I want to write in gratitude. When Newton Power Choice (NPC) was introduced several years ago, we decided to participate, rather than opt out and stay with Eversource basic service. (NPC automatically opts all ratepayers in, unless you contact them to say you don’t want to participate.) In addition we chose to increase the amount of renewable energy in our mix to 100%. Although it was marginally more expensive for us to sign up for 100% renewable electricity generation at that time, we did it anyway – placing the greater good ahead of our own. I thought nothing more about it until this week when I saw an article in The Hill titled, “New England grapples with sky-high electricity rates as Ukraine war squeezes gas supply.” In this article, Massachusetts electricity rates were quoted as moving to 28.95 cents / kWh! I recalled joining Newton Power Choice at about 15 cents / kWh, or nearly half the apparently going rate. Curious, I searched for my Eversource password and logged in. Low and behold, I found our generation option on our bill was indeed, Newton Power Choice with the rate of 14.3 cents / kWh. Wow! Not only are we doing the right thing by the environment, but NPC has insulated us from this dramatic rate hike. Had we exited NPC to stay with the Eversource default power source, we would have been faced with drastically higher cost electricity! I reached out to Councilor Emily Norton to confirm this and she sent me this article written by Newton’s Sustainability Director Ann Berwick. This confirms everything that we saw first-hand. Kudos to Councilor Norton who worked hard to bring this program to Newton, and for the Mayor’s support. I encourage others to opt for 100% renewable through Newton Power Choice as well!
Dan Proskauer
