New rates to stabilize energy supply costs issued

New prices for the Wareham electricity aggregation program have been announced with the goal of giving users stability in their electricity bill for the next three years.

“A big part of this is protecting Wareham residents and businesses from the volatility of the electricity market,” said Courtney Van Huffel, a community electricity consultant with Good Energy, an electricity company that helps towns and cities design aggregation plans.

The electricity aggregation program is a “buy-in-bulk” energy supply program the town started in 2019. The program allows Wareham to negotiate a standard energy supply cost with the town’s energy supplier Constellation.

According to Van Huffel, the program has saved residences and businesses over $8 million since its inception.

The new price for Wareham Standard users of 14.346 cents per kilowatt hour is a reduction from the previous cost of 15.784 cents per kilowatt hour. For Wareham Plus users, the new price is 15.475 cents per kilowatt hour compared to the previous price of 17.372 cents per kilowatt hour.

The new prices will go into effect in November of this year and remain where they are until November of 2028.

The difference between standard and plus is the amount of renewable energy a customer is supplied with. In the standard option, 63% of the energy supplied comes from renewable sources while 100% of the supplied energy comes from renewable sources in plus.

Van Huffel said some people get automatically enrolled in the program. For those unsure if they are signed up, Van Huffel suggests customers look at the supply rate on their electric bill and compare the rate to the aggregation rates to see if they match.

To sign up for the program, visit WarehamCEA.com.