Jessie Castellano /Patch Staff
MARLBOROUGH, MA — Marlborough residents and businesses will pay new rates for the city’s municipal aggregation plan, Mayor J. Christian Dumais announced on Wednesday.
The city signed another contract with its power supplier, First Point Power, to begin in March. Participants of the Marlborough Community Choice Power Supply Program will have a new rate of $0.14919 per kilowatt-hour for a 100 percent green product derived from National Wind Renewable Energy Certificates.
The current rate is $0.13782 per kilowatt-hour, which means the rate will go up this year. The new rate represents an increase of under $7 per month on the supply side of the bill if a resident or business uses an average of 600 kilowatt-hours.
However, the city said that the new rate is still lower than National Grid’s recently announced Residential Basic Service rate.
Marlborough originally launched an electricity program in June 2007 in order to create an energy program that would be stable and affordable. The program has saved residents and businesses millions of dollars in electricity costs compared to National Grid’s Basic Service Plan, according to the city.
The city said that individual customers will not need to take any action, and the rate change will be seen on their bills in March. All accounts enrolled in the program can see the new rate and First Point Power under the “Supply Services” section of their monthly bill.
“The City is happy to continue to offer this program to provide cost savings to our residents on their electricity. Residents who participate in the program will continue to see savings over National Grid’s basic service rates,” said Mayor Dumais. “I would like to thank the Municipal Aggregation Committee for their hard work in monitoring and comparing rates to help keep costs low for our residents.”