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Last Updated: April 2007
01/06: The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy (DTE) ruled that customers who were using alternate electricity suppliers, but switched to the default electricity service, did not have the option to switch back to using the alternate electricity supplier service for a period of six months. The DTE mandated this legislation because it was difficult for a utility to plan its energy needs if an excessive amount of service switching occurred.
Source: Department of Telecommunications and Energy
12/04: The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy (DTE) approved a rate plan set forth by Massachusetts Electric that included a recovery of approximately $60 million in power supply costs associated with the state’s standard offer service.
Source: Department of Telecommunications and Energy
http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/dte/electric/02-79/1217mecrepcom.pdf
09/04: Massachusetts Electric sought an increase of 1.075 cents per kilowatt-hour on the Default Service portion of residential customers’ electricity bills, effective November 1, 2004. If approved, a typical residential customer using 500 kWh of electricity per month would see a 9.6 percent increase, or $5.38, in the overall monthly bill.
Source: National Grid Company
http://www.nationalgridus.com/masselectric/a3-1_news2.asp?document=521
05/02: Standard offer service rates (SOS) were set for the NSTAR electric companies at 4.95 cents/kWh for Boston Edison Company, 4.2 cents/kWh for Cambridge Electric Light and Commonwealth Electric from April 2002 to December 2002. SOS rates were set at 5.626 cents/kWh for Fitchburg Gas and Electric and 4.841 cents/kWh for Western Massachusetts Electric for all of 2002. SOS rates for Massachusetts Electric were set at 5.626 cents/kWh from January 2002 to June 2002, but rates would decrease to 4.2 cents/kWh from July 2002 to December 2002. By March 2005, SOS would end and all customers were expected to take competitive generation service.
03/02: According to the March 2002 monthly edition of DOER's Electric Power Customer Migration Data, 25,053 customers were using competitive suppliers. Massachusetts had 1,798,141 Standard Offer Service customers and 697,726 default service customers.
08/01: The Department of Telecommunications and Energy approved fuel adjustment rate increases for standard offer rates by 1.23 cents per kWh for most customers of Massachusetts utilities. Utilities submitted Standard Offer Fuel Adjustment Filings with the DTE requesting increases in standard offer rates to reflect the rising cost of fuel to generate electricity.
07/01: The DTE, seeking to boost customer participation in the open electricity market, issued an order for utilities to release, with customer approval, default customers' information to competitive suppliers. Suppliers could request names, addresses, and rate classes of default service customers.
05/01: After viewing the results of Massachusetts Electric Company's solicitation for power, the DTE approved increases in default service rates. Default service was taken by all new customers and returning customers in MECO territory. Default rates would increase beginning May 1 to keep in line with market costs for wholesale power. SOS rates would not increase at that time. SOS was taken by customers who remained with MECO since choice of electric service providers began in 1998.
01/01: The DTE recommended to the legislature that competitive metering and billing not be implemented at the time. Instead, they proposed investigating how to encourage the offering of advanced metering options by regulated distribution companies.
12/00: In response to the rising costs of wholesale power purchases driven by the increasing prices of natural gas and petroleum, the DTE raised standard offer rates for the Boston Edison Company to 5.821 cents/kWh from 4.5 cents/kWh. Cambridge Electric Light Company and Commonwealth Electric Company's rates would raise its rates to 5.121 cents/kWh from 3.8 cents/kWh. Massachusetts Electric Company's new rates would be 5.26 cents/kWh from 3.8 cents/kWh. Fitchburg Gas and Electric Company's new rates would be 5.121 cents/kWh from 3.8 cents/kWh. Finally, Western Massachusetts Electric Company would raise its rates to 7.383 cents/kWh from 4.557 cents/kWh. The standard offer rates of these companies were raised in order to compensate them for their losses on wholesale power purchases due to rising fuel costs. The rates would take effect on January 1, 2001. Regulators also hoped the SOS rate increases would stimulate the lethargic retail market in the New England States.
11/00: The Department of Telecommunications and Energy raised the default service rates for all Massachusetts utilities due to rising fuel costs, effective December 1, 2000. Fitchburg Gas and Electric Company rates were increased to 5.206 cents for residential customers, 5.216 cents for commercial customers and 5.059 cents for industrial customers. Boston Edison, Commonwealth Electric, and Cambridge Electric received an increase in their default service rates to 6.28 cents for all customers. Massachusetts Electric Company's default rates were raised to 6.37 cents for residential customers, 6.08 cents for commercial customers, and 5.36 cents for industrial customers.
09/00: Customer migration statistics showed that real retail competition had yet to take hold in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources (DOER) reported that 5,176 customers bought power from competitive generators in July 2000 as compared to 2.5 million customers who received power from their incumbent utility. The low switching rate was expected in the State since competitive generators could not offer better deals than the incumbent utilities until the standard offer price rises over a seven-year transition period.
07/00: The DTE issued an order that would allow utilities to base their rates for default service on the wholesale bid prices, beginning January 2001. Utilities complained that the required rate, set below the cost of wholesale power, was causing them to lose money on default customer accounts. Utilities were scheduled to begin issuing competitive bids seeking 6-month to 1-year contracts for the power needed to serve their default service customers. Default service was defined as those customers who had left their competitive supplier, or were new to the utility's territory.
07/00: The DTE considered two courses of action, as required by the restructuring legislation passed in 1998. The law required the DTE to consider opening metering, billing, and information services to competition, and also required the DTE to look into eliminating exclusive service territories for investor-owned utilities.
01/00: Unitil/Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Company, received approval from the DTE for a rate increase of 2.53 percent, effective January 2000. The DTE stated that the increase was the result of inflation adjustments allowed by Massachusetts' restructuring legislation. The SOS rate would increase from 3.5 cents to 3.8 cents per kilowatt-hour.
10/99: By the first quarter of 1999, about 1.3 percent of retail sales were supplied by competitive suppliers, representing about 0.13 percent of customers, most of which were large industrial consumers.
11/98: Boston Edison Company proposed selling its Pilgrim nuclear plant to Entergy Corporation. In the deal, Entergy would pay between $80 and $90 million in cash. BEC would receive as much as $466 million to cover cleaning up the plant when it ceased operations, scheduled for 2012. Book value for Pilgrim was about $650 million at that time.
10/98: New England Electric System (NEES) subsidiaries, Massachusetts Electric and Nantucket Electric, reported savings for their consumers of $67.5 million due to the 10-percent rate reduction mandated by the state's restructuring law and the sale of NEES' generating assets. The sale allowed additional rate reductions prior to the law's next scheduled rate reduction.
10/98: Eastern Utilities (Montaup) planned to sell the Somerset Station for $55 million to NRG Energy.
10/98: There was an increasing interest in building new capacity, almost all natural gas, in the Northeast. Some gas plants were already begun and experts predicted between 7,000 and 14,000 MW would be built, replacing older coal and oil plants. The Conservation Law Foundation released a report predicting a drop of as much as 95 percent in major air pollutants from power plants.
09/98: PG & E Corporation's subsidiary, PG & E Energy Services, secured a multi-year contract with the Massachusetts High Technology Council (with over 200 members) to provide electricity to its members. This was the largest aggregation of customers in the U.S., representing about 1.2 million megawatt-hours annually.
05/98: Commonwealth Energy System and Eastern Utilities Montaup subsidiary would sell their fossil-fueled generating assets in Massachusetts to Southern Company for $462 million, approximately 6 times the book value at that time. The sale would allow the 10- percent rate cut that began March 1, 1998 to increase to a 15 percent cut beginning September 1, 1999.
05/98: NEES sale of generating assets representing over 5,100 MW to U.S. Generating, a subsidiary of PG & E Corporation, was completed. 3 fossil-fueled and 15 hydro plants were included in the $1.6 billion sale. It was proposed that customers in NEES subsidiaries, Massachusetts Electric and Nantucket Electric, should see rate reductions of about 19 percent.
05/98: Boston Edison completed the sale of its entire portfolio of fossil-fueled generating assets to Sithe Energy.
05/98: The Massachusetts Electric Company's pilot saved $1.3 million for about 5,000 small commercial and residential customers. Also, $3.8 million had been saved by the 14 customers in the Massachusetts High Technology Council pilot.
05/98: Commercial customers would get an unexpected 50 percent cut in sales tax paid on electric bills as a result of deregulation. Businesses would not be taxed on the now unbundled delivery (distribution and transmission) costs (residential and industrial customers were already exempt from this sales tax).
04/98: Competition and a 10 percent rate reduction began as scheduled March 1998. However, the standard offer rate of 2.8 cents/kWh was low enough that competitors could not offer better rates, effectively stifling competition until the standard offer rate was scheduled to rise in 1999 and phased out by 2005. Recently, Enron announced it would not market to the residential sector in California, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island because it was proving to be unprofitable.
04/98: Boston Edison sought buyers for its Pilgrim nuclear plant. The company had already sold its non-nuclear generation to Sithe Energies.
04/98: Eastern Utilities scheduled to sell its generation assets and purchase power contracts.
03/98: DTE issued rules for distribution, default generation services, standard offer generation, aggregation requirements, and ownership of meters.
02/98: The DTE issued implementation rules for the restructured industry. Included were licensing and information disclosures for retail suppliers and provisions for public interest programs, standard offer service, and utility transition cost recovery filings.
11/97: House Bill 5117 was enacted to restructure the electric power industry. The law required retail access by March 1998, rate cuts of 10 percent by March 1998 and another 5 percent 18 months later, and encourages divestiture of generation assets. The legislation also allowed full recovery of stranded costs over a 10-year transition period; DTE approved 2 utilities’ plans for stranded cost recovery.
09/97: The Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld the DPU's (now DTE's) jurisdiction in the MIT case, but did not confirm the amount of stranded cost recovery, initially set at 75 percent. MIT exited the Cambridge Electric system in 1995. The company planned to seek 100 percent recovery.
01/97: The Department of Telecommunications and Energy’s final decision stated that it would officially open the retail electricity market to competition by March 1, 1998.
01/97: Massachusetts Electric began a 1-year pilot program in four communities. Of the pilot participants, 96 percent of the business and 66 percent of the residential consumers chose supplier based on price, 31 percent of residential consumers choose supplier based on "green power."
10/96: Commonwealth Electric implemented a retail choice pilot program.
07/96: Massachusetts Electric began its pilot program for members of the High Technology Council; another 10,000 consumers were scheduled to be added later.
01/96: Boston Edison began a pilot program.