The Maine Public Utilities Commission on Feb. 17 ordered the conditional removal of a 100-basis-point penalty to Central Maine Power Co.'s allowed return on equity but said it is opening an investigation into management practices at the Iberdrola SA-owned utility.

Central Maine Power, part of Avangrid Inc., had the 100-bps reduction to CMP's ROE levied against it in January 2020 until it improved certain management and other service issues.

Regulators said the utility had met the required service-quality metrics, allowing it to seek relief from ongoing financial penalty. Some of those achievements included answering more than 87% of customer calls within 30 seconds; issuing 99.7% of all bills on time and accurately, leading to a cumulative bill error rate of 0.3%; and having a call abandonment rate of only 3.4% since March 2020.

"We have consistently met service performance standards for two years, generally agree that performance standards are good for customers, and we will cooperate with this additional area of inquiry from the Commission while we remain focused on meeting and exceeding our customer needs every day," Avangrid spokesperson Catharine Hartnett said in a statement. "The Maine PUC focus on future regulatory strategies will better serve Maine customers and support clean energy goals."

The Maine PUC said it is separately opening an investigation to focus on how earnings considerations influence decision-making by CMP and Avangrid, the potential impact on customers and how to better align incentives through regulatory oversight.

"CMP is directly impacted by Avangrid's decision-making and investment planning," Commission Chairperson Philip Bartlett II said in a statement. "While we have seen improvement in CMP's performance, we want to be sure that it is sustainable."