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State regulators will meet this week to examine what went wrong after Connecticut utilities halted their cash strapped energy efficiency rebate programs.

Both Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating run programs to promote better energy conservation among commercial and industrial customers.  The projects are funded by ratepayers through a charge on customers’ bills set by regulators.  But so many businesses applied last year that the cash set aside was oversubscribed.  CL&P asked for extra cash in the 2008 program as a way of keeping the projects on track, but regulators rejected that request.  That meant around six hundred business customers had to halt energy efficiency upgrades, many of them already underway.  
Jeff Gaudiosi is chairman of the state’s energy conservation management board. He says rising prices created a unique situation.

“There’s a demand for the programs, the programs have been really successful.  It was a combination of certain projects coming up at the same time, and you know, people coming in.  So it’s not something where we as a board are worried about this happening year after year.  As the budget cycle turns over into a new one in 2009, we’re back on track.”

The state Department of Public Utility Control meets Thursday to examine ways to curb spending at the utilities and to consider the size of future rebate programs.