Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, as governments were scrambling to figure out how to protect both public health and the economy, Elizabeth Marx reached out to Pennsylvania authorities with a simple request: Keep everyone’s lights on.

“We knew immediately, with people needing to stay home, we had to ensure that nobody would lose power or heat, even if they couldn’t afford to pay,” said Marx, executive director of the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project. “We’re talking about essential services.”

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PPUC) instituted a moratorium on utility disconnections in March 2020 that it eventually extended through April 2021. Nationally, 34 states imposed moratoriums on utility shutoffs in the year since lockdowns began, according to a map compiled by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). However, with no nationwide moratorium, the policies established only a patchwork of protection.

Now many of those moratoriums are ending, leaving consumers with a backlog of unpaid bills. Only 11 states still had active moratoriums as of July 1, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, and those covered less than 30% of the U.S. population. Five were listed as having July and August expiration dates.

One estimate of the scope of the problem comes from a June study from the Center for Biological Diversity, which found that utilities in 17 states with available data had performed more than 1 million shutoffs since March 2020, but the study warned that a national estimate is hard to come by because disclosure laws differ from state to state.

The moratorium was an “aggressive” but necessary step, Linton said. However, it came with at least one unintended consequence:  “For a lot of consumers, a shutoff notice is that signal to apply for help from the state or federal government,” Linton said. “We had several million dollars available, but we did not have consumers applying for it. Now we have utilities starting to send notices, but they’re directed to work with consumers and get appropriate measures in place.”

Read the full article about utility shutoff by Jason Plautz at Smart Cities Dive.