PORTLAND

Central Maine Power Co. said power bills for residential and small business customers are set to go up an average of $2.07 per month, starting Sept. 1.

The rate increase is the result of a decision this week from the Maine Public Utilities Commission, following months of debate as the utility pushed for ways to disconnect its revenue from the amount of power delivered to customers on its lines.

John Carroll, spokesperson for CMP, said the utility’s latest five-year rate plan will allow it to participate in state energy efficiency programs to reduce power usage without operating directly against its own financial interests.

Carroll said the latest increase brings the total bill for the average customer about on par with the average bill in 2008. The average customer calculation assumes a customer using 525 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month.

Despite the PUC decreasing the initial rate increase request in its final decision, the Maine AARP was critical of the vote, saying the organization “remain(s) very concerned about the negative impact CMP’s negotiated rate increase will have on Maine’s vulnerable populations.”

Eric Bryant, senior counsel for the Office of the Public Advocate, said the case was the result of various compromises, but that his office was pleased that CMP was willing to settle for $24 million per year compared with their original request for about $40 million.

CMP had earlier this month proposed an increase to the distribution portion of customers bills that would increase the average monthly payment by about $3. In the latest plan, some funds awarded to the defunct Maine Yankee nuclear power plant last year will be used to offset costs to ratepayers.

That money came to the state because electricity ratepayers have for years supported the cost of storing nuclear waste at the decommissioned Wiscasset nuclear power plant. The federal government is contractually obligated to remove the 550 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel there, but it has not.

The payments last year totaled $117.4 million to Maine Yankee’s owners, which includes CMP. Of the total payment, the PUC decided 45 percent would be used to reduce transmission and distribution rates.

In approving the latest rate plan, regulators deferred some rate design questions, particularly a provision that would allow CMP to recover $55 million for improvements to its customer management and billing system.

Carroll said that system would be required for the utility to use dynamic pricing across its system, charging variable rates to customers for drawing power based on the demand across the system at that time.

That’s a method proposed to the PUC during the rate case by Portland-based Grid- Solar, which runs a pilot energy project in Boothbay that uses distributed generation of electricity on that peninsula to reduce the amount of power its residents need to transmit from farther away.

The details of that system — what it should do and how much it would cost — will now be determined in a separate proceeding before the PUC.

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