The first winter electric bill after a conversion is the one people worry about. Clement Boston Heat Pumps explains the heat pump rate Massachusetts utilities offer at the first visit, and sets up every ducted system so the backup heat doesn’t eat the savings.
What the seasonal heat pump rate changes
It lowers the delivery part of your bill in winter. Your electricity supply price stays the same; the charges for carrying power over the wires drop from November 1 through April 30.
The two halves of an electric bill
Every Massachusetts electric bill has a supply charge, for the electricity itself, and delivery charges, for getting it to your house. Delivery is split into distribution, transmission and a list of smaller program charges.
The seasonal rate cuts the distribution charge for every customer on it. On Eversource it also cuts the transmission charge; on National Grid the discount is distribution only, so the winter reduction is smaller. Supply, whether Basic Service or a competitive supplier, isn’t touched.
Who qualifies
Residential customers of Eversource, National Grid and Unitil who heat their home with a heat pump qualify. It has to be space heating; a heat pump water heater alone doesn’t count.
| Your electric company | Towns we serve on it | What the rate lowers in winter |
|---|---|---|
| Eversource | Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Newton, Arlington, Watertown, Waltham, Woburn, Chelsea | Distribution and transmission charges |
| National Grid | Medford, Malden, Quincy, Revere, Lynn, Weymouth | Distribution charges only |
| A municipal light plant | Belmont, Braintree, Peabody, Reading, Wellesley | Not covered; the town sets its own rates |
Check the name on your bill, not the town. A few streets near a town line can be served differently, and a Braintree or Peabody address follows its light plant.
How enrollment works
Most households who get a Mass Save heat pump rebate don’t have to do anything. Customers who received one on or after January 1, 2019 are enrolled automatically.
If you weren’t enrolled automatically
Everyone else signs up online with the utility. Eversource enrolls customers the next day and verifies within 45 days; National Grid enrolls within about a week. A home with an older heat pump, or one installed without a Mass Save rebate, needs to ask.
After the install, look at the rate code on your first winter bill. If it hasn’t changed, call the utility before the bills pile up; the discount doesn’t backdate itself.
Why it covers the whole house
The rate applies to every kilowatt-hour on the meter in winter, not a separate heat pump meter. That’s deliberate: a heat pump household’s winter usage is mostly heating, and a second meter would cost more than it saves.
The effect is that the discount also lands on your lights, refrigerator, cooking and laundry from November to April. In a house that switches from oil, those base loads were already on the electric bill; now they’re cheaper in winter too.
What happens to your bill after a conversion
Your electric use goes up and your oil, propane or gas bill shrinks or disappears. The rate decides how much of the oil savings you keep; the installation decides how much electricity the heat pump needs.
A way to estimate the kilowatt-hours
Start from what you burned last winter. Say the house used 700 gallons of oil in a burner running at about 85% efficiency. That’s roughly 82 million BTU of heat delivered. At COP 1, it would take about 24,000 kWh to deliver that heat.
A cold-climate heat pump averaging a seasonal COP of about 2.5 delivers the same heat for roughly 9,700 kWh. Multiply by the winter rate on your bill to see the heating cost, then compare it with what the oil cost. Our heat pump vs oil guide works through that comparison in dollars.
What the rate means for oil, propane and gas
On the winter rate, a cold-climate heat pump costs less per unit of heat delivered than heating oil or propane, and more than natural gas at recent average prices. The rate is what moves the heat pump past oil.
- Oil and propane homes: the clearest running-cost case; see the oil to heat pump conversion.
- Gas homes: running cost is closer, and the decision rests more on cooling, the age of the furnace and rebates; see heat pump vs gas furnace.
- Electric baseboard homes: every unit of heat gets cheaper, rate or no rate; see baseboard to heat pump.
Why the installation matters as much as the rate
The rate only lowers the price of each kilowatt-hour. A system that spends hours on its backup electric strips can still produce a painful bill, because strips deliver one unit of heat per unit of electricity.
That’s why every startup we do ends with the backup heat lockout set and recorded, measured airflow and a refrigerant charge weighed in for the actual line length. A heat pump that runs at its rated efficiency is what turns the rate into savings.
The rate can change
The utilities reset their winter rates on a regular schedule, and the Department of Public Utilities has an open investigation into how heat pump rates are designed. Treat the structure here as how it works today, and check your current bill for the numbers.
If you’re comparing a conversion, send us last winter’s fuel use and an electric bill at the first visit. We’ll put the running-cost comparison on the written estimate next to the price.