Article: Why electric bills will go through roof this winter

[bostonmichelle]

I am so glad that I have municipal electric when I read this, our rate is locked for a while and from what I know they have $$$ in reserves so I'll be down there if they hike us next spring. I had National Grid in the past and the service and prices were pretty bad. I had lost power twice for a week each time in the matter of a few months (Hurricane Irene and then the Halloween blizzard of 2011) and from what it seemed like there was a big amount of infrastructure issues.

[LoveTrains]

That sucks. I'm sure RI will get hit with an increase, too.

[elfinia7]

I had heard about this too. We had solar panels installed this past May and just saw our first bill for last month and the savings were big. We couldn't afford to buy and own our own solar panels so we are actually "renting" them. Which means we don't pay for the installation, maintenance etc. However, we also don't get the tax breaks for the energy efficiency. This means that we receive two electric bills each month, one from the solar panel company which pulls the majority of our power needs and NSTAR for the rest. I'm interested to see how our costs continue to trend over the next year.

[elfinia7]

Sept 29, 2014 15:52:06 GMT -5 RockNVoll said:

Sept 29, 2014 12:23:04 GMT -5 elfinia7 said:

I had heard about this too. We had solar panels installed this past May and just saw our first bill for last month and the savings were big. We couldn't afford to buy and own our own solar panels so we are actually "renting" them. Which means we don't pay for the installation, maintenance etc. However, we also don't get the tax breaks for the energy efficiency. This means that we receive two electric bills each month, one from the solar panel company which pulls the majority of our power needs and NSTAR for the rest. I'm interested to see how our costs continue to trend over the next year.

You're lucky your system is up and running.  So many people have had trouble getting their systems actually turned on after the panels were installed, including a couple of my family members.  I hope you see great savings!

Oh it totally took forever to get them turned on. Like I said, they were installed in May but weren't turned on until end of August. It was so annoying that we had to keep calling. Here's hoping the great savings makes up for the poor customer service so far.

[bostonmichelle]

Apparently my understanding of how our municipal was wrong! I used less last month and my bill went up already due to the "winter rates" and it can go up every month with discretion by the town's Electric commissioners. I just called the Electric department, she said electricity is going to go way up this winter and the next few years.

[liveintheville]

The above ground lines drive me crazy. Let's hope my now non leaky windows help me this winter.