Like most people, Noemy Rodriguez never gave much thought to various charges on her electric bill. All she knew was that the $80 a month she was paying Eversource felt like too much.
It's not entirely clear what happened, but Rodriguez ended up on a plan with really high and variable rates. Some months, her bill totaled more than $200, and she struggled to pay what she owed. If you enroll with a competitive supplier, the only thing that changes is that a third-party company buys power for you. Your utility still delivers your power, and you still write it one check every month for the total amount on your bill — your utility then pays your supplier what it’s owed.
This is what happened with Rodriguez. She and MacGoy work together at GreenRoots, and last fall, she brought him a stack of her utility bills, hoping he’d help her find a way to save money. He picked one up and immediately saw that she had a competitive supplier. Talk to critics of the competitive supply industry, and you start to hear a lot of similar stories. Older adults with dementia who don’t remember a salesperson coming to their door. Recent immigrants or other residents who don’t speak English fluently given contracts in English to sign. People with intellectual disabilities who were duped into signing contracts they didn’t understand. Salespeople who claim they’re working with your utility or your city.
If people save money, it’s usually a couple dollars a month — and it's often because of temporary introductory rates. By contrast, the average consumer loses about $200 annually.This is when a customer elects a private company to buy power on its behalf.from the Attorney General’s Office shows that between 2015 and 2021, ratepayers in Massachusetts spent $525 million more than they needed to on electric supply charges.
This problem isn’t unique to Massachusetts. Eleven other states, plus Washington, D.C., have similar retail electric markets for residential customers, and investigations in Customers who buy power from competitive suppliers often end up paying more for their electricity each month., the office found that 29% of all low-income ratepayers were enrolled in a competitive supply plan, while only 15% of higher-income ratepayers were enrolled.