Electric rates will rise Friday
But while the new rates will be higher than winter-spring 2025 costs, they will not be as high as autumn 2024.
Eversource electric customers in Western Massachusetts will pay an average of $10.65 a month more, a 5.5% increase over the rates they pay now.
The utility's basic rate for electric power supply — not the transportation cost — is going up from 11.7 cents a kilowatt hour to 13.49 cents, the utility said this week.
Eversource said the rate hike won't affect people who get their synergy supply from a third-party, like folks who participate in a municipal aggregation plan. The state Department of Public Utilities approved municipal aggregation plans for Southwick and Springfield in late 2024. Ludlow launches Ludlow Power Choice, its aggregation plan, in August.
National Grid, the other investor-owned utility covering this region, said the seasonal rate adjustment and decreases to other bill components result in an overall increase of 2.2%, or $4.87, for a typical customer using 600 kilowatt hours a month. The basic service rate will change from the current 14.7 cents per kWh to 15.5 cents per kWh.
The National Grid basic service rate was an average of 16.04 cents per kilowatt hour for the period from Aug. 1, 2024, to Jan. 31, the utility said.
The state requires investor-owned utilities to set rates twice a year. And in 2023, the date changed to Aug. 1 and Feb. 1 to split up the colder months, when power use and prices are high.
Municipal utilities are not on the fixed schedule, said Westfield Gas & Electric General Manager Thomas Flaherty.
But he said prices will rise, with the cost of importing natural gas into the region for power generation.
The real driver of higher utility costs will be in electrical transmission costs, because utilities are investing in the transmission system.
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