Pennichuck was granted approval by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to implement a Qualified Capital Project Adjustment Charge (QCPAC). The QCPAC allows Pennichuck to bill a monthly surcharge based on a percentage of your monthly bill. The surcharge is directly linked to and based upon the costs of Pennichuck’s ongoing investment in Qualified Capital Projects (QCPs) necessary to provide service to its customers, in compliance with State and Federal regulations, and to maintain its overall water supply and treatment infrastructure in a proactive and responsive manner.
The QCPAC surcharge allows Pennichuck to recover 1.10 times the annual principal and interest for the debt funds raised each year to pay for Pennichuck’s QCP expenditures made on plant and equipment placed into service during the prior year, plus the incremental property taxes associated with the value of those QCPs. As a part of this annual process, Pennichuck’s QCP expenditures are audited by the PUC for prudency and confirmation of actual expenditure levels.
Our customers benefit from the QCPAC program as it provides the necessary funding for Pennichuck to maintain a consistent plan for the replacement of aging infrastructure, increasing the reliability and quality of service provided to customers. The QCPAC program also results in smaller annual rate changes for customers by permitting Pennichuck to recover the costs associated with debt financing the replacement of aging infrastructure between rate cases, as well as the ability to continue to access lowest cost debt funding for these projects, based upon this QCPAC program.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Pennichuck Customer Service at 800-553-5191 or the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission at 800-852-3793.