Central Maine Power announced Thursday that beginning next month residential customers’ electric bills will include a brief explanation of why portions of their bill may be higher in 2019.

Earlier this month, the company announced that Standard Offer electricity supply rates for residential customers will rise by nearly 14 percent starting in January.

“We thought it would be a good idea to let our customers know that this is coming,” Catherine Hartnett, CMP’s manager of corporate communications, told News Center Maine (WCSH-TV) during a live Facebook question and answer session Thursday night.

“We are reminding customers that the energy supply rates for residential customers who choose Standard Offer supply will rise 13.7 percent in January. This is not a CMP increase. This is the increase in the cost of energy supplied largely by natural gas-fired generation companies,” Doug Herling, president and chief executive officer of CMP, said in a statement Thursday.

“CMP collects this fee in bills and remits it to the Standard Offer suppliers so customers often assume we have just raised their rates, which is not the case,” Herling said.

Company officials in a statement Thursday said they need to do a better job of explaining how the price of a customer’s supply of energy is different from the price of delivery – the portion of a bill that CMP is responsible for.

Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

dhoey@pressherald.com