Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey spoke out on Thursday against a proposed $300 million rate increase by New England energy company Eversource Energy, according to a Friday article in the Waltham Patch.

In her appeal to the Department of Public Utilities, Healey called this case “an important opportunity for the Department to reset the balance between company profits and customer rates,” according to the Patch article.

Healey argued that Eversource’s recent returns have been far higher than most national public utility commissions would allow, citing a cumulative total return of 89 percent to Eversource shareholders between 2010 and 2015, according to the article. “When so many customers today are struggling to make ends meet and businesses are trying to lower their energy costs to maintain and grow jobs, it is time to return money to customers, not to raise their electric bills to benefit highly profitable utility companies,” she said.

Eversource spokesperson Rhiannon D’Angelo, however, contended that the growth in rates was necessary in order to update and improve service, according to the article.

In an email to the Patch, D’Angelo noted Eversource’s recent improvement in preventing and responding to power outages. “With continued investments in the electric system and the expansion of our grid modernization efforts, we fully anticipate that we’ll continue to build on that improvement which is so important in our customers’ day-to-day lives,” she wrote.

D’Angelo noted in particular the launch of a “Grid-Wise Performance Plan” as a cause of the rate spike. Such a plan would include technology aimed at mitigating power outages and the implementation of an electric vehicle charging infrastructure program, among other energy-saving initiatives, according to the Patch.

According to the Patch article, “the increase would affect 1.4 million Massachusetts residents who use Eversource” and, if approved, would begin Jan. 1, 2018.

—Carmi Rothberg