Advocates for low-income families met with the state Public Utilities Commission yesterday to implore the regulators to lower the down-payment needed to restore electricity and gas service to households that were shut off because of non-payment.

Under the current rules, a customer that has had a service termination must pay between 25 percent and 50 percent of the past-due balance, before service will be restored.

The George Wiley Center of Pawtucket, which lobbies on behalf of low-income families, has asked the PUC to lower the down-payment to 10 percent of the overdue balance.

The request comes at a time of record-high energy costs, as well as a record number of utility shutoffs resulting from customers who didn’t or couldn’t pay their bills.

Through July, there were 17,504 gas and electricity shutoffs, the highest number since the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers began tracking them in 1997. The figure is 10.4 percent higher than the 15,858 shutoffs through the end of July of last year, according to the DPUC figures.

Many of those customers were able to make the required payment, and have since had their service restored. But data prepared by National Grid, the state’s dominant utility, show that thousands of Rhode Islanders remain disconnected from service.

“One of the reasons why people get into the termination-restoration cycle is that they, when they get behind, are then hit with a current bill that is too much for them, plus a back bill which has accumulated because of their difficulty making payments,” said Jean Rosiello, an attorney representing the George Wiley Center.

She said the heating-affordability issue is verging on “catastrophe,” made worse by the current economic conditions in the state. “Oil is going through the roof, peoples’ incomes are stagnating or declining, more people are losing their jobs or working fewer hours and prices are rising.”

She said the most recent electricity rate increase, which pushed up the bills of most customers by 21.7 percent, had an even bigger impact on low-income customers. According to her calculations, rates for those customers increased by 28 percent.

Yesterday, the PUC met with representatives of the center and with National Grid officials for a “technical session” in which the company was asked to explain data that profiles the customers without service.

According to the company, there were a total of 6,966 gas and electricity accounts that were still without service at the end of last month. Of that number, 3,246 were electricity customers and 3,720 were gas customers.

The electricity customers, in aggregate, owed about $2.5 million, which is about $771 per customer. Gas customers owed a total of about $6.3 million, or an average of $1,688.

About 67 percent of the electricity customers and 14 percent of the gas customers had never defaulted on a previous payment agreement.

The number of unrestored accounts is up 24 percent this year, compared with last year, according to John Howat, senior policy analyst for the National Consumer Law Center.

Howat, who works on low-income and utility issues around the country, has been working informally, and without charge, for the George Wiley Center for several years, he said.

The problem is particularly acute among low-income customers, he said. In June and July, the rate of account restoration for this class of customers reached an all-time low of 25 percent, Howat said.

“The health and safety hazard posed by long-term lack of utility service during the New England winter cannot be overstated,” Howat said. “It is critical that the Public Utilities Commission take positive action in the short term to ensure that low-income households are offered truly affordable payment plans so that they are able to regain and retain access to basic, necessary utility service.”

tbarmann@projo.com