(WJAR) — Skyrocketing electric bills are leaving Rhode Island Energy customers fed up and confused.

While rates are set to decrease by about 17% for the summer starting April 1, some charges on electric bills are going up.

“What they’re doing is wrong to us and something needs to be done about it,” Joyce Fiore said. “I think there’s something wrong with the billing system.”

President of Rhode Island Energy Greg Cornett said a cold winter is to blame.

“I understand when our customers are frustrated because of bills, but what I would ask customers to do is to understand what components are in each of those bills,” he said.

The bills are split into two sections: supply and delivery.

The supply side is the raw cost of how much electricity is used.

The delivery portion is more complicated.

“We control part of it, we don’t control the entire thing,” Cornett said.

There’s eight different delivery charges.

Among them is the state mandated renewable energy growth charge, which would for a customer using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity would go up from $4.02 to $5.75 under the new summer rate proposal, a 43% increase.

“This is something that we need to address and we need to address now,” State Rep. Charlene Lima said.

She’s sponsoring legislation she hopes will help by pausing some of Rhode Island’s renewable energy requirements for 10 years.

“Some of the legislation that we as a general assembly passed and put this burden on the electric company and the things they have to do,$5 million a year to the state every year to study renewables. Well, who’s paying that $5 million? They’re passing it on to the consumers,” she said.

Not everyone agrees renewable energy mandates are the problem.

“That’s like $5 a month, and the CEO of Rhode Island Energy just got a 31% raise, making $12 million a year,” Rep. Meghan Cotter said.

Other sections of the bill are also going up including the distribution charge set to increase by 3%.

“It is the investment that we are making every single day in replacing poles, in extending service to new customers, in new transformers, modernizing the grid, replacing aging infrastructure, building our system to be able to withstand stronger winds and stronger storms,” Cornett said. “It’s all of that investment that we’re putting into the system every single day that goes into part of that delivery charge.”

The transmission charge is also increasing 15%.

Lima is also pushing for the Public Utility Commission to do a study on other state’s utility costs, find out why Rhode Island is so expensive, and report back to the General Assembly.