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Massachusetts Legislature Sends To Governor Bill Which Retains Individual Residential Electric Choice, Includes Retail Market Enhancements
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The Massachusetts House has adopted a conference committee report to reconcile differences in a wide-ranging energy bill, with the conference committee report striking from the comprehensive bill the Senate's originally passed prohibition on individual residential electric choice
The Senate previously adopted the conference report. Both chambers have now enacted the bill, without the ban on residential electric choice, and the bill has been laid before the governor for action
Earlier, a Senate-passed version of the bill (then S.2838) had included language providing that, "On or after January 1, 2026, no supplier, energy marketer or energy broker shall execute a new contract or renew an existing contract for generation services with any individual residential retail customer". This provision did not apply to municipal aggregation
The bill, now numbered S.2967, has struck this earlier language banning individual electric choice, as part of final passage
The enacted S.2967 also requires the implementation of the following retail market enhancements:
• Accelerated switching (3 business days) for residential or small commercial customers, upon full AMI deployment
• Contract portability for a customer moving within an EDC service area, allowing the customer to be served by their existing retail supplier at the new location, with no interim period on default service
• Day 1 switching, allowing customers to take retail supplier service immediately upon service initiation, without being placed on default service for an interim period
S.2967 also requires the development of a portal for customer AMI data, and retail supplier access to such, "subject to appropriate customer approval and protections".
S.2967 also does not include the removal of the current statutory provision which limits the term length of basic service wholesale supply contracts to 6 months, as the earlier Senate bill had done
Note that the Senate's provision banning individual residential electric choice was also separately passed by the Senate on a stand-alone basis under S.2738 (though it would be effective for 2025 rather than 2026). The stand-alone S.2738 remains sitting in a House committee
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November 14, 2024
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Copyright 2024 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com
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