Electricity Choice: On the Horizon

By Guest

By Tom Birmingham, Chair, Canton Energy Advisory Committee

As the name Canton Electricity Choice implies, Canton residents and businesses will soon have a new choice to make. This choice involves whether to:

1. Continue to buy your electricity from Eversource, Canton’s local electric distribution company

2. Purchase electricity from a third-party supplier, as some of you already may be doing

3. Be enrolled in the town’s new electricity aggregation program called Canton Electricity Choice

This new aggregation program is a kind of group electricity buying program for cities and towns with no hidden fees or penalties. Among other things, it will help our community take a big step toward achieving our sustainability goals while maintaining competitive prices and price stability. It works by changing the supply price on your monthly Eversource bill, which is the part of the bill where you are charged for the electricity you use. Eversource will remain your electric distribution company.

Now, if your head is spinning like a jar of excited electrons when you read this, you are not alone. I have been in the utility industry for over 30 years, and I’m still learning something new every day. However, as chair of Canton’s Energy Advisory Committee, I have an obligation to help people make an informed choice, so please read on.

With assistance from our friends at the Canton Citizen, we will be running a three-part series of articles over the coming weeks to help readers better understand what Canton Electricity Choice all is about. You can see all three articles along with other helpful information at CantonElectricityChoice.com.

We all know how important electricity is to our lives — especially when the power goes out. Without it, we enter this twilight zone of darkness, quiet, frustration or worse. And over the coming years electricity will become even more important as the preferred option that energizes our lives. In fact, this is already happening as we continue shifting away from dirtier fossil fuels toward increasingly cleaner energy options.

Part one of the series provides an overview of the Canton Electricity Choice program. It includes some helpful background information on the program approval and implementation process. It also provides a high-level description of the six-step process necessary to bring this type of electricity choice program to Canton. Finally, it highlights the benefits of the program.

Part two of this series takes a deeper dive into step 4 of the six-step program approval process. This is the critical “Competitive Procurement” phase, which the town entered in early February following the state Department of Public Utilities’ final approval of the town’s municipal aggregation plan. We will be working our way through step 4 over the coming weeks and months as our town officials make important choices about which electricity supplier to hire for this program.

Part three details what decisions residential and business customers will need to make to participate, or not, in this voluntary program. It also explains by when these decisions will need to be made.

Learn more about Canton Electricity Choice at CantonElectricityChoice.com or by calling 1-844-202-6101, including optional translation services.

Share This Post

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=122405