New York State Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas & Electric face a combined $21.4 million in penalties after failing to meet state customer satisfaction standards for the second consecutive year.
The New York State Public Service Commission announced Thursday that NYSEG and RG&E were among several utilities that fell short of their 2025 customer service performance targets.
NYSEG initially incurred an approximately $6.65 million penalty for failing its Customer Satisfaction Survey metric. Because the company also missed the target in 2024, the penalty doubled to approximately $13.3 million under its rate agreement.
RG&E likewise failed its customer satisfaction survey target for a second straight year. Its initial penalty of approximately $4.03 million doubled to about $8.06 million.
The penalties, formally known as negative revenue adjustments, reduce a utility’s shareholder earnings. Depending on each company’s rate plan, the money may be credited automatically to customers or held for use in a future rate case to offset costs that would otherwise be collected from ratepayers.
NYSEG and RG&E have petitioned the commission to waive the penalties. The utilities attributed their performance to outside factors, including economic conditions, severe storms and continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The companies also argued that neutral survey responses should be counted as satisfied responses when customer satisfaction scores are calculated. State officials said that method would not be consistent with the utilities’ approved rate plans.
The waiver request remains pending before the commission.
Overall, the commission assessed approximately $50.1 million in penalties against utilities that missed at least one customer service standard in 2025. Central Hudson, National Grid and Liberty Utilities operations were also penalized for shortcomings involving customer satisfaction, complaint rates or call-answering performance.
Commission Chair Rory Christian said the penalties are intended to hold utilities accountable and ensure customer service remains a priority.
Several other utilities, including Corning Natural Gas, Orange and Rockland Utilities, National Fuel Gas Distribution and Veolia Water New York, met or exceeded their customer service targets.
