Connor Cantrell | 6/25/2025
In May 2025, fifty thousand households served by Central Hudson were over sixty days in arrears. Specifically, 51,479 of the 274,264 total households had been in debt to the utility for more than two months, with an average balance of $2,661. Central Hudson publishes these numbers monthly.
Horrific status quo aside (I wrote about it here) the arrears category is worth examining on its own. Once you’ve carried a balance with Central Hudson for over sixty days, you receive your first termination notice.
In that termination notice, you’ll find an offer for a deferred payment agreement. This is the avenue Central Hudson offers for struggling homes to make their way out of debt. Which, in some ways, makes sense. As a profit-driven business, their emphasis is on collecting payments. So, the solution to customer debt is a plan that allows Central Hudson to collect the money they are owed, rather than a plan to meaningfully address the cause of the debt.
A typical agreement starts with a large down payment and the rest of the balance is divided over the next six payment periods. You can see a sample of this deferred payment agreement here. The second page of the sample agreement lists the standard terms, where the customer is charged 30% of their total balance as the down payment. This down payment is added to any bills issued after the termination notice is sent. So, if you receive a termination notice and a month passes before entering into a payment agreement, that month’s bill is also due along with the down payment. Then come the monthly installments, which are either:
- The cost of your average monthly usage, or
- One-sixth of the balance—whichever is greater.
This is all in addition to upcoming bills, which are still due in full. Otherwise, the agreement defaults and the total balance becomes due again.
So, if the average debt is $2,661 in May 2025, a customer would be responsible for $798 up front, followed by six payments of $310, on top of the normal monthly energy bills. Does this sound like a solution for a household already struggling to pay?
Here’s what that looks like based on Central Hudson’s average monthly energy costs per year, including electricity and gas.
There is some leniency, to be fair. The debt doesn’t accrue interest, and if you can show financial hardship, you can negotiate for a zero-dollar down payment and $10 monthly payments instead of the initial offer.
But how many people know that? I know because I’ve been talking to social services coordinators and researching it. But Central Hudson doesn’t seem to advertise this information. The sample agreement I found mentions the possibility of negotiation in two small paragraphs, and I can’t find anything about it on Central Hudson’s website. How do you prove financial hardship? The answer is through participation in assistance programs. Which come with their own administrative barrier to entry.
The one-size-fits all price of residential energy is a major driver of these situations. Since the price of energy is fixed across users, and every household needs energy to maintain a normal standard of living, lower-income households end up paying a much higher percentage of their budget to the utility. So the cost of energy is functionally regressive. One family might pay 5% of their income toward energy, while another pays 20% for the same service.
Instead, we could institute a progressive structure, where households are billed a percentage of monthly income for energy costs. The utility would take a portion of your income, scaled to what you earn. The NY HEAT Act proposes exactly this. If it passes, bills would be capped at 6% of monthly budgets for low-income households.
Privately owned utilities have no incentive to institute similar measures on their own. As for-profit organizations, their goal is to grow revenue year after year while keeping their costs down. A big part of that commitment to revenue is the process of collecting payment.
If you can’t pay, you don’t get lights at night. You don’t get internet access. Again, being fair, there are exceptions. Customers can apply for protected status to avoid shut offs in Central Hudson, for example, if you have life sustaining equipment in your home. But this structure also puts the administrative burden onto those homes. If you’re struggling, if you’re in a difficult situation, you need to prove it. That’s the kind of accommodation you get with a for-profit system.
Instead, our utility system should be designed around care. It should meet our needs without holding us hostage for having those needs. That’s what we’re fighting for at Mid-Hudson Energy Transition and why we proudly support the Hudson Valley Power Authority Act. When power is returned to the people, rather than given to for-profit corporations, real problems are solved, basic needs are met, and the lights stay on.
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For help with navigating termination letters and submitting complaints to the PSC, check out this guide by Communities for Local Power: CLP Termination Letter Guide.