Central Maine Power Co. customers will see their monthly bills go up by about $5 for the average household next month, though that figure will vary by usage.

The company will increase the average household bill by about 3.3% for customers who take the default, standard offer electricity rate, according to the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which approved the increase last week. All customers, including those who source their electricity from a competitive provider, will see a roughly 5.3% increase in the transmission and distribution side of their bill.

Commission Chair Philip L. Bartlett II said the increase was driven primarily by heightened storm recovery costs.

“These rate changes reflect our statutory obligations and are primarily driven by costs that have already been incurred or approved, including those that support the state’s energy and climate policy goals,” Bartlett said in a written statement.

CMP spokesperson Dustin Wlodkowski said Maine has seen an uptick in intense storms that were “historic in scale,” including those that caused widespread flooding and left hundreds of thousands without power in 2023 and 2024.

“We had to go into places like Fairfield and basically rebuild the grid street by street,” Wlodkowski said, adding that those lingering costs are still part of the calculus.

The change will raise CMP’s distribution revenue by nearly $71 million, according to documents filed with the commission. As the state’s largest utility, CMP serves about 636,000 customers throughout central and southern Maine, according to the company’s website.

Customers utilizing the standard offer rate and using 550 kilowatt-hours per month — the average for households in Maine — will see their bills go from about $149.76 to $154.67. That’s about half as much as rates rose last year.

The company’s latest rate hike comes after rates rose about 7.3% in January. It was the last hike outlined in a 2023 compromise to incrementally raise prices over the course of two years. That means CMP rates will be about $15 higher in July than they were in August of last year, according to the PUC.

For customers of Versant Power, the state’s second largest electric utility, rates increased in April by roughly 8%, adding about $11 to a typical monthly bill. Versant serves about 165,000 customers in northern Maine.

Wlodkowski, the CMP spokesperson, said beyond recovering already-spent repair costs, the heightened rates go toward improving the overall grid system. But he said the scale of CMP’s grid — larger than entire New England states — means customers won’t always notice changes.

“We can have all kinds of grid strengthening projects, and you might never drive past them,” he said. “These upgrades are happening all across Maine every single day.”

Looking ahead, Wlodkowski said that Maine has seen a relatively mild first half of the year in terms of storms, which could help soften or prevent future price hikes.

“If that trend continues for the remainder of 2025, it’s also possible that our customers could see a significant decrease in storm related costs next summer,” he said. “But we’d need that trend to continue.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that bills for the average CMP customer using the standard offer are expected to increase by 3.3%.