By: Danielle Ulman

Delmarva Power & Light Co. mucked up efforts to hold a public hearing last week on its plans to increase rates for distributing electricity, and now it has to pay to fix it.

The Public Service Commission requires companies to hold hearings to publicly air their intentions and allow customers to say what they will about the utility’s plans in most major cases.

The companies have to notify customers of the hearings through advertisements in general circulation newspapers and submit proof that the ads were published to the PSC on or before the date of the hearing.

Well, Delmarva did as it was supposed to and published the ads, but did not provide a copy to the PSC before its hearings. At the Oct. 15 hearing, the PSC said it discovered that Delmarva had “inadvertently” failed to mention in its ads what exactly it would discuss at the public hearings. Oops.

Now, according to an order from the PSC issued today, Delmarva is on the hook for three additional public hearings, and it can’t pass the cost along to its ratepayers as utilities usually do. Delmarva has to pay expenses for a court reporter and travel expenses for PSC officials and staff members from the Office of the People’s Counsel to attend the hearings.

No idea how much all of that would cost, but Delmarva will foot the entire bill.

The company also has to put a notice of the hearings on the home page of its Web site with all of the relevant details available without clicking on a link.

And, once again, it has to publish notice of the hearings in newspapers — hopefully this time with all of the necessary info — as well as provide proof of publication to the PSC. The only problem is that the company isn’t required to send a copy of the ad to regulators before it runs to make sure they got it right.

The fault here is obviously with Delmarva for failing to tell customers why they were holding the hearings, but doesn’t it seem like it would make more sense for the PSC to make the company send over copies of the ads before they run in order to avoid another redo?