The City of Boston is looking to negotiate more stable electric pricing and boost its renewable energy use through the launch of a community choice aggregation.
In a municipal aggregation plan filed in June to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities city officials look to start the program in January 2020 provided the DPU approves the plan this year. Under Massachusetts law, cities and towns can aggregate the demand of their customers and procure energy from a third party instead of their default utility. By pooling customer demand, the CCA can try to attract better pricing or negotiate alternative supply options such as renewable energy products.
Should Boston's plan get approved, it would join at least 170 towns and cities that either have plans approved or are waiting for approval, including six municipalities with suspended CCA programs, according to data collected by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The amount is up from 136 cities and towns with approved plans in March 2018, according to an Aug. 30, 2018, report from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
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Utility impacts if Boston forms a CCA
Boston accounts for roughly 10% of the state's population, 2018 U.S. Census data shows. The design of Boston's program would enroll customers not already served by third-parties into a CCA but customers have the option to opt out.
NSTAR Electric Co., a subsidiary of Eversource Energy, delivers power to 248,000 customers in the city. It warned of uncertainty about the amount of load they need to procure for in an upcoming basic service procurement on Nov. 12, depending on the timing of the DPU order and the start of implementation, according to Aug. 20 comments to the agency.
The LEAN Exchange U.S., an advocacy group for CCA development, estimates about 30% of Massachusetts' population today is served by CCAs.
"We anticipate [the] CCA market share in Massachusetts to rise by an additional 30%, assuming the City of Boston receives approval to move forward," Alison Elliott, the administrative and operations manager at LEAN Exchange U.S., said in a Sept. 2 email.
The 30% growth rate is based on looking at CCA's historic growth rates and the additional population served by communities expected to come on in the next three to five years. Elliott said the following eight communities are "coming soon": Heath, Pelham, Hatfield, Newburyport, Pembroke, Franklin, Millis and Shirley.
CCAs search for renewables
At the end of 2017, Massachusetts was among seven states with active CCAs and about 10% of its electricity sales had switched to municipal aggregation, according to a February 2019 report from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab.
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Maggie Downey, the administrator of the Cape Light Compact, which was the first CCA to form in Massachusetts in 1997, said "its level of participation has been pretty steady," according to a Sept. 5 interview. The compact, which serves about 200,000 people across 21 towns in Cape May and Martha's Vineyard, saw some drop-off maybe five or seven years ago when the polar vortex and other extreme weather resulted in higher prices.
"But [what] we have seen, over the last several years, is customers migrating back to our Compact and they like what we are offering," she added. The Compact offers a standard green aggregation power supply option and in February launched two local green options letting customers opt-in to have 50% or 100% of their power come from renewable power, according to May 30 press release.
In Downey's opinion, towns and cities have been turning toward aggregation partly over concern about climate change. "They want to be green aggregators meaning that they are very concerned about climate change. And they want to increase the green renewable content of the supply offering in their communities," she explained. (Massachusetts DPU Docket 19-65)


