Massachusetts · Investor Owned · serves 289 ZIP codes
NSTAR Electric Company rate plans
3 residential plans are currently open to new customers. None of them price by hour, so shifting when you use power won’t change your bill here.
What does NSTAR Electric cost at a normal month’s usage?
A household using 1,000 kWh a month pays about $3,053 a year on the cheapest of the 3 plans we can price here — Greater Boston Residential Assistance A4 (R-3) without electric heat — and $3,118 on the priciest. Same house, same wires.
| A month of | Cheapest, a year | On which plan | Priciest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 kWh | $1,571 | Greater Boston Residential Assistance A4 (R-3) without electric heat | $1,604 |
| 1,000 kWh | $3,053 | Greater Boston Residential Assistance A4 (R-3) without electric heat | $3,118 |
| 2,000 kWh | $6,015 | Greater Boston Residential Assistance A4 (R-3) without electric heat | $6,145 |
The same plan is cheapest at every level of use here, so the answer does not turn on how much you use. Estimates from the filed tariff, priced hour by hour on a household with central air — not a quote.
What does NSTAR Electric Company's residential rate cost?
NSTAR Electric Company files a single residential tariff, so there is no plan to choose between — everyone served here is on the same terms. That makes this page short on comparison and long on one question instead: what does that tariff actually do to a bill?
Priced hour by hour across a full year, a small apartment on this tariff comes to about $1,317 and a three-bedroom house with central air to about $2,474 — an effective 27.1¢ and 26.2¢ per kilowatt-hour once the fixed charge is spread across everything used.
With one plan and no hourly pricing, the only lever left is using less. Moving laundry or car charging to the middle of the night changes nothing here, which is worth knowing before you rearrange your evenings for no reason.
Expect the bill to swing with the weather rather than with anything you decide: the same house costs around $285 in July and $158 in February. Budget against the higher figure and the summer bill stops being a surprise.
How NSTAR Electric compares with the rest of the country
NSTAR Electric is the only Massachusetts utility we can price, so there is no in-state comparison to make. Against the whole country there is: run the same three-bedroom house with central air through its default plan at each of the 127 utilities we cover, and NSTAR Electric lands 114th cheapest — in the dearer half — at about $2,474 a year against a national median of $1,566. The range runs from $905 at Entergy Louisiana (Louisiana) to $4,726 at San Diego Gas & Electric (California).
The other two households sit in the same place: a small apartment pays about $1,317 here against a national median of $901, and the same house with an electric car charging overnight about $3,395 against $2,067. Effective rate, fixed charge included, is 26.2¢ per kilowatt-hour for the family home.
Which plan would cost you least?
No bill upload, no sign-up. Tell us roughly what a month costs you and what runs on electricity — we price every plan against the same household and show you the gap.
That adds up to 6,331 kWh a year. Compare it to the total on your bill and adjust until it’s close.
Same usage, different plan
$34a year
That is the gap between the cheapest plan you could be on — Greater Boston Residential Assistance A4 (R-3) without electric heat — and the priciest. Not by using less power. By being billed differently for the same power.
| Plan | Per year | Vs best |
|---|---|---|
| Greater Boston Residential Assistance A4 (R-3) without electric heatOne rate, every hour of the year. | $1,651 | — |
| Greater Boston Residential Assistance A2 (R-2) with electric heatOne rate, every hour of the year. | $1,686 | +$34 |
| Greater Boston Residential R-1 (A1)One rate, every hour of the year. | $1,686 | +$34 |
An estimate, not a quote. Supply charges move month to month, and your real usage pattern is not exactly this one. What it does show reliably is the gap between plans — both are priced off the same assumptions.
Making sense of the bill
- How to read your electric bill
Four kinds of charge, only two of which you can do anything about.
- Fixed charges on your electric bill: what they are and why they matter
The line that makes cents-per-kilowatt-hour comparisons quietly wrong.
- How to compare electricity plans without getting it wrong
Six things that break a comparison, and the order to check them in.
Every plan, in detail
Hour-by-hour schedules, tier thresholds, and the tariff each one comes from.