UI Intends to File Notice of Rate Increase Application

Business Wire, July 7, 2008

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The Connecticut Department of Utility Control today issued a press release to deny a request by The United Illuminating Company, a subsidiary of UIL Holdings Corporation (NYSE: UIL), to appoint a prosecutorial staff to participate in settlement discovery. Unfortunately, the DPUC press release was entitled, "DPUC Rejects Utility Request to Raise Electric Rates." UI made no such request.

UI has not to date filed a rate increase application with the DPUC. Instead, UI sought an alternative resolution that the Company believed would be in the interests of all customers. It did this to address changing economic conditions affecting UI's operations, in hopes of stabilizing customers' bills and averting a formal rate filing.

With the DPUC's denial of a prosecutorial appointment, UI will now file a notice of its intent to request an increase in rates.

"We are very disappointed because a settlement would have been in the best interest of customers and would have resulted in rates lower than what they were scheduled to be as of Jan. 1, 2009," said James P. Torgerson, CEO and President of UIL Holdings Inc., UI's parent company. "We will now file a notice of a rate increase application within 30 days."

The United Illuminating Company (UI) is a New Haven-based regional distribution utility established in 1899. UI is engaged in the purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity and related services to more than 320,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the Greater New Haven and Bridgeport areas. UI's World Wide Web address is http://www.uinet.com/. UI's parent company, UIL Holdings Corporation, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol UIL.