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Electric Delivery and Supply Charges Explained

Your monthly electric usage impacts both supply and delivery. Using less energy can help lower your bill.

What's the Difference Between Delivery and Supply? 

Your electric bill includes two key components—supply and delivery.

Supply is the amount of electricity you use, while delivery is the infrastructure that brings that electricity to your home.

What is Included in Delivery?

Delivery is the entire system that brings electricity to your home, it is not just transporting electricity.

It includes maintenance of and investment in the power lines, substations and all the infrastructure needed to ensure you have reliable service at your fingertips. This also means fewer outages and improved service reliability for you and your community.

Each step of this process requires planning, maintenance and skilled employees working tirelessly behind the scenes.

The delivery charge of your bill is made up of three main categories:

  1. Distribution, Operations and Service
  2. Transmission
  3. Public Policy

Distribution, Operations and Service

This is our core business – safely and reliably delivering power to your home. Beyond delivering the power to you, this service includes the cost of skilled employees that operate and maintain the local system of poles and wires and provide customer service. It also includes the cost of improvements to make the electric grid more resilient and reliable.

Unlike a flat charge for the delivery of a package, the delivery charges on your energy bill are driven by how much energy you use and can vary from month to month. 

Components that fall into this category include:

  • Customer Charge
  • Revenue Decoupling Charge 
  • Distribution Charge*
  • Grid Modernization*
  • Solar Program Cost Adjustment*
  • Solar Expansion Charge*
  • Vegetation Management*
  • Storm Cost Recovery Adjustment*
  • Basic Service Cost True-up Factor*
  • Pension Adjustment Factor*
  • Advanced Metering Infrastructure*
  • Electronic Payment Recovery*

*Components consolidated into the Distribution Charge line item on your bill.

Transmission

Transmission is the cost of building, maintaining and operating the regional transmission system that brings electricity from power generators to the network of power lines and equipment that brings power to homes and businesses.

These charges are federally regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity.

Public Policy

This portion includes costs required by the state and federal government for financial assistance and energy efficiency programs, purchasing renewable and carbon-free electricity, and funding solar and electric vehicle incentives to help make it easier to take advantage of clean energy options.

Through charges on your bill, you're paying to fund these programs, so we encourage you to take advantage of what's available to you.   

Components that fall into this category include:

  • Energy Efficiency Charge 
  • Renewable Energy Charge 
  • Net Metering Recovery Surcharge
  • Distributed Solar Charge 
  • Transition Charge
  • Electric Vehicle Program
  • Long Term Renewable Contract Adjustment*
  • Residential Assistant Adjustment Factor*
  • Attorney General Consultant Expenses*
  • Tax Act Credit*

*Components consolidated into the Distribution Charge line item on your bill.

See delivery rates

Your Supply Cost

We purchase electricity from third-party suppliers that generate electricity at a power plant or generating station. This is a pass-through cost to you with no profit to us. What we pay is what you pay.  

You can keep Eversource as your supplier, or shop around for a different rate.

Some customers may be on municipal aggregation, where your city or town purchases electricity in bulk on your behalf. To see if you’re part of this program, check your bill for supplier details.

How we determine the supply rate

The supply rate is based on the current market price of electricity. This price changes twice each year—on February 1 and August 1.

How you're charged

We track your usage in kilowatt hours (kWh), which is a unit that tells us how much electricity something uses over time. It's like measuring how much water you use with gallons or how far you travel with miles.

You can see how many kWh of electricity you use each month in the “Monthly kWh Use” table on page two of your bill. 

We multiply your usage by the supply rate to determine your supply charge.

Supply rate x kilowatt hours = supply charge

See supply rates