Windsor applied for a municipal aggregation plan in March 2022 to lower residents' electric rates. It still hasn't been approved

Community Voices Editor

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Shenna Welch is doing laundry less often this summer to compensate for high electricity bills. "Last year or the year before, our bills were nowhere near this,” she said.

WINDSOR — Karen Schiltz noticed an immediate jump in her electricity bill as soon as she moved to Windsor in the spring of 2022 from Pittsfield.

Her bills have run $300 to $350 a month.

Source: Eversource

“We have a tiny little house,” Schiltz said. “We don’t run air conditioners at all. We don’t run computers all the time. It’s just the two of us, and the bill is pretty much twice as much as my one in Pittsfield.”

She and her adult son moved from a four-bedroom house in Pittsfield, with two full bathrooms and air conditioning. The only drain on electricity in her Windsor home, she said, might be a dehumidifier.

She’s mystified by a chart she received showing she’s used 75 percent more electricity than last summer, “and we haven’t done anything different.”

“It makes absolutely no sense,” she said. “It is really making us angry. It basically makes it very difficult to afford to live here.”

Since 2018, Pittsfield has had an approved municipal aggregation plan, which resembles a buyers’ club — with electricity customers banding together as a single entity to negotiate for electricity.

In Pittsfield, residents have collectively saved approximately $8,390,000 and businesses have saved approximately $5,076,000 for a total savings of $13,466,000, according to a May 2023 news release.

Windsor has been waiting since March 2022 for approval from the state Department of Public Utilities for its municipal aggregation plan. Schiltz said she placed a call to the governor’s office in hopes that might hurry along the process.

The town approved the municipal aggregation plan at town meeting in June 2021. In March 2022, Colonial Power Group submitted the plan to the DPU. A public hearing was held in November of that year. A first round of clarifying questions from a hearing officer came in March 2023, for which Colonial Power Group prepared answers, responding in April.

“Everything seems to have just stalled,” said Jan Bradley, a member of the town’s Green Committee, who started a letter-writing campaign to urge approval. On July 20, a hearing officer requested Windsor answer questions a second time with a deadline of Aug. 3 for answers.

Schiltz said she placed a phone call to the governor’s office after the social media campaign, even though she doesn’t fully understand the benefits of the plan.

Windsor isn’t the only town waiting for approval.

The Middlesex County town of Weston has been waiting the longest, since October 2020. The communities of Bolton, Tewksbury, Quincy, Chelsea, Beverly, Amesbury, Sherborn and Andover have also been waiting since 2020 or 2021.

Customers may call 877-963-2632 (Western Massachusetts), or visit Eversource.com/BillHelp to find the right plan for them and enroll online.

Source: Eversource

Municipal aggregation has its benefits, including cost savings, according to a March 2023 report by a team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts. The report called, “Community Choice Electricity Programs: A Survey of Massachusetts Municipalities,” documented the experience of communities. Among benefits, it noted, “about 80% of the communities achieved savings.” Among challenges, it noted that 26 percent experienced “delays associated with approval from the Department of Public Utilities.”

A spokeswoman for the department acknowledged the need for quicker action.

“Leadership at the DPU understands the need for swift review and streamlining the process regarding municipal aggregation,” Danielle Burney wrote in an Aug. 1 email. “They are working urgently to review existing applications and simplify the process going forward.”

Eversource spokesman Chris McKinnon said the electricity rate went down as of July 1 to 14.85 cents per kilowatt hour from the winter rate of 21.99 cents per kilowatt hour.

He said global markets for natural gas forced up the price of electricity during the winter months. The rate this summer, he said, is actually lower than it was a year ago, when it was 15.4 cents per kilowatt hour due to a drop in cost for natural gas, used in generating electricity.

“Ultimately, a customer’s total bill does come down to their usage,” he said, adding that Eversource is willing to check electricity meters if customers suspect they may be broken. “A typical customer in Massachusetts uses about 40 percent more electricity while they’re trying to stay cool in summer months.”

Shenna Welch holds her electricity bill showing March usage.

With a drop in price for electricity in effect from July 1 to Dec. 1 of this year, customers in Western Massachusetts should see a savings of roughly $42, or 18 percent, on their bills, according to a May news release from Eversource.

Windsor resident Shenna Welch has a hot tub, two refrigerators, two freezers and two garages on her property.

“But you know, last year or the year before, our bills were nowhere near this,” she said, referring to electricity bills this spring and summer that topped $500 for March and then came down to the high $200s. Previous year’s bills ranged from $180 to $220, she said.

This summer, she told her family not to use ceiling fans and window fans at the same time, unplugged toasters when not in use, and has cut down on the number of laundry loads per week. She said her usage hasn’t changed.

A colleague from Pittsfield shared a bill with Welch showing $85 was due. Noting the difference between her own bills and those of her colleague, Welch lamented the delay in approval of Windsor’s municipal aggregation plan.

“It’s upsetting to know that because we’re not in it," she said. "We’re paying so much more it seems.”

Jane Kaufman is Community Voices Editor at The Berkshire Eagle. She can be reached at [email protected] or 413-496-6125.

This is the third time this year that state Rep. John Barrett III has led the charge against the state Department of Public Utilities.

Community Voices Editor