Can You Choose Your Electricity Provider in Maine?
Yes. Maine deregulated its electricity market years ago, and any residential customer can switch supply to one of roughly 60 licensed Competitive Electricity Providers (CEPs). Your utility — Central Maine Power (CMP) or Versant Power — still owns the poles and wires, reads the meter, and handles outages no matter who supplies your power. Switching only changes who charges you for the electricity itself.
Here's the honest verdict, though, and Maine has some of the most damning data of any deregulated state to back it up: a 2026 report prepared for the Maine Electric Ratepayer Advisory Council (ERAC) found that for every one household that saved money by switching to a competitive supplier, ten households ended up paying more. In Washington and Hancock counties, switched customers paid up to 54% more than the state's default rate. Given that the default itself is procured through competitive wholesale bidding, there's little structural room left for a retail marketer to beat it after taking a margin. For most Maine homeowners, the safer move is doing nothing — and putting the real effort into usage, not shopping.
What Electricity Costs in Maine
Maine residential electricity averaged 27.8¢ per kilowatt-hour in 2025 (EIA preliminary data) — one of the higher rates in the country. Here's the long view from federal data, with a projection on the end:
Full Maine electricity price data (1990–2025)
| Year | Maine (¢/kWh) | US avg (¢/kWh) |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 9.3 | 7.8 |
| 1991 | 10.5 | 8.0 |
| 1992 | 11.4 | 8.2 |
| 1993 | 11.4 | 8.3 |
| 1994 | 12.3 | 8.4 |
| 1995 | 12.5 | 8.4 |
| 1996 | 12.6 | 8.4 |
| 1997 | 12.8 | 8.4 |
| 1998 | 13.0 | 8.3 |
| 1999 | 13.1 | 8.2 |
| 2000 | 12.5 | 8.2 |
| 2001 | 13.1 | 8.6 |
| 2002 | 12.7 | 8.4 |
| 2003 | 12.4 | 8.7 |
| 2004 | 12.2 | 9.0 |
| 2005 | 13.2 | 9.5 |
| 2006 | 13.8 | 10.4 |
| 2007 | 16.5 | 10.7 |
| 2008 | 16.2 | 11.3 |
| 2009 | 15.6 | 11.5 |
| 2010 | 15.7 | 11.5 |
| 2011 | 15.4 | 11.7 |
| 2012 | 14.7 | 11.9 |
| 2013 | 14.4 | 12.1 |
| 2014 | 15.3 | 12.5 |
| 2015 | 15.6 | 12.7 |
| 2016 | 15.8 | 12.6 |
| 2017 | 16.0 | 12.9 |
| 2018 | 16.8 | 12.9 |
| 2019 | 17.9 | 13.0 |
| 2020 | 16.8 | 13.2 |
| 2021 | 17.0 | 13.7 |
| 2022 | 22.4 | 15.0 |
| 2023 | 27.4 | 16.0 |
| 2024 | 24.3 | 16.5 |
| 2025 * | 27.8 | 17.3 |
Source: US EIA, average residential retail electricity price. Values in cents per kWh. * 2025 is preliminary.
That rate is up 110% since 2005, and the last decade alone has moved at roughly 5.9% a year — a pace that compounds faster than most household budgets adjust for. None of that climb is about switching suppliers or not; it reflects regional grid costs, transmission investment, and — increasingly — the volatile wholesale natural-gas prices that get bid into every Standard Offer auction. The practical takeaway is the same regardless of who supplies your power: in a state where every kilowatt-hour costs nearly 28 cents, reducing how much electricity a home actually uses (insulation, heat pumps, sealing, efficient appliances) moves the bill far more reliably than any supplier contract. It's also why rooftop solar pencils out more attractively in Maine than in cheaper-power states — every self-generated kWh is offsetting a genuinely expensive purchase.
How Maine's Market Actually Works
If you never pick a supplier, you're served by the Standard Offer — the default supply for any customer who doesn't affirmatively choose a CEP. Its price isn't set by your utility; it's set by the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) through a competitive sealed-bid auction among wholesale suppliers, re-set periodically in tranches by customer class and utility. Effective January 1, 2026, CMP's residential Standard Offer jumped from $0.106128/kWh to $0.12721/kWh — about a 20% increase, adding roughly $11 a month for an average 550 kWh household. That jump came from wholesale gas prices and risk premiums the winning suppliers bid into the auction, not from anything a customer did or didn't do.
Maine has no single unified rate-comparison portal like some states' "Power to Choose." The closest thing to an official shopping resource is two sites working together: the Maine PUC's Competitive Electricity Providers list (about 60 licensed suppliers, plus the Choosing a Supplier guidance page), and the Maine Office of the Public Advocate's consumer hub, which runs its own "What to Consider When Choosing a Supplier" page. Treat both as required reading before signing anything — neither one is trying to sell you a plan.
The Traps: Auto-Renewal and Fake "Utility" Callers
Maine's Office of the Public Advocate has repeatedly flagged the same pattern: a supplier signs a customer at a low introductory "teaser" rate, the contract term quietly ends, and the customer is rolled onto a much higher variable rate without clear, renewed consent. The state's most infamous case is "Electricity Maine," which paid a $315,000 penalty and issued as much as $6 million in refunds after regulators found it had switched customers this way. Some door-to-door agents for these plans have also allegedly misrepresented themselves as CMP or Versant employees to get a foot in the door.
Separately, the numbers on competitive supply overall are not encouraging: the average household on a competitive supplier paid over $1,000 a year for supply in 2024 — a 48% increase since 2016 — even as the competitive customer base shrank 16%, evidence of people leaving after getting burned rather than being drawn in by savings.
A Practical Checklist for Controlling Your Bill
- Start from your current Standard Offer rate, printed on your bill — that's the number to beat, not a vague "percent off" claim.
- Check the MPUC's Competitive Electricity Providers list and the Public Advocate's guidance page before considering any offer, especially one from a door-to-door or phone solicitor.
- Assume Standard Offer is the safer default. The state's own 2026 research shows switching backfires 10-to-1 on average — only a clearly fixed-rate offer, priced below your current Standard Offer and read in full, is worth signing.
- If you do switch, get the rate and term in writing, and specifically confirm what happens — and what rate you roll onto — when the contract ends.
- Calendar the contract end date immediately, with a reminder before it, so you control the renewal decision instead of an autopilot variable rate.
- Put the real effort into usage, not shopping. At 27.8¢/kWh, insulation, air sealing, and an efficient heat pump reduce the bill more reliably than any supplier contract — see our electrical guide for the wiring and panel side of the house, and consider whether solar makes sense at Maine's rate level.
- Never give an account number or bill details to an unsolicited caller or door-to-door agent. Verify any supplier's license directly with the MPUC first.
Sources
Standard Offer rates and market structure: Maine PUC — Standard Offer Rates and the CMP Standard Offer detail page. Choosing a supplier and the licensed CEP list: Maine PUC — Choosing a Supplier and Competitive Electricity Providers list. Consumer guidance and switching research: Maine Office of the Public Advocate — Electricity Supply and its FAQ, including the Electricity Maine refund FAQs. Reporting: WGME, Maine Morning Star, and Maine Public. Average residential rate (27.8¢/kWh, 2025 preliminary) and the price-history chart: US EIA, Electricity Data (1990–2025; the projection is illustrative, not a forecast).