SWAMPSCOTT ― The town’s electricity program, Swampscott Community Power, is entering a new, three-year contract with NextEra Energy Services after the program’s current contract with Direct Energy ends in November.
With this new contract, the town is increasing its commitment to buy renewable electricity from the New England region while offering new prices that will be lower than National Grid’s winter, residential basic service.
Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said with this new contract, the town can continue to protect ratepayers and taxpayers from big-utility price swings ― like the upcoming winter price increase from National Grid ― and strengthen the town’s local impact by buying locally.
“Through Swampscott Community Power and Swampscott’s Renewable Energy Committee’s leadership, we have taken big steps toward our climate goals while providing benefits like price stability that helped Swampscott ratepayers save more than $650,000 in electricity bills,” Fitzgerald said.
Swampscott Community Power has made an impact on the town’s efforts to fight climate change, providing 100 percent renewable electricity to most program participants.
This community-wide effort has resulted in more than 130 million pounds of CO2 emissions avoided, which is equal to avoiding the greenhouse-gas emissions of passenger cars driving more than 148 million miles.
From the program’s launch in 2016 to the end of October 2021, participants in Swampscott Community Power will have cumulatively purchased more than 210,000 megawatt hours of electricity from renewable sources instead of fossil fuels.
The increase in local, renewable electricity will apply to the Standard Green offering, which is the default program that most participants are enrolled in.
Standard Green provides 100 percent renewable electricity that is mostly generated outside of New England, with a small amount generated within the New England region.
The amount generated within New England previously included the minimum required to meet state law and another five percent added voluntarily by Swampscott.
Starting in November, that additional voluntary amount will go from five percent to 15 percent.
With this change, the price for Standard Green will decrease from 11.444 cents per kilowatt hours (kWh) to 11.406 c/kWh.
Other program options include New England Green, which provides 100 percent renewable electricity all from within New England, which will increase from 13.499 c/kWh to 13.593 c/kWh, but decrease with the basic option from 11.244 c/kWh to 10.603 c/kWh.
These new prices will be fixed until November 2024.
All three program prices are lower than National Grid’s proposed six-month winter residential Basic Service price of 14.821 c/kWh.
During the course of the contract with NextEra, National Grid’s basic service prices may at times be lower than the Swampscott Community Power price because future National Grid prices are not known, so savings compared with National Grid’s basic prices cannot be guaranteed.
All active program participants in Swampscott Community Power will automatically be enrolled into the new contract with NextEra to receive the new prices with their November 2021 meter read.
Participants will be enrolled in the same program option they have under the current contract and participants will see the new program price on their December 2021 National Grid electricity bills.
More information is available online at masspowerchoice.com/swampscott or from customer support with the town’s program consultants at 1-844-483-5004.
