Following months of outcry – and several, firmly-worded letters from elected officials – Massachusetts residents should start seeing some relief from high gas and electric bills soon.
This winter’s been a particularly cold one in parts of the Northeast. Add in factors like natural gas prices rising in general or a hefty rate increase approved by state regulators, and you get electric bills spiking over the past few months – as much as 27 percent for some this heating season, Ludlow State Senator Jake Oliveira previously told WAMC.
Oliveira and other lawmakers called for the Department of Public Utilities to revisit rate increases it approved last fall. Also weighing in were residents, mayors and, eventually, Governor Maura Healey.
The DPU has since taken action – and, as announced on Monday, so has the governor.
“Several weeks ago, I charged my team - I said, ‘What can we do to drive down people's heating costs?’ because people, especially the last month or two, were absolutely flabbergasted by what they got in the mail,” Healey said at a press conference in Lowell. “There are different reasons for that, but my goal was to make sure we were exploring every single thing that we could do as a state government - not as a utility, but as a state government - to drive down people's bills.”
Healey detailed her “Energy Affordability Agenda.” It features $220 million in “immediate relief” for residents, with a broader plan to save close to $6 billion for gas and electric customers over the next five years.
The agenda includes $125 million being given directly to residents. That will be in the form of $50 credits in April for electricity bills, intended for “every electric residential customer served by Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil.” The Democrat’s administration says the funds were previously collected to support clean energy.
Healey acknowledged $50 is not a lot, but says it’s part of broader efforts to bring down prices before the end of the heating season and beyond. That includes working with utility companies to reduce various charges passed on to customers.
“What we're working to do is to strip away and just take off some of those charges that people are used to seeing and these charges have been added over the years for different reasons, to cover the cost of building out the grid and different infrastructure, but we're taking a close look at them,” the governor said. “… we're getting the utilities to agree to remove any that just aren't absolutely necessary in this time right now, when people are really feeling the pinch.”
According to the Healey administration, the DPU has already taken actions to lower gas bills in the state by as much as $95 million.
In February, the department said it directed “gas companies to reduce residential gas bills for March and April to provide relief to their customers for the remaining heating season, which ends on April 30th.”
The DPU fielded proposals from companies like Eversource, National Grid and Berkshire Gas, and went on to approve said proposals, which it says will translate to 7.4 to 16 percent reductions for March and April gas bills, depending on provider.
This, after slashing $500 million from the state’s Mass Save program – which gives customers rebates for energy efficient installations and repairs.
Helping fund it - a monthly surcharge on gas and electric bills. The DPU says “due to this budget cut, the energy efficiency surcharge will be reduced on future residential customer bills.”
As for other plans to get bills down, Healey says her administration will be working to encourage more residents to enroll in energy assistance programs while exploring legislative solutions, among other plans.
As the state’s Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper mentioned Monday, there’s also good news on the horizon involving the country’s neighbors to the north.
“The other thing that's really going to stabilize prices, which we've been working on for a long time, and we're really excited to actually have happen this year - the new hydro transmission line coming from Canada will be online this year,” Tepper said. “Thank you, Maine and the courts. So, we're going to save customers almost $200 million over the next five years with that line, so [we’re] really excited about that. We're also going to be looking at some innovative rate design that I think will help further reduce volatility.”
