As I mentioned in previous letters, our customers are conserving energy and using electricity more efficiently. We demonstrated our leadership role by being one of the first utilities in the nation to have a full “decoupling” of the sales levels of electricity from our revenues through a two-year pilot program approved by the DPUC. This has stabilized our revenues in a time of declining sales of electricity.

But now we must focus on the future. How will our customers use electricity in the future? Where and how will electricity be generated? How will it be delivered, or will it be generated at a customer’s location? Is our business model as a transmission and distribution company with some peaking generation appropriate for the future?

We believe it likely that the model will change, and we need to change as well. There will be a need for the transmission and distribution of electricity for the foreseeable future but more customers will seek to control their electricity supply. This could be for environmental reasons or as various supply options become more cost-effective for economic reasons.

We have been working with the state legislature for the last two years to allow UI to invest in renewable and customer-side generation on a cost of service basis. We will continue to pursue these actions along with facilitating the use of plug-in electric vehicles and other uses of electricity for our customers. It is incumbent upon us to ascertain the needs, desires and wants of our customers and to initiate or advocate the most cost-effective ways to provide them with electricity. We are actively pursuing these goals for our customers and the first step is to have legislation in the state modified in order to accomplish them.

With the Company on a firm financial footing we are continuing our capital spending plans with capital spending and investments in 2010 expected to total nearly $300 million. This is very significant for us and it is the start of our ambitious $1.7 billion capital program for the next ten years. This amount does not include any additional spending for capital needed to expand the transmission grid to allow for renewable energy to enter the load centers of New England and in particular our home state of Connecticut. It also does not include any capital spending to facilitate customer-side activities.