KINGSTON — Kingston residents and business owners will save approximately $390,000 annually thanks to the newly created Kingston Community Choice Power Supply program.
The town of Kingston and Colonial Power Group Inc. announced they have entered into a 2-1/2-year agreement to bring energy cost-savings to the town’s residents and small businesses through this initiative.
“We’ve seen how the spikes in the cost of electricity can be burdensome for Kingston residents,” said Town Administrator Robert Fennessy. “We’re pleased to work with Colonial Power to offer Kingston residents and small business owners the opportunity to have a more stable and lower cost energy option.”
The new program will help residents and business owners achieve stability and savings on electricity costs. Participating residents and businesses in Kingston will see an annual savings of about 8 percent in their monthly energy bills, and the program will provide a combined savings of approximately $32,400 per month for the town’s homes and businesses.
Under the Kingston Community Choice Power Supply program, residents will not notice any change in their electricity service. The only discernable difference will be that NextEra Energy Services of Houston, Texas, the selected electricity supplier for the Community Choice program, will be printed under the “Supplier Services” of monthly bills. Residents and small business owners will continue to receive one bill from Eversource and to send payments to Eversource for processing. There will be no interruption in billing, power or customer service.
Colonial Power Group is an aggregation consulting firm in Massachusetts. Municipal electricity aggregation allows cities and towns to pool the electrical consumption of all ratepayers in their jurisdictions and competitively procure lower cost electricity supply on behalf of the participants. The aggregation allows the municipality to obtain better pricing than individual residents and business owners could due to economies of scale. Colonial Power works with state officials, utility executives and energy industry leaders to facilitate the purchase of electricity at a rate lower than basic service rates. Since July 2013, the company says, Colonial Power has saved households and businesses across New England nearly $11 million on their electric bills.
Colonial Power Group, which serves more than 60 municipalities in Massachusetts, was chosen to design, implement and administer the program on behalf of Kingston. NextEra Energy Services was selected through a competitive process. The cost savings for Kingston residents and businesses will begin with the September 2017 meter reads, October 2017 billings.
No action is required by ratepayers to participate in this cost-saving program. The program will be operated on an opt-out basis, meaning that all Kingston residential and business customers currently on Eversource’s basic service will be automatically enrolled into the program unless they choose to opt out.
The town and representatives of Colonial Power Group will hold informational sessions at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Aug. 2 at Kingston Council on Aging, 30 Evergreen St., to discuss the Kingston Community Choice Power Supply program.