Company: CNLHP
Filing Date: 2025-02-14
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000072741-25-000007
Chunk: 39

Company: CONNECTICUT LIGHT & POWER CO
Filing Date: 2025-02-14
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 39
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 precipitation, extreme heat and weather events, including the effects of significantly stronger wind-related events.  Customers’ energy and water needs vary with weather conditions, primarily related to temperature and humidity. For residential customers, heating and cooling represent their largest energy use.  For water customers, conservation measures imposed by the communities we serve could impact water usage.  To the extent weather conditions are affected by climate change, customers’ energy and water usage could increase or decrease depending on the duration and magnitude of the changes.

Severe weather induced by climate change, such as extreme and frequent ice and snowstorms, tornadoes, micro-bursts, hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, excess humidity and other natural or weather-related phenomenon, may cause outages and property damage, which may require us to incur additional costs that may not be recoverable from customers. The cost of repairing damage to our operating subsidiaries' facilities and the potential disruption of their operations due to the increase in frequency and severity of storms, natural disasters or other catastrophic events could be substantial, particularly as regulators and customers demand better and quicker response times to outages. If, upon review, any of our state regulatory authorities finds that our actions were imprudent, some of those restoration costs may not be recoverable from customers and could result in penalties or fines. The inability to recover a significant amount of such costs could have an adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows. We maintain property insurance, but it may be insufficient in limits and coverage exclusions to cover all losses. Additionally, these types of weather events risk interruption of the supply chain and could disrupt the delivery of goods and services required for our operations.

Transitional impacts related to climate change may have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations due to costs associated with new technologies, evolving customer expectations and changing workforce needs.

Initiatives to mitigate the impacts of climate change, support a transition to cleaner energy, and reduce emissions, may have a material adverse financial impact to our business. These impacts include the costs associated with the development and implementation of new technologies to maintain system reliability and resiliency and lower emissions, including grid modernization and energy storage. An increase in such costs, unless promptly recovered, could have an adverse impact on our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows. There may also be financial and reputational risks if we fail to meet evolving customer expectations, including enabling the integration of residential renewables and providing low carbon solutions, such as electric vehicle infrastructure and energy efficiency services. Additionally,