Budget Season: Locking a Fixed Commercial Electricity Rate for 2027
Your energy line is the one number in next year's budget you can make contractual instead of hypothetical. August is the month to do it.
The short version
Utility basic service is “fixed” only until the next reset: every six months for small C&I, every quarter for medium and large.
Eversource's medium/large commercial rate in Northeast Massachusetts jumped 50% in one quarter last winter.
New Hampshire default service has gone from about 12.5% to 50% spot-market exposure since 2024, priced off an estimate, with $50M in deferred costs still to be recovered.
The vast majority of our commercial clients come out ahead on a fixed supply rate vs. utility basic service over full contract cycles, worth millions in cost avoidance for our largest accounts.
We're recommending 12-month fixed terms right now: certainty for this budget year, flexibility next year.
August in New England means budget season. Manufacturers are building next year's cost of goods. School business managers and town administrators are drafting warrants and appropriations. Property managers are setting operating budgets. And nearly all of them are plugging in an energy number that is, at best, an educated guess.
It doesn't have to be.
Supply is the part of your bill you control
Your electric bill splits in two. Delivery is regulated. You pay what the utility is authorized to charge. Supply is competitive in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, and it's a substantial share of the total. That's the line you can fix with a contract. Leave it on utility basic service and it resets on the utility's schedule, not yours.
What “fixed” actually means on a utility rate
Small commercial and industrial accounts in Massachusetts are repriced twice a year, February 1 and August 1. Medium and large C&I accounts are repriced every quarter: February 1, May 1, August 1, November 1. Fixed until the next reset is not the same as fixed for your budget year.
At the small end it's been calm. Eversource's Eastern Massachusetts Small General Service rate (G1, G4–G7, T1) held at 15.150¢/kWh from August 2025 through January, then 15.030¢ through July 2026. National Grid's Massachusetts commercial rate (G-1, S-1, S-2, S-3, S-5, S-6) is 15.568¢/kWh on the fixed option for the six months from August 1, 2026.
The quarterly-reset classes are a different story:
Eversource Eastern MA, Medium & Large General Service (G2, G3, EV2): fixed basic service rate (¢/kWh)
Rate period NEMA SEMA
Aug 1 – Oct 31, 2025 12.078 12.978
Nov 1, 2025 – Jan 31, 2026 18.127 18.037
Feb 1 – Apr 30, 2026 17.893 16.290
May 1 – Jul 31, 2026 12.541 11.825
Northeast Massachusetts went from 12.078¢ to 18.127¢ in a single quarter, a 50% increase, then back to 12.541¢ six months later. That's not the spot market. That's the utility's own fixed price, resetting on the utility's calendar.
A manufacturer that budgeted 2026 off the August 2025 rate was 50% light by November.
New Hampshire: your rate is an estimate, not a price
New Hampshire has been moving default service off fixed-price contracts and onto the ISO New England day-ahead and real-time markets since the August 2024 rate period, when the PUC approved an initial market-based tranche of roughly 12.5% of small customer load. It has climbed steadily since: about 30% for Eversource and Unitil in February 2025, and 50% across the August 2025 to July 2026 period. For that unhedged half, the posted rate is a proxy price, an estimate of what the power will cost.
Estimates have run low. As of April 30, 2026, New Hampshire utilities had under-collected roughly $50 million statewide: about $38M at Eversource, $9M at Liberty, $3M at Unitil. Those balances come back through future rates. When Liberty's deferred costs came due, its proposed default rate jumped from roughly 13¢ to more than 21¢/kWh.
Governor Ayotte signed HB 1733 in June 2026, requiring a return to fixed-price contracts for residential and small commercial customers. That's the right direction, but it doesn't retire the balances already on the books. If you're on NH default service today, you're holding an estimate with a true-up attached.
A fixed rate isn't about beating the market
The honest version: a fixed rate is not a bet that prices will rise. New England forward power curves currently point downward over the back half of the decade. If prices fall, a fixed contract can cost more than riding the raw index.
What a fixed rate buys isn't a lower price. It's a number you can defend.
When you tell your board, your select board, or your ownership group that energy will cost $X next year, a contract makes that figure factual rather than aspirational. No mid-year supplemental appropriation. No variance memo in March. No margin erosion on work you quoted at a fixed price.
And certainty hasn't cost our clients money
Here's the distinction that matters. The utility's basic service rate is not the raw market. It carries supplier risk premiums, whatever procurement timing the utility happened to draw that quarter, and in New Hampshire's case a deferred true-up you'll pay later. Beating the spot index is a coin flip. Beating utility basic service is a different proposition entirely.
Measured against that benchmark across full contract cycles, the vast majority of our commercial clients come out ahead on a fixed supply rate. For our larger industrial and multi-site accounts, the cumulative cost avoidance runs into the millions.
That's the case for fixing your rate. Not a forecast. A track record.
Why we're recommending 12-month terms right now
Not three and five year deals. A short fixed term does two jobs at once. It gets you off elevated utility basic service and default rates, and it hands you a firm number for the budget year in front of you, without committing you to today's pricing for the rest of the decade.
Next summer you come back to the market with a full budget cycle of certainty behind you. If the forward curve delivers what it's signaling, that's when you secure a longer term at better pricing. If it doesn't hold, you were protected in the meantime.
Why August, specifically
Most of the region just repriced, and it went up. Massachusetts utilities reset supply rates every February 1 and August 1 by state law, New Hampshire's default service period runs August through January, and Eversource's medium and large C&I rates turn over quarterly on that same date. All three Massachusetts utilities, National Grid, Eversource and Unitil, moved their supply rates higher on August 1. Whatever you paid in July is not what you're paying now, and it's not what you should be budgeting.
Your budget is being written this month. A rate secured after the budget is approved doesn't help the budget. It just explains the variance later.
Early timing is optionality. Waiting until thirty days before your contract expires means accepting whatever the market offers that week. Starting now lets us watch the curve and strike when it's favorable rather than when it's urgent.
Where we come in
We'll pull your usage history, benchmark live 12-month offers from our supplier network against your utility's rate, and hand you a firm number for your spreadsheet before it goes to the board. Then we keep watching the curve, so when your term is up we already know whether a longer deal makes sense. That's what EnergyMAX does year-round for our clients.
Get a firm number for your 2027 budget
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Frequently asked questions
How often does a utility basic service rate change?
In Massachusetts, small C&I fixed basic service resets twice a year, February 1 and August 1. Medium and large C&I resets quarterly: February 1, May 1, August 1 and November 1. Maine's standard offer runs on a calendar year.
Is a fixed electricity supply rate always cheaper?
Not against the raw market. Forward curves in New England currently point downward, so a fixed contract can end up costing more than the index. Measured against utility basic service, which carries risk premiums and procurement timing risk, the vast majority of our commercial clients come out ahead.
Why a 12-month term instead of a multi-year contract?
Twelve months covers the budget year you're writing now without locking in today's pricing for the rest of the decade. If the curve delivers, you secure a longer term at better pricing next year.