Bangor Hydro’s four-year plan to reduce energy costs to its customers, rejected by the Public Utilities Commission this week, would have been approved several years ago and could well look like a bargain several years from now. But for the PUC to accept it now would not only have reversed the intention of the state’s energy deregulation plan but would have informed the public and all those theoretical energy competitors that Maine was giving up on deregulation before it had truly begun.

Bangor Hydro, however, is onto something in recognizing that, more than mastering the arcane energy world, the public wants affordability and stability from its power companies, whether its energy, transmission or an old-style blending of the two. The plan would have lowered the current standard offer rate from 7.3 cents per kilowatt-hour to 5.5 cents and allowed the transmission rate to increase only a little for a significant net savings. The fact that Bangor Hydro customers have seen their rates rise 18 percent in 18 months without energy competitors rushing in with better deals tells them the region’s market is going to be a lonely place for some time to come.

PUC Chairman Tom Welch said Bangor Hydro could not take on the risk of lowering energy prices nearly 9 percent during the time of the plan. That is a sensible decision given that it was the energy risks imposed on utilities in the 1980s that built up much of their stranded cost still being paid by customers now and a prime incentive to get those utilities out of the energy business. But the public deserves more than just a reaffirmation of the state’s restructuring plan. It needs the PUC to give it a better sense of where Maine stands in the national energy market, what the state has learned since implementing deregulation and what it can expect in the next year or two.

Falling energy prices should offer some relief to standard offer customers in Bangor Hydro’s territory but still leaves the question of competition unanswered. Deregulation exchanged certainty for the opportunity of lower prices to customers. But unless competition-driven prices begin to appear, the old certainty and the new one offered this week by Bangor Hydro will look better and better.