The misinformation flooding the electricity market is having a huge impact on Massachusetts residents.
Here are action steps from the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. (The following is quoted in full from GECA’s January 7th newsletter.)
Our new blog post shows that these predatory companies are continuing to drain money from our communities. We found that one suppliers, Summer Energy Northeast, charged it customers an average of 52 cents per kWh, more than three times the average municipal aggregation rate. While another, Inspire Energy, overaged their customers by an estimated $20 million dollars in 2024 alone.
After nine years and over $650 million in total losses, it is clear that we need to protect our neighbors and make energy more affordable by banning residential third-party suppliers.
Will you take two minutes to call your state legislators today?
The Governor’s Energy Affordability Bill, H.4144, while not fully banning third-party suppliers from signing up residential customers, contained major reforms that could protect many residents from some of these companies’ predatory practices. These reforms were largely carried over into H.4744, the House Telecommunication Utility and Energy Committee’s energy bill.For reasons unrelated to third-party suppliers, H.4744 is a controversial piece of legislation that is now stalled by the House Ways and Means Committee. And while we are glad the House Ways and Means Committee is editing the bill in light of public opposition to many of its pro-utility and pro-fossil fuel policies, we still need to make sure that its positive third-party supply sections are not lost in this editing process. One of these is Section 42 of H.4744, which would change the state’s purchase of receivable system. Another important part of the bill is Section 47, which would, among other things, prevent suppliers from signing up low-income customers and make it harder for suppliers to automatically renew customers into worse contracts.
If you have a few minutes, please call your State Representative (you can find their number here) and tell them you want to see Sections 42 and 47 of H.4744 make it into law. It really does make a difference. Thank you for taking action!
Read the blog post.