City Announcement: Understanding Your Electricity Choice

By Silas Fyler|
City of Watertown’s Assistant Director for Energy Management

In many Massachusetts communities, residents have options when it comes to how they get their electricity supply. All of us receive a bill from Eversource that includes a cost for electricity delivery and electricity supply. We have no choice in who delivers electricity to our homes and businesses. In Watertown, that is always Eversource. But we do have a choice in who we pay for our electricity supply.

In Watertown there are essentially three electricity supply choices – Eversource’s Basic Service, private electricity supply offers, and Watertown’s electricity aggregation program, which is called Watertown Electricity Choice.

Eversource’s Basic Service price is not consistent and changes every 6 months, making budgeting and preparation unpredictable. Private electricity supply offers often include a low introductory price that can later spike higher than Eversource’s price, and early-termination fees. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office has consistently found that most customers lose out in the long run. In comparison, Watertown Electricity Choice offers Watertown electricity customers a competitive, stable electricity supply price that does not suddenly rise, the freedom to leave at any time with no fee or penalty, and additional electricity from clean, renewable sources, which aligns with our City’s goals for renewable energy.

Watertown Electricity Choice is a type of municipal group electricity buying program that is regulated by the state. Electricity aggregations were enabled by the Massachusetts Restructuring Act of 1997 (Chapter 164, Section 134), which allows municipalities to select an electricity supplier and determine the community’s electricity supply prices and amount of renewable energy in the community’s electricity supply. In accordance with state law, all programs like Watertown Electricity Choice use an automatic enrollment model.

The City of Watertown does not receive any financial benefit from Watertown Electricity Choice, but Watertown residents and businesses enrolled in Watertown Electricity Choice have saved over $14.7 million since the program inception compared to those receiving Eversource’s Basic Service price, though future savings cannot be guaranteed. More than 200 cities and towns in Massachusetts have programs similar to Watertown Electricity Choice.

Price stability is a hallmark of programs like Watertown Electricity Choice. The City achieves that benefit by using the group buying power of the community to lock in long-term prices. For example, the current prices were locked in December 2023 and remain fixed until December 2026. Securing long-term prices provides protection from the seasonal spikes that can happen as Eversource’s Basic Service prices change over the course of the year. However, it also means that sometimes Eversource’s price can drop below Watertown’s price. For example, last year’s unusually warm fall

resulted temporarily lower electricity prices, so right now, Eversource’s residential Basic Service price is 13.241¢/kWh, which is slightly below the Watertown Standard price of 13.74 ¢/kWh.

This temporary drop does not mean participants will lose money compared with Eversource overall. It is actually not typical for a fixed-price program like Watertown’s to beat Eversource for each of Eversource’s 6-month price periods. Rather, the typical pattern for a program like Watertown Electricity Choice is to be sometimes higher than Eversource’s prices and sometimes lower, but to provide savings on average. Our program’s history shows that the prices have been competitive and more affordable over the long term. And for those who are not comfortable with participating in Watertown Electricity Choice, the option to opt out with no penalty or fee is always there.

We encourage all of Watertown electricity customers to learn more about Watertown Electricity Choice. Within the program, participants have three options:

• New participants are automatically enrolled in the Standard option, which provides electricity that is 100% from renewable sources, such as solar, wind, and small hydroelectric projects. Providing electricity that is 100% from renewable sources exceeds the state’s requirements but is consistent with the City’s sustainability plan goals.
• Those who prefer the least-expensive option in the program can opt down to the Basic option, which provides just the minimum amount of electricity from renewable sources required by law but retains the benefit of a long-term, stable price.
• Those who want to make a larger commitment to renewable energy and don’t mind paying a small premium can opt up to the 100% Green option, which provides electricity that is 100% from new renewable sources in the New England region.

Since the program’s launch in 2019, participants in the Standard and 100% Green options have avoided over 114 million pounds of CO₂ emissions – a significant and meaningful contribution to the climate resiliency goals we have as a community.

The program website, WatertownElectricityChoice.com, provides details about prices and the renewable energy content of each program option. Look in the upper-right corner of the site for access to simple forms for enrolling, changing to a different option within the program, or opting out. And if you have questions the website does not answer or need additional help, you can always call customer support with our program consultants at 844-278-9864.

Silas Fyler is the Assistant Director for Energy Management in the City of Watertown’s Public Buildings Department.