Solar Over Gas: How CT Could Lower Your Electric Bill
Connecticut candidate Anne Weisberg argues solar energy, not natural gas, is the key to reducing skyrocketing Eversource bills for state residents.
Eversource customers in Connecticut have been absorbing rate increases for years, and the pain lands hardest on Fairfield County households already juggling Metro-North fares and property tax bills that would make most Americans wince. Anne Weisberg, running for state representative in the 108th District, thinks she knows why bills stay high and what would actually fix them.
Her district takes in Sherman, New Fairfield, and portions of New Milford and Danbury. She’s not running on a vague platform. Energy costs are her central issue, and her argument is straightforward: solar brings bills down, natural gas doesn’t.
“When I was campaigning for state representative in the summer of 2024, electricity bills were soaring,” Weisberg told the CT Mirror. “As I knocked on doors, the only voters who didn’t complain about their bills were those with solar panels.”
That’s not a talking point she picked up from a consultant. It’s what she heard on doorsteps across a district that runs from quiet lake towns near the New York border down into a city, Danbury, where median incomes look nothing like Greenwich’s.
Two bills on the table
Weisberg is backing HB 5340, the Act Concerning Renewable Power Generation, currently under debate in Hartford. It would legalize small-scale “plug-in” or “balcony” solar units that renters and condo owners can install without permits or rooftop access. She also supports HB 5036, the governor’s proposal to streamline residential solar permitting across Connecticut.
The permitting issue isn’t abstract. According to Environment America Research and Policy Center, Connecticut’s permitting requirements can add thousands of dollars to a home solar installation. That cost doesn’t come from the equipment or labor. It comes from bureaucratic steps that other states have already eliminated. When a permit process runs a customer an extra $5,000, that’s the difference between a Danbury family going solar and not going solar. Cut the overhead to $1,000 or less, and the math changes.
The Connecticut Green Bank and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection already offer financing and incentive programs to help residents go solar, but those tools only work if installation costs don’t knock the project out of reach before it starts.
The “public benefits charge” argument
Connecticut Republicans have attacked a specific line on Eversource bills: the “public benefits charge.” They frame it as a cost driver. Weisberg doesn’t buy that framing.
Here’s why it matters. That charge funds EnergizeCT, a program that sends crews to fix leaky windows and run energy audits on homes that wouldn’t otherwise get them. Even Eversource’s own materials describe EnergizeCT as “the most cost-effective policy tool to reduce energy bills, promote economic development, protect the environment, and provide energy security.” The program reportedly delivers three dollars back for every dollar it spends. Cutting it doesn’t help ratepayers. It shifts costs around while leaving the underlying problem, an aging and inefficient housing stock, exactly where it was.
Weisberg also raises a point that doesn’t get enough attention in Connecticut’s energy debates: the oil and gas industry has collected federal subsidies since 1913. That’s not a typo. More than a century of government support, and the industry still can’t deliver electricity cheaper than solar can in 2026. The global clean energy transition has already sent $40 billion into renewable investment. Connecticut ratepayers are competing for that capital against states that make permitting fast and cheap. Right now, Connecticut isn’t winning that competition.
What’s at stake in the 108th
The 108th District isn’t a place where voters have the luxury of treating energy costs as an ideological debate. Sherman’s a small town. New Fairfield’s a commuter community. New Milford and Danbury are working cities. These aren’t households with room in the budget for bills that keep climbing.
Weisberg’s case is that the current system protects incumbent energy interests while ratepayers absorb the cost. She thinks two bills moving through Hartford in 2026 can start to change that, but only if they pass. The Act Concerning Renewable Power Generation, HB 5340, is where she’s put her name.
“As I knocked on doors, the only voters who didn’t complain about their bills were those with solar panels,” she said. That’s the whole argument, condensed.