You open your first Eversource bill in a new apartment, and the line marked delivery is bigger than the line for the electricity itself. It looks like a billing error.
It usually isn't. In Massachusetts, delivery routinely costs more than supply, and that is the normal shape of the bill rather than a mistake. What matters for a renter is that you can change one of those two halves and not the other, and that a small number of situations really are worth disputing.
The two halves of a Massachusetts electric bill
Every electric bill in the state splits into two categories that do completely different jobs.
Supply is the electricity itself, the cost of generating the power you used. Delivery is what it costs to move that power to your apartment and maintain the system that does it. As Boston.com's breakdown of the delivery fee explains, delivery covers operating the network: day-to-day maintenance to keep it reliable, emergency response, upgrading aging infrastructure, and connecting customers.
The difference that matters is who profits from which. Supply costs are passed through to you at what the utility paid; per that same reporting, neither Eversource nor National Grid profits on the supply half. Delivery is the side the utility actually earns on — and it is closely regulated by the state's Department of Public Utilities, which has to approve what the companies charge.
| Line on your bill | What it pays for | Can a renter change it? |
|---|---|---|
| Supply | The electricity you used | Yes — you can switch to a competitive supplier, or stay on basic service |
| Distribution | Local wires, poles, maintenance, emergency crews | No |
| Transmission | Moving power across the regional grid | No |
| Energy efficiency / public policy | State programs including Mass Save | No |
| Fixed customer charge | Account and metering costs | No |
Read the right-hand column and the whole situation gets clearer. Four of the five lines are fixed for you as a tenant. The one you control is the one that is usually smaller.
Why is my delivery charge higher than supply?
Two things drive it: the high cost of maintaining an aging electrical network in Massachusetts, and the public-policy charges (including Mass Save) that ride along on the delivery side.
The first is that Massachusetts is an expensive place to run an electrical network. It is among the oldest-settled parts of the country, with dense urban wiring, a lot of aging infrastructure, and hard winters that make reliability and emergency response costly. Those are real costs, and they land on the delivery side.
The second is that delivery is where state energy programs are collected. Your delivery charge carries a public-policy component that funds efficiency work, most visibly Mass Save, which pays the incentives behind heat pumps, insulation and similar upgrades.
That component has grown substantially. Boston.com reports that for NSTAR gas customers, public policy program charges rose from $17 of a total bill in 2015 to $70 in 2025, and for Eversource Gas Company of Massachusetts customers from $16 to $49 over the same period. Those particular figures are gas, not electric — the mechanism is the same on an electric bill, but don't expect the same numbers. It is the direction that matters: this is a growing share of what you pay, and it sits on the delivery side where you can't opt out of it.
Supply is the more volatile half. When the wholesale cost of power is moderate, the pass-through supply charge falls while the fixed cost of maintaining wires does not, and for a stretch that is what happened. It moves in both directions, though. Eversource's residential basic service rate rose about 11% on August 1, 2026, from 15.63 to 17.32 cents per kWh. Delivery is the half that tends to ratchet up and stay there.
Which half can a renter actually change?
Most explanations of Massachusetts electric bills are written for homeowners, so they skip the catch that matters to a renter: a tenant's position is narrower.
You can change the supply half if the account is in your name. Massachusetts lets you buy your electricity from a competitive supplier instead of taking the utility's default. The default is called basic service: the utility buys power through a competitive bidding process and passes the cost to you without a markup, with the rate resetting on a schedule the Department of Public Utilities oversees. You can compare licensed competitive supplier offers against that basic service rate through the state's Energy Switch site.
Two warnings worth more than the savings. First, the DPU licenses competitive suppliers but does not regulate the prices they set on their products: a low introductory rate can roll into a much higher one, and the contract terms are yours to read. Plenty of Massachusetts renters have ended up paying more than basic service. Second, if you're on a short lease, an early-termination fee can wipe out a year of savings.
You cannot change the delivery half. Not by switching suppliers, not by negotiating. It's a regulated rate that applies to everyone in your utility's territory on your rate class. If someone offers to lower your delivery charge, that is not a thing they can do.
And you may not control the account at all. In plenty of Boston apartments the electric account for common areas, or occasionally the unit itself, sits with the landlord. If you never set up an account and a bill is arriving anyway, that's a different problem — and a more serious one.
If you're apartment hunting now, it's worth asking what's included before you sign: "heat and hot water included" changes this whole calculation. Spot Easy's listings spell out what each Boston apartment actually includes, so you're not guessing at move-in.
When a high delivery charge is a real problem
Most of the time, a big delivery line is just a Massachusetts electric bill. But a few situations are genuinely worth investigating.
The first bill after you move
A high first bill after you move is common, and it's usually a mundane billing-cycle issue rather than an error. A first bill can cover an unusual number of days depending on when the account opened relative to the meter-reading cycle. It may also be based on an estimated read rather than an actual one, which gets trued up later, sometimes uncomfortably. Before assuming anything is wrong, check the service period printed on the bill and whether the read is marked actual or estimated.
The red flags worth acting on
Your meter may be serving more than your apartment. If your usage is wildly out of line with a similar neighbouring unit, the meter may also be feeding a hallway, basement, exterior lighting or another unit. In Massachusetts this is a landlord issue, not a you issue.
Estimated reads that never become actual. Several consecutive estimated bills with no correction is worth a call.
The wrong rate class. A residential account billed on a commercial rate will look strange in a way no amount of careful usage explains.
Charges for a period before you moved in. Check the service dates against your lease start.
The shared-meter question is common enough in Boston's older housing stock that it's worth reading separately: we've covered what to do when your Boston electric bill isn't actually yours in detail. That article answers "is this bill even mine?"; this one assumes it is.
Who to contact
If you've checked the service period and the read type and something still looks wrong, don't argue it in your own head — escalate it, in this order:
- Your utility. Start with Eversource or National Grid directly and ask for the meter to be checked and the read verified. Get a case reference.
- Your landlord, if the issue looks like a shared meter or a load that isn't yours. This is their responsibility to resolve, and it may require a licensed electrician to trace what the meter serves.
- The Department of Public Utilities' consumer division. The DPU regulates the distribution companies and takes consumer complaints about billing and service.
- The Massachusetts Attorney General's office, whose ratepayer advocacy division represents consumers in utility matters.
Whether a specific charge on your bill is correct depends on your meter, your rate class and your lease — none of which this article can see. If the numbers don't reconcile after step one, treat it as a question for the DPU or a tenant advocate rather than something to settle by reading about it.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my delivery charge higher than my supply charge? Because delivery covers the fixed cost of running and maintaining the network plus state energy programs, while supply is a pass-through cost that rises and falls with the wholesale power market. In Massachusetts this is the normal shape of a bill.
Do utilities make money on the electricity itself? Not on basic service supply — it's passed through at cost, with no markup. Delivery is the regulated side they earn on.
Can I lower my delivery charge? No. It's a regulated rate for your utility's territory and rate class. Only the supply half is open to you.
Is switching to a competitive supplier worth it? Sometimes, but it isn't automatic. The DPU licenses suppliers without regulating the prices of their products, so compare any offer against the current basic service rate, read the term length, and check for early-termination fees before switching.
What is the Mass Save charge on my bill? It's part of the public-policy component of the delivery side, funding state energy-efficiency incentives. You can use the programs it funds, but you can't decline the charge.
My apartment is small — why is the bill so big? Delivery includes fixed components that don't scale with how little you use, so a low-usage month still carries them. Old windows, electric heat and an inefficient water heater will also move usage more than square footage does.
The bill arrived and the account isn't in my name. What now? Don't pay it before working out whose it is. Start with your landlord and the utility: that's a shared-meter or account-setup question, and it's covered in the article linked above.
When these figures were current
This article was written in August 2026. The Mass Save and public-policy figures quoted are from Boston.com's November 2025 reporting and are gas-bill figures, included to show the direction of travel rather than to state what your electric bill contains.
Massachusetts electricity rates are not static. Basic service rates reset periodically through a bidding process overseen by the Department of Public Utilities, and delivery rates change when the DPU approves them. Check the current rate against your own bill rather than relying on any figure in an article, including this one.
This article is informational and isn't legal advice.