gas supplied 51% of the electricity consumed in New England in 2025. According to ISO New England’s market monitor, gas prices more than doubled that year and helped drive total wholesale electricity costs up nearly 50%, to $15 billion.
New England asks natural gas to do two jobs at once: heat buildings and generate electricity. On the coldest days, there may not be enough pipeline space for both. Homes and businesses keep their gas, while some power plants without guaranteed capacity must switch to oil, or the grid turns to other, often more expensive, sources.
During the winter of 2025-26, the coldest in 20 years, ISO New England sought an emergency federal order so power plants could keep running even if they would otherwise have hit emissions or permit limits.
Advocates can use the same evidence to argue for less gas dependence. Volatile gas prices expose electric customers to sudden increases, and moving buildings off gas could reduce demand on constrained pipelines. Heat pumps also use electricity more efficiently than electric resistance heating.
Those points deserve consideration. But moving homes from gas or oil to heat pumps would increase winter electricity demand. Meeting it could require new power generation, transmission lines, substations and neighborhood equipment, and in some cases new wiring or an upgraded electric panel. None of that is free, and DEEP still needs to say how quickly this could happen, what it would take to build and who would pay. It should also say how the grid would hold up when solar production is low, offshore wind is delayed or natural gas is scarce.
What Advocates Asked for Last Time
DEEP is supposed to produce a CES every four years. The agency held technical meetings and collected public comments in 2022, but a final strategy was not issued.
In a Sept. 22 statement to Yankee Institute, DEEP spokesman Bill Flood said, “The 2022 CES record is being incorporated into the 2026-2027 CES process … and will be fully considered in our process moving forward.”
The 2022 comments show what advocacy groups previously asked DEEP to recommend and what may return during the current proceeding.
The Sierra Club called for a moratorium on gas-system expansion and new fossil-fueled electric generation. Save the Sound sought a transition away from all fossil-fuel space heating by 2050. Acadia Center wanted Connecticut to stop expanding the gas system beyond safety work. It also called for a “Future of Gas” proceeding to plan how the system would shrink, which pipelines would remain and how their costs would be divided.
Connecticut pulled the plug on the gas-expansion program created after the 2013 CES. It stopped short of the full phaseout advocates wanted.
The Bill Still Has to Go Somewhere
Decarbonization is the goal, but it does not tell ratepayers what must be built, how long it will take or what it will cost.
Rebates and tax credits can make equipment cheaper for the person buying it, but the expense moves to taxpayers or utility customers. A mandate can require a household or business to replace equipment before it otherwise would.
DEEP’s questions recognize those tensions. They ask whether people who do not purchase solar panels, batteries, heat pumps or electric vehicles are helping finance those who do. They also ask how costs should be divided among ratepayers, taxpayers, customer classes and generations.
The gas system raises the same question. If customers leave it, the cost of maintaining the pipes stays behind, and fewer customers could be left paying for the same network.
The way utilities divide those costs matters just as much. “Rate design” is the formula utilities use to allocate their approved costs among customers. It includes monthly customer charges, charges based on energy use and rates that change depending on the time of day. Changing the formula may encourage customers to use electricity differently, but it can also turn one customer’s discount into another customer’s higher bill.
DEEP also wants to count benefits that may not appear directly on an energy bill, including lower pollution, improved health and greater resilience. Those estimates should rely on public assumptions that can be independently checked. The same benefit should not be counted under several different names to make an expensive policy appear affordable.
Utility bills should pay for safe and reliable service, not serve as a second state budget. If lawmakers want to subsidize heat pumps, electric vehicles or another technology, they should debate the expense openly instead of burying it in charges that receive far less public scrutiny than a tax increase.
The CES is supposed to be comprehensive. DEEP is asking the right questions. The final strategy has to answer them: what will keep the lights and heat on, who will build it, what it will cost and who pays. Without that, it’s a wish list with access to the electric bill.
How to comment: Written comments are due Oct. 16 at 4 p.m. They may be emailed to [email protected] with “Comprehensive Energy Strategy Comments” in the subject line.