Electricity bills rise, city council proposal offers to help Agawam residents

AGAWAM, MA. (WGGB/WSHM) - An effort to help people in Agawam lower their energy bills. A proposal before the city council would create more choices for residents.

Many people in Agawam have been impacted by the rising costs of energy, including Rozann Cupidi, who told Western Mass News her bill has just about doubled.

“I own a two family and I pay both the first and second floor, so I pay about $400 a month per floor since Eversource has taken over,” said Cupidi. “My electric bill is absolutely insane.”

City councilors want this to change. Several introducing a resolution to establish municipal energy aggregation in Agawam.

Council member Tom Hendrickson told us the program would give residents the power of choice with the ability to opt out.

“Essentially what this would do is make the town in charge of procuring,” said Hendrickson. “The energy Eversource will still distribute it, but the town will go out and take bids from energy providers and try to get a better deal basically allow us to lock into longer-term contracts. If the mayor gets these bids and we’re not getting a deal that we think it’s beneficial we don’t have to go through with this and we can maintain the status quo so that’s really the great thing about this.”

He added this program has seen success in over 170 cities and towns in the commonwealth, including next door in West Springfield.

“Hopefully we can have the same sort of success here in Agawam,” said Hendrickson.

Councilor Rosemary Sandlin explained this could help all residents.

“We hope that this can be looked at very closely by the administration,” said Sandlin. “The whole thing is to save money for the consumer and the taxpayers for the town of Agawam.”

We’re told the city council will put the resolution to a vote during Monday’s city council meeting.

Western Mass News reached out to Eversource for a statement on this, it reads in part:

“.... We support giving customers a choice when it comes to choosing electric supply and encourage customers to carefully consider the details of their options. We will continue to offer our basic service to all customers, will deliver the electricity in Agawam, and maintain the electric system there to provide our customers with safe, reliable electric service.”

We also reached out to Agawam Mayor Bill Sapelli and have yet to hear back.

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