Shrewsbury Light Plant imposes new power charge, pauses $55 million headquarters project

SHREWSBURY — June 23, 2026 — Shrewsbury Municipal Light Plant approves a new power-supply charge and delays its planned headquarters building for at least six months. The commission voted unanimously Tuesday to impose a Generation and Transmission Adjustment charge of 1.4 cents per kilowatt hour, effective July 1, recovering a $1.4 million undercollection driven by what Director of Electric Service Becca Keene and Integrated Resources Manager Patrick Collins described as "the second-highest pricing environment in ISO New England history" — a first-quarter 2026 price spike caused by extreme cold weather and elevated wholesale costs. For a typical residential customer using 750 kilowatt hours per month, the increase translates to $10 more on August bills; commercial GS2 accounts will see roughly $3,000 more. The commission also reduced the New York Power Authority residential credit from 0.51 cents to 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour, pushing the total residential rate from 15.45 cents to just under 17 cents. In a separate consensus decision, commissioners agreed to pause the utility's proposed $55 million headquarters facility — now at 100 percent schematic design — after a Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company debt-coverage analysis showed that issuing a building bond simultaneously with a planned $20 million, two-phase, 69-kilovolt sub-transmission upgrade would strain the utility's financial ratios; a one-year construction delay is estimated to add $2.1 million in escalation costs.