A tale of two $190-plus electric bills
Sentinel & Enterprise
01/22/2016
My wife and I moved to Lunenburg in October. We wanted to downsize and needed to get away from the maintenance, snow removal and lawn-cutting we did at our Littleton home.
In Lunenburg we bought a condo in an over-55 community. Now being retired and on a fixed income, we expected to realize a reduction in expenses.
With the exception of the Unitil electric bill, we did receive lower real estate tax, gas heat, and water and sewer bills.
Please see the attached electric bills, one recent Unitil Electric bill (top photo) and one of my last Littleton Electric Light Department bills.
They are both for similar dollar amounts: Unitil for $198.51 and LELD for $195.60. The big difference is in the kilowatt hours delivered per bill: Unitil, 808 kwh and LELD, 1,782 kwh. Unitil's electricity delivered to us was less than half the amount of electricity delivered by LELD for almost the same cost.
The Unitil electric bill is more than double the cost of electricity from LELD.
I doubt that anything can be done about such a huge discrepancy in costs, but it brings an unfair burden to low- and fixed-income families.
I wonder if most people realize that there is such a vast difference in electric rates throughout Massachusetts.
KEN HILL
Lunenburg