High voltage electric tower on a snowy day in the mountains

There is a lot to like about Lowell – the beautiful Merrimack River, the rich history and immigrant population, the (mostly) friendly people who truly love this place especially when it comes to defending it to someone from a neighboring village. I could go on and on.  But this winter, the best thing about Lowell will not be the choice we have between Avgolemono soup from the Athenian or Kimchi-Jjigae from Sizzling Kitchen. It will be the choice we have between paying National Grid’s Basic Service rate of 34 cents per kilowatt hour (!) beginning in November or Lowell’s Aggregation Plan rate of 14.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

You’re probably reading this and thinking “she had me at kilowatt hour, I must keep reading”. But if you aren’t, here is the dollar value.  That 19.5 cent difference could mean an extra $550 in your pocket between November and May of 2023.  Here is the math:  2800 kWhs (the average usage of Lowell residents from Nov-May per Mass Save Data) multiplied by the difference between 34 cents and 14.5 cents per kWh.

Lowell’s Aggregation plan is not new, it was approved back in 2013 and you might already be enrolled. The aggregation model is when a town or city gets together and directly purchases their energy supply in bulk. To check, look at your electricity bill in the “Supply Services” section, usually on the second page.  If it says “National Grid Basic Service” then you aren’t on the aggregation.  You can opt in by going to this website: https://colonialpowergroup.com/lowell/.  The bottom right hand corner has an orange button to translate the site into different languages, & Chelmsford’s aggregation website has a really good explainer on how it looks on your electric bill here: https://www.masspowerchoice.com/chelmsford/faq/example-national-grid-bill

What I want to emphasize here is that Lowell’s Aggregation plan gives people another choice in a somewhat monopolized industry.  It also provides price stability since the rate is constant through December 2024 vs. basic service rates that change every 6 months. Although price savings cannot be guaranteed, it is the goal of the aggregation to deliver savings over the life of the program compared to basic service (a recent report by Green Energy Consumers Alliance that I helped put together shows that they actually do).  With inflation and interest rates increasing, choices like these couldn’t come at a better time.

Here is what I consider to be the best part of our aggregation plan, and then a suggestion for the future.  In 2019, some advocates in the city including 350 MA – Lowell and the Lowell Sustainability Council along with the Energy Manager Katherine Moses, helped get 45% additional local renewable energy content in addition to the state-mandated 20% in our supply contract with the aggregation.  This was a major accomplishment with Lowell being the second in MA behind Newton.

That additional voluntary demand helps bring on more local wind turbines, solar projects, anaerobic digesters, and low impact hydropower that help us all use less fossil fuels and decrease our emissions which has many positive social impacts and health benefits.  It supports power producers in the state of MA and in New England, so we are shipping less fossil fuels in from out of state and overseas.  This means we are less at the mercy of the price fluctuations of those imports and more resilient against what is happening on the other side of the world.

BUT – Lowell can go one step further and provide ratepayers with even more choices.  The price of the additional renewable energy is a fraction (less than 1/10^th) of the upcoming difference between basic service and Lowell’s Aggregation rate, but it does come at a cost.  Other plans have multiple tiers, options where you can “opt down” to just get the state-mandated amount of renewable energy or “opt up” to get 100% renewable if you want to pay a little extra.  More options are good, and I would like to see this in the next contract if it is possible.

Enrollment in an aggregation plan can take up to two months, so there is no better time like the present to opt in if you can. If you are not a Lowell resident, your community could still have a plan you can opt into, see below. And if you do see your town listed below, buy your neighbors in Methuen and Lawrence a coffee or something since they are waiting on their plans to start.  Andover is too, but it’s Aaahnndover (no offense):

Billerica is at 9.303 cents/kWh through January 2024 https://colonialpowergroup.com/billerica/

Chelmsford is at 10.042 cents/kWh through November 2023 https://www.masspowerchoice.com/chelmsford

Dracut is at 10.042 cents/kWh through December 2023 https://masscea.com/dracut/

Tewksbury is at 10.949 cents/kWh through December 2024 https://colonialpowergroup.com/tewksbury/

Tyngsborough is at 10.943 cents/kWh through November 2024 https://colonialpowergroup.com/tyngsborough/

Data from: Why electricity prices are rising unevenly across New England | WBUR News