How Electricity Deregulation Works in Massachusetts
Massachusetts separates the wires from the electricity itself. Eversource, National Grid, or Unitil still delivers your power and handles outages no matter what, while the generation portion of your bill defaults to a twice-yearly-reset rate called Basic Service — unless you choose a licensed competitive supplier or your city or town runs a municipal aggregation program instead.
Delivery company vs. supply
Two investor-owned utilities cover most of the state: Eversource serves eastern Massachusetts and parts of the west, while National Grid serves a large central swath of the state. A third, smaller utility, Unitil (operating as Fitchburg Gas & Electric), covers a north-central territory. A number of municipal light plants — Holyoke Gas & Electric and Braintree Electric Light among them — run their own local utilities outside the deregulated market and don't offer supplier choice at all. Whichever investor-owned utility serves your address keeps delivering electricity and responding to outages regardless of who supplies the actual power.
Basic Service: the default rate
If you don't actively choose a supplier, you're automatically on Basic Service — your utility's regulated default supply rate. Unlike a state like Pennsylvania's Price to Compare, which updates on its own schedule, Massachusetts Basic Service rates reset on a fixed calendar: February 1 and August 1 each year, based on wholesale electricity market conditions at the time. That means the rate can move meaningfully between resets depending on what's happening in energy markets — it's not a rate you lock in, it's one that follows the market twice a year.
Competitive supply and municipal aggregation
Licensed competitive suppliers can offer fixed-rate contracts, typically running 12 to 36 months, that lock in a price regardless of what happens to wholesale markets in between — useful for predictability, especially heading into a high-usage season, but not automatically cheaper than Basic Service. Massachusetts also allows municipal aggregation, where a city or town negotiates a supply rate on behalf of residents who haven't separately chosen their own supplier; if your community runs one, you may already be on an aggregated rate without having signed anything yourself; check a recent bill's supplier line to see who's currently listed.
What the state has said about switching
Shopping isn't automatically a win. The Massachusetts Attorney General's office has published findings that many residential customers who switched to a competitive supplier ended up paying more over time than customers who simply stayed on Basic Service, particularly once an initial low introductory rate expired and rolled into a higher variable one. That doesn't mean every competitive offer is a bad deal — some fixed-rate contracts do beat Basic Service, especially when Basic Service resets high — but it does mean the current Basic Service rate on your own recent bill is the number to compare any offer against, not a rate from a year ago or a generic statewide average.
Frequently asked questions
Which utility delivers my power in Massachusetts?
Mostly Eversource (eastern Massachusetts and parts of the west) or National Grid (central Massachusetts), with Unitil serving a smaller north-central territory. A handful of municipal light plants like Holyoke Gas & Electric or Braintree Electric Light are not part of the deregulated market and don't offer supplier choice.
What is Basic Service in Massachusetts?
Basic Service is the default electricity supply rate from your utility if you don't choose a competitive supplier. It resets twice a year, on February 1 and August 1, based on wholesale market prices at the time — so it moves with the market rather than staying fixed.
Does switching suppliers in Massachusetts always save money?
Not necessarily. The Massachusetts Attorney General's office has published findings that many residential customers who switched to a competitive supplier ended up paying more over time than they would have on Basic Service, which is why comparing an offer's actual price against the current Basic Service rate — not last year's — matters before switching.
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