News Release

Rising Wholesale Electricity Prices to Push Supply Rates Higher
WMECo’s Decrease in Delivery Charges Helps Offset Supply-side Increase


Springfield, Mass. (June 28, 2013) — This month WMECo customers began benefiting from a decrease in the delivery portion of their electric bills. This decrease resulted in a rate cut of approximately $1.35 per month for the average residential customer, from $84.59 to $83.25.

Meanwhile, wholesale electricity prices are up, which will translate into residential customers seeing an increase of a penny per kilowatt-hour in the supply portion of their bills beginning July 1st. This increase is a direct pass-through of supply costs to customers.

WMECO’s new residential electricity supply rate, approved by the Department of Public Utilities, will change from 7.315 cents per kilowatt-hour to 8.317 cents from July through December. Effective Monday, the average bill for customers using 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity will go from $83.25 to $89.60

Small commercial and industrial customers, who saw a delivery charge decrease this month of more than 10-percent, will see a slight up-tick with the supply rate changing from 7.568 cents per kilowatt-hour to 7.775 cents per kilowatt-hour.

As a regulated distribution company, WMECo purchases electricity from suppliers and passes the cost directly to customers on the company’s Basic Service supply rate, with no profit to WMECo. By law, the Basic Service price for residential customers’ changes twice a year, on January 1st and July 1st.

The scheduled increase in the supply rate is due in part to a rise in the price of the fuel regional generating companies use to produce electricity. The new price remains considerably lower than in recent years.

While WMECo can’t control the cost it pays suppliers for electricity, it can help customers reduce the amount of energy they use by becoming more efficient. For information about all of the energy efficiency programs the company offers, visit
www.wmeco.com.

Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECo), a Northeast Utilities company (NYSE:NU), transmits and delivers electricity to 210,000 customers in 59 cities and towns. For more information, please visit our website: www.wmeco.com, like us on Facebook (facebook.com/WMECo) and follow us on Twitter @wmeco.

CONTACT:
Priscilla Ress
413-787-1055
priscilla.ress@nu.com
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