Massachusetts gave residents the right to choose their electricity supplier, then spent a decade measuring what happened. The result is the most thoroughly documented verdict on retail energy choice in the country — and it is not a flattering one. Here's what a homeowner actually needs to know in 2026: how the market works, what power costs, and why the state's own Attorney General wants part of this market shut down.
The straight answer
Yes, you can choose. Massachusetts is deregulated: any household can sign with one of dozens of licensed competitive suppliers, and much of the state also participates in municipal aggregation, where a city or town buys power on behalf of its residents.
Should you shop on your own? Massachusetts is the most-documented "no" in the country. The Attorney General's March 2026 report put net losses for individual residential switchers at $738.7 million over the past decade — $87.4 million of it in the twelve months from July 2024 through June 2025 alone. Low-income households were hit hardest, losing an average of $286 per year to competitive suppliers. This is not a one-year fluke; the AG's office has run this analysis year after year, and the loss column keeps growing.
The one nuance that matters: municipal aggregation — where your town negotiates the deal — is the version of choice that actually tends to save money. Individual retail contracts are where the losses live. If you remember one thing from this page, make it that split.
How the market actually works
Your bill has two halves. Delivery — the wires, poles, meters, and storm crews — always belongs to your regulated utility: Eversource, National Grid, or Unitil. Only the supply half, the electricity itself, is open to competition. Switching suppliers changes nothing about who restores your power in an outage and nothing inside your home's electrical system.
If you never pick anyone, you get Basic Service, the default. It is not a punishment rate: your utility procures the power competitively and passes it through, with rates resetting roughly every six months for Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil customers. Those semiannual resets mean Basic Service can jump or drop noticeably twice a year — and every jump triggers a fresh wave of supplier marketing promising rescue.
The official comparison site is Energy Switch Massachusetts (energyswitchma.gov), run by the Department of Public Utilities. It lists a few dozen residential offers in each utility territory, side by side with the current Basic Service rate. Every legitimate offer in the state should be visible there. If a deal reaches you by phone, mail, or doorbell and is not on that site, you already have your answer.
Municipal aggregation: the version of choice that works
Massachusetts has some of the most widespread municipal aggregation in the country. In an aggregation, your city or town solicits bids for a bulk supply contract covering every resident who doesn't opt out. Because the municipality negotiates for tens of thousands of meters at once and has no incentive to bait-and-switch its own voters, aggregation is the form of switching that has actually tended to beat Basic Service — the same AG's office that condemns the individual market treats aggregation as the workable alternative.
Check before you shop: you may already be in an aggregation and not know it — enrollment is automatic in participating towns unless you opt out. Look at the supplier line on your bill or search your town's website for "electricity aggregation." If you're in one, most sales pitches you get are invitations to leave a bulk-negotiated rate for a worse one.
What electricity costs in Massachusetts
However you buy it, electricity here is expensive. The average residential rate was 30.6 cents per kilowatt-hour in April 2025 (EIA) — among the highest in the nation. New England's wholesale prices, winter natural-gas constraints, and delivery-side charges all feed into it, and no supplier contract makes those go away.
Full Massachusetts electricity price data (1990–2025)
| Year | Massachusetts (¢/kWh) | US avg (¢/kWh) |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 9.7 | 7.8 |
| 1991 | 10.4 | 8.0 |
| 1992 | 10.6 | 8.2 |
| 1993 | 11.0 | 8.3 |
| 1994 | 11.1 | 8.4 |
| 1995 | 11.3 | 8.4 |
| 1996 | 11.3 | 8.4 |
| 1997 | 11.6 | 8.4 |
| 1998 | 10.6 | 8.3 |
| 1999 | 10.1 | 8.2 |
| 2000 | 10.5 | 8.2 |
| 2001 | 12.5 | 8.6 |
| 2002 | 10.9 | 8.4 |
| 2003 | 11.6 | 8.7 |
| 2004 | 11.8 | 9.0 |
| 2005 | 13.4 | 9.5 |
| 2006 | 16.6 | 10.4 |
| 2007 | 16.2 | 10.7 |
| 2008 | 17.6 | 11.3 |
| 2009 | 16.9 | 11.5 |
| 2010 | 14.6 | 11.5 |
| 2011 | 14.7 | 11.7 |
| 2012 | 14.9 | 11.9 |
| 2013 | 15.8 | 12.1 |
| 2014 | 17.4 | 12.5 |
| 2015 | 19.8 | 12.7 |
| 2016 | 19.0 | 12.6 |
| 2017 | 20.1 | 12.9 |
| 2018 | 21.6 | 12.9 |
| 2019 | 21.9 | 13.0 |
| 2020 | 22.0 | 13.2 |
| 2021 | 22.9 | 13.7 |
| 2022 | 26.0 | 15.0 |
| 2023 | 29.6 | 16.0 |
| 2024 | 29.4 | 16.5 |
| 2025 * | 30.5 | 17.3 |
Source: US EIA, average residential retail electricity price. Values in cents per kWh. * 2025 is preliminary.
The chart shows EIA's history from 1990 through 2025, plus a projection — a long climb that steepened sharply after 2021, with only brief retreats along the way. That trajectory is why the most reliable bill relief in Massachusetts isn't a supplier contract at all: it's using fewer kilowatt-hours, and, at 30-plus cents each, it's why rooftop solar pays back faster here than in almost any other state.
The traps: how switchers lose $87 million a year
The losses in the AG's report aren't caused by exotic fraud. They're caused by a standard playbook, executed at scale:
- Teaser rates. An introductory rate undercuts Basic Service for a few months, then the contract renews onto a rate that quietly climbs. Since Basic Service itself resets every six months, most people never notice which line item moved.
- Utility impersonation. Door-to-door and phone reps imply they're from Eversource, National Grid, or "the state," and ask to "verify" your bill. Your account number is all they need to switch you.
- Targeting the vulnerable. The AG's March 2026 data shows low-income households losing an average of $286 per year — the market's worst outcomes concentrate on the people least able to absorb them.
Enforcement is real but slow. In September 2025, the DPU charged a supplier with "egregious conduct" — regulator language rarely gets that blunt — in a case covered by WBUR. Penalties tend to arrive years after the contracts were signed and the money left town.
Never sign at the door. No utility sends people door-to-door to lower your rate, and no legitimate offer expires before you can check it against energyswitchma.gov. Anyone who needs your bill in their hands, or an answer today, is running the playbook above on you.
Beacon Hill is trying to shut this market down
The strongest consumer signal in Massachusetts isn't any single enforcement case — it's that the state's own chief consumer-protection officer wants the individual market abolished. The Attorney General's bill to ban new individual residential supply contracts passed the Senate in 2024, died in conference, and was refiled for the 2025–26 session, where it remains pending as of mid-2026. The House passed its own variant built around municipal aggregation with opt-out. Nothing has become law yet — you can still sign an individual contract today — but when the AG spends years trying to outlaw a product, homeowners should price that in.
The practical implication: until the legislation settles, assume scam pressure stays high. Suppliers facing a possible ban on new contracts have every incentive to lock customers in now, on the longest terms they can get signed.
If you still want to shop: the checklist
- Start at energyswitchma.gov and nowhere else. If an offer isn't listed there, walk away.
- Compare against Basic Service — and remember it resets roughly every six months, so an offer that beats today's rate can lose to the next reset.
- Fixed rate only, and read the renewal clause. The money is made when your fixed term quietly rolls onto a worse rate.
- Calendar the contract end date the day you sign, with a reminder a month out to re-shop or fall back to Basic Service.
- Check the early termination fee before signing, not when you want out.
- Confirm the supplier is licensed — licensed suppliers are the ones listed on Energy Switch Massachusetts. Unlicensed sellers are an automatic no.
- Never enroll at the door or on an unsolicited call. A real offer will still be there tomorrow.
Or skip all seven steps: check whether your town runs an aggregation, and let Basic Service be your fallback. In Massachusetts, doing nothing has been the statistically winning move for a decade.
Sources
- Energy Switch Massachusetts — the DPU's official rate-comparison site.
- Massachusetts Attorney General — competitive electric supply report, March 2026 ($738.7M net decade losses; $286/yr average low-income loss).
- WBUR — September 2025 reporting on the DPU's "egregious conduct" charge and the supply-market legislation.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration — Massachusetts average residential rate (30.6¢/kWh, April 2025) and the historical price series.