Greater Boston Residential Assistance A4 (R-3) without electric heat

Estimates, not quotes. We run three made-up but realistic households through this tariff hour by hour for a full year — including the way air conditioning loads the afternoon and an EV loads the small hours. Your own bill depends on when you actually use electricity, which is exactly the thing a per-kWh number hides.

One rate, every hour of the year. That makes this plan predictable and nothing else: there is no cheap window to move laundry or car charging into, and no penalty for running the oven at six in the evening. Predictability is worth something if your schedule is not yours to control — but if it is, a flat rate is the one structure that guarantees you cannot benefit from it.

Before a single kilowatt-hour moves, this plan charges $90 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 7% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 3%. Fixed charges are invisible in a cents-per-kWh comparison and they punish small users hardest — if you use very little electricity, the headline rate is the least important number on this page.

Expect the bill to move with the calendar. The same family home costs about $279 in July and $155 in February — a $124 spread driven by heating and cooling far more than by anything you chose. Budget against the July figure, not the average, and a summer bill stops being a surprise.