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Regulators at the Department of Public Utilities said Wednesday that they aim to make incremental progress in their quest to contain customer energy costs and reduce bill volatility before the end of 2026, a timetable that could lead to some election season announcements.
The DPU launched an investigation of all delivery charges on electric and gas bills in Massachusetts in December, nine weeks after Gov. Maura Healey specifically tasked the department with “looking at bills, looking at charges, and getting rid of charges that aren’t justified, that aren’t providing that customer benefit.”
On Wednesday, DPU regulators and staff huddled with representatives from electric and gas distribution companies for a technical session meant to get into the weeds of knotty issues like whether some volumetric charges on bills could be converted to fixed charges and transitioning reconciling charges into base rates.
“There’s no one silver bullet to affordability. I mean, everybody knows that, but there are things we can do to put bricks in the wall and that we can sort of do together to try to attack this on a number of levels,” DPU Chair Jeremy McDiarmid said. “And so we’re asking a lot of questions, we’re going to be thoughtful about how we approach it, we’re going to do it incrementally and gradually, but we’re also going to push.”
Commissioner Staci Rubin said the commissioners “very clearly want to be containing customer costs, we want to reduce bill volatility, and we want to increase utility bill transparency and accessibility for all customers.”
“In terms of timing, we are seeking to make progress this calendar year, and we’re looking for paths forward to result in changes in the relative short term,” she said.
For Massachusetts electric customers, bills have increased from roughly $130-$160 per month in 2016-17 to peak at around $250 per month in 2023 or 2025, depending on the utility, according to filings with DPU. Gas customers have seen bills climb from about $140 in the winter of 2016-2017 to $320 or more this winter, the filings said. The median Massachusetts household spent 3% of its income on energy bills in 2024, the state said in its most recent climate report card, just higher than the national median energy burden of 2.9%, according to a 2024 report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
Maura Healey and her DPU need to be kicked to the curb. This governor axed two major gas pipe lines and put all her electrical hopes into green energy while standing by and letting residents of this state see their utility bills go through the roof. Her failed leadership did nothing while residents struggled, having to make hard decisions, like whether to buy groceries, medications, get healthcare, pay rent, and provide the essentials for their families. Take your utility bills with you to the polls and kick this failed governor to the curb. 100% Massachusetts needs new leadership.
The DPU goes thru utility charges with a fine tooth comb every time there is any kind of rate increase. And they deny many charges and approve the rest. So now they are looking at the charges? Many of the state’s policies have failed raising rates for all utilities. So to blame the utilities is ridiculous.
Give us all a break, nothing could be farther from the truth, on August 26, 2025 for the second time in about two and a half years, the Healey administration revamped the lineup of Department of Public Utilities regulators including the removal of the chairman hired in 2023 due to public outrage and rising energy cost (the writing has been on the wall for years and nothing has been done, look at your utility bills, the DPU have let electric costs and gas costs go through the roof). This Governor and this DPU board must be kicked to the curb.
The energy crisis in Massachusetts can be traced back to the election of Maura Healey as Attorney General. The decision to prevent natural gas from flowing into our state was the trigger that unleashed the crushing heating costs that we face now
Are you kidding me Staci Rubin and the 2 other DPU Commissioners are responsible for allowing Eversource to go up 300% on our delivery charges. Allot of fluff. SHAMEFUL.