PROVIDENCE — For the third consecutive winter, Rhode Islanders are facing record energy prices.

Rhode Island Energy announced this month its proposed electricity rates for state approval. Starting Oct. 1, the company wants to raise its winter electric rate to 16.377 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), an 8% decrease from the previous winter, according to an estimate provided by the utility company.

In layman’s terms, the electricity you use today will cost more starting in October. A household using 500 kWh monthly will see their current bills increase by about $30.

“We recognize that high winter energy costs are a challenge for many of our customers, and our team has successfully secured lower prices than we have seen over the last two winters so we can pass those savings on to customers,” Rhode Island Energy president Greg Cornett said in a statement. “We work every day to provide our customers with reliable, affordable and sustainable energy, and we encourage all customers to explore the many ways we offer to help them save energy and money – including our payment plans, assistance programs and variety of energy efficiency solutions.”

Despite easing inflation and an economy that continues to chug along strong, energy prices remain one area where prices have yet to settle down to their pre-pandemic levels.

Back in fall 2022, the Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory agency that regulates utility services, approved a 47% hike in the electric rate charged to Rhode Islanders, an increase on average of about $50 a month for every household. Prior to the hike, energy prices had been mostly stable in the years leading up to and during the pandemic.

But a growing demand for natural gas — the main fossil fuel that companies like Rhode Island Energy and its predecessor National Grid buy their energy from wholesale — thanks to a growing overseas market and the instability caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has played havoc with energy prices at home over the past few years.

Rhode Island typically changes its electricity rates twice annually — the rationale being it provides more buffer during times of volatile energy prices — but the winter rates are traditionally much higher than the summertime rates thanks to most of the state relying on natural gas for electricity, but also heat and cooking.

Prior to the first major hike in September 2022, electricity prices would typically oscillate between 8 cents and 10.5 cents per kWh — around $40 in the summer and $55 in the winter per month, not counting additional charges from the utility company.

But higher prices continue to persist. Last winter Rhode Island Energy proposed, and the PUC approved, a similar bump on electric bills, around $32.29 per month. And in the summer, rates aren’t decreasing to their pre-pandemic lows.

State policymakers have done little over the past few years to mitigate the higher prices. Under a consent agreement with the utility company’s new owners, the Pennsylvania-based PPL Corp., Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha secured some arrearage forgiveness and bill credits for customers.

But during the legislative session this spring, lawmakers once again punted approval of the percentage income payment plan, a program that was piloted in Rhode Island back in the 1980s that would allow qualifying low-income customers to pay only a portion of their reported income as their utility bill, sparing them from soaring electricity prices.

Utility justice advocates from the George Wiley Center, a Pawtucket-based nonprofit that addresses social justice and poverty issues, and low-income residents have long lobbied the General Assembly and PUC to pass such a plan. But those calls have gone unheeded.

A public hearing on the new rates has yet to be scheduled, but is expected to be sometime in September.