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Why heating oil, gas and electricity cost so much on the South Coast

This year's biggest jump, in heating oil, followed the war that began with U.S. strikes on Iran on Feb. 28. For the older premium on Massachusetts gas and electric bills, we measured what the delivery, program and transmission charges add and traced the decisions in Boston and Washington behind them.

By the SC360 Investigations Desk | Published Oct. 29, 2026 | Last verified Oct. 29, 2026, 2:43 p.m. ET

SOUTH COAST South Coast households that heat with oil are paying about $528 more for a 200-gallon delivery than they did a year ago, and about $409 of that has come since the week before Feb. 28, the day U.S. forces began striking Iran at President Donald Trump's direction. Massachusetts heating oil has risen 73% in a year, far more than electric or natural gas bills, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration ties the rise since February to the war and the effective closing of the Strait of Hormuz to most tankers that followed.

Massachusetts residential electricity cost 76% more than the national average last year and natural gas 63% more, gaps that were wide long before this year. The records trace them to decisions over two decades: limits on the pipelines that bring gas into New England, delivery charges the state Department of Public Utilities approves, state energy programs that customers pay for on their bills, and transmission profits that federal regulators ruled in March were too high.

SC360 is asking the White House, the U.S. Energy and Interior departments, the governor's office, the six members of the energy bill conference committee, the South Coast's state legislators, the Department of Public Utilities, Eversource, National Grid, Liberty and Unitil for comment and will add their replies.

Heating oil: what changed after Feb. 28

Massachusetts heating oil averaged $6.254 a gallon the week of Oct. 26, against $3.612 the week of Oct. 27, 2025. The price had already climbed over the winter, to $4.207 the week of Feb. 23. By the week of March 9, nine days after the strikes began, it had reached $5.437, and it has averaged more than $6 every week this October.

In a March 2 letter to Congress, Trump wrote that "at my direction, on February 28, 2026, United States forces conducted precision strikes against numerous targets within Iran." He wrote that Iran "continues to seek the means to possess and employ nuclear weapons," that his administration had made "repeated efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution," and that the strikes would help ensure "the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz."

The Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department's statistics agency, wrote in March that oil prices rose "following the onset of military action in the Middle East that began on February 28," as most tankers stopped using the strait because of "the threat of attack by Iran and the cancellation of insurance coverage." Before the conflict, the agency wrote in April, the world oil market was oversupplied and prices had been falling for a year. Its Oct. 6 outlook expects most of the region's production back by the middle of 2027.

Heating oil is a distillate, like diesel. The agency reported East Coast distillate stocks 32% below their five-year average in September and expects them to stay 20% to 30% below through this winter. The region refines less than it uses and imports about 15% of its winter supply, mostly from Canada.

The war has not driven up natural gas produced in the United States the same way. The agency puts the Henry Hub benchmark at an average $3.48 per million British thermal units for 2026, slightly below the 2025 average of $3.53.

Electric bills: what changed in a year

On National Grid's residential rate, a home that uses 600 kilowatt-hours a month, the figure the Department of Public Utilities used for an average National Grid residential basic service customer in a June 22 notice, pays about $250.71 a month at the rates in effect now. At the rates in effect last October, the same home paid about $226.26. That is about $24 a month more, or 10.8%.

About $10.21 of the increase is the electricity itself. National Grid's fixed basic service rate for Aug. 1 to Jan. 31 is 17.185 cents a kilowatt-hour, up from 15.484 cents a year earlier. ISO New England's market monitor reported that regional wholesale electricity costs rose 48% in 2025 to $15 billion and named higher natural gas prices, which more than doubled, as "the principal driver."

The other $14.24 is in delivery charges. Three lines more than account for it, partly offset by two that fell. The residential assistance charge, which pays for discounts of 32% to 71% for low-income customers under tiered rates that took effect in August and September 2025, and for an arrearage management program, went from 1.149 cents a kilowatt-hour to 2.389 cents, about $7.44 a month more. The net metering recovery surcharge went from 1.724 cents to 2.451 cents, about $4.36 more.

The third is a winter relief recovery charge of 0.658 cents, about $3.95 a month, on the tariff since May 1. In January, Healey announced 25% electric bill cuts for February and March; her office said $180 million in state alternative compliance payment funds would pay for 15 percentage points and the rest would be deferred and recovered on bills from April through December, GBH News and State House News Service reported. Transmission fell from 5.798 cents to 5.464 cents and energy efficiency from 2.879 cents to 2.713 cents, and smaller changes in other lines make up the rest, including the SMART solar charge, up from 0.729 cents to 0.935 cents.

Why Massachusetts has paid more for years

Massachusetts households paid an average 30.41 cents a kilowatt-hour in 2025, against 17.23 cents nationally, and only Hawaii and California paid more, the Energy Information Administration reported. The state's price was 42% above the national average in 2005 and 76% above it in 2025. So far this year it is flat, 30.19 cents from January through August against 30.21 cents a year earlier, while the national average rose to 18.19 cents.

On today's National Grid bill for 600 kilowatt-hours, the electricity supply is about $103.11, or 41%. Transmission, whose rates federal regulators set, is about $32.78, or 13%. Base distribution and the $10 customer charge come to about $50.06. Six charges that fund energy efficiency, net metering credits, the state's SMART solar incentives, renewable energy, electric vehicle programs and grid plans total 6.47 cents a kilowatt-hour, about $38.82, or 15%.

Natural gas drives the supply price, ISO New England's market monitor found, and gas costs more here. In 2025 Massachusetts gas utilities paid an average $8.14 per thousand cubic feet for their gas, against $4.85 nationally, and homes paid $25.06, against $15.34, the Energy Information Administration reported. Citing the Energy Information Administration, the monitor wrote that prices at constrained Northeast gas hubs rose substantially more than the national Henry Hub benchmark in 2025, "reflecting winter demand sensitivity and limited pipeline capacity." The rest of what homes pay, $16.92 per thousand cubic feet here against $10.49 nationally, covers local delivery and the other charges on gas bills.

The pipeline decisions

Two large projects to bring more gas into New England stalled in 2016 and 2017. On April 20, 2016, Kinder Morgan suspended its Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, saying its pipeline subsidiary "did not receive the additional commitments it expected." The Baker administration said the decision showed "the pressing need to secure cost-effective hydropower and other renewable energy resources," State House News Service reported in a story published by WBUR. A year earlier, Healey's office, when she was attorney general, had released a study that found New England did not need more pipelines, the same story said.

The second project, Access Northeast, depended on electric customers paying for pipeline space. In 2015 the state Department of Energy Resources asked whether electric companies could sign long-term, ratepayer-backed contracts for interstate pipeline capacity, to lower "gas constraint-driven high prices" for electricity, and on Oct. 2, 2015, the Department of Public Utilities said they could. Eversource and National Grid, which were buying stakes in the project, sought approval of such contracts; Eversource cited a study for ISO New England that found a project like it could save $1 billion a year, WAMC reported in June 2016. Healey's office asked the department to pause the cases, and an assistant attorney general said the companies were "on both sides of the proposed Access Northeast transaction."

On Aug. 17, 2016, the Supreme Judicial Court threw out the department's order, writing that under the 1997 law that restructured the electric industry it "would undermine the main objectives of the act and reexpose ratepayers to the types of financial risks from which the Legislature sought to protect them." In June 2017, Enbridge, Eversource and National Grid withdrew the project's federal application, citing funding uncertainty, The Associated Press reported. A transmission line bringing hydropower into Massachusetts began operating in January, and officials estimate it will lower electricity costs about $1.50 a month per household, GBH News reported.

Williams says on a May 2025 fact sheet that its proposed Constitution pipeline from Pennsylvania into New York would give New York and New England customers direct access to Marcellus Shale gas, and it targets service by the third quarter of 2027. "There is no proposal for Constitution pipeline currently before New York State," Ken Lovett, a communications adviser on energy to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, told Spectrum News this month.

Gas bills: delivery, not the gas

For South Coast gas customers this winter, the increase is in delivery. Eversource's NSTAR Gas, which serves New Bedford, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Acushnet, Mattapoisett, Marion and Rochester, estimated in a Sept. 17 filing that a typical heating customer would pay $2,146.25 from November through April under its proposed rates, up $220.67, or 11.5%, from last year's rates, even though the gas itself would cost less. Its base distribution charge rose from $1.0044 a therm last November to $1.2004 proposed for this winter.

In Fall River, the department approved a settlement on March 27 that gives Liberty $45.3 million in added revenue, less than the $55.9 million it sought and its first base rate increase since 2016; Liberty estimated its average residential heating customer would pay $218.56 more a year. "The cost of gas is a straight pass through cost in which Liberty makes no profit," reads the bill message the company proposed for November. None of the Nov. 1 gas charges is final until the department rules.

State programs on the bill

The largest state program on the bills is Mass Save, the energy efficiency program the utilities run and customers fund. On Feb. 28, 2025, the Department of Public Utilities capped its 2025 to 2027 budget at $4.5 billion instead of the $5 billion the utilities proposed, writing that it "must assess the reasonableness of customer bill impacts," WBUR reported. Healey said the cut "will mean real savings for people." NSTAR Gas proposed an efficiency surcharge of 32.99 cents a therm this winter, down from 41.7 cents, or about $230 for its typical heating customer, who uses 698 therms.

State carbon limits also reach the bill. ISO New England's market monitor estimated that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the Massachusetts limits on power plant emissions raised wholesale energy prices about $9 a megawatt-hour in 2025, close to a penny a kilowatt-hour, or $1.1 billion across the region.

Healey's Oct. 5 relief plan takes the SMART solar charge off residential electric bills for January through March, adds $15 million to fuel assistance and creates a one-time benefit of up to $680 for middle-income households that heat with oil. Her office said the plan will lower bills for about 85% of ratepayers.

Transmission profits

On March 19, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled that New England's transmission owners had been collecting a return on equity that was "unjust and unreasonable" and cut it from up to 11.14% to 9.57%, retroactively, in a case a coalition led by the Massachusetts attorney general's office brought in 2011, Connecticut's Office of Consumer Counsel said. In a statement the office released, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the decision "reflects years of work to challenge excessive transmission profits."

About $1.5 billion in refunds is owed to New England customers, due by May 20, 2027. In an Oct. 13 letter, Healey asked Eversource, National Grid and Unitil to end their appeal and pay now, WBUR reported. Eversource spokesperson William Hinkle said the company "plans to ultimately comply with the directives of FERC" but "will not sacrifice the accuracy of customer billing information in the process," and National Grid spokesperson Brendan Moss said the company will start "processing them in 2027, in advance of FERC's May deadline."

Federal actions on wind and trade

In December, the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management ordered work stopped on Vineyard Wind, then a nearly finished offshore wind farm near Massachusetts, citing national security concerns from new classified Defense Department information. On Jan. 27, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy let construction resume, finding the government "failed to provide a reasonable explanation for why it had to stop construction" when the same order let 44 finished turbines keep running, WBUR reported. In late June, Healey joined labor leaders and offshore wind workers in New Bedford to mark the project's completion. The state's next offshore wind contracts, for projects chosen in September 2024, have been delayed at least six times, most recently to Jan. 29, 2027, State House News Service reported in July in a story published by The New Bedford Light. "The uncertainty created by the changing federal landscape remains challenging," Department of Energy Resources spokesperson Lauren Diggin said.

Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian goods in 2025 under an emergency powers law, and in February 2026 the U.S. Supreme Court held that the law does not give the president authority to impose tariffs, the Congressional Research Service reported. The administration replaced them with a temporary 10% surcharge and, in July, a 10% tariff on Canadian goods under another law. Most Canadian goods entered duty-free in 2025 under the North American trade agreement, the research service said. ISO New England's market monitor attributed the 2025 drop in electricity imports into New England to "reduced Canadian hydro availability and outages."

What Beacon Hill has passed, and what is waiting

The House passed an energy affordability bill 128 to 27 on Feb. 26. It would cut about $1 billion from Mass Save's marketing and administrative budgets, return 70% of alternative compliance payments to ratepayers through mid-2029, lower net metering credits, push an offshore wind contracting deadline to 2029 and repeal a 1982 law that requires voter approval for new nuclear plants, WBUR reported. The House Ways and Means Committee put the savings at almost $3 billion. Rep. Mark Cusack, House chair of the energy committee, called the Mass Save cut "a one-year pause" aimed at budgets that are "bloated."

"I believe that we need to continue to balance our climate goals and our goals to make energy more affordable," Senate President Karen Spilka said in February, WBUR reported. The Senate passed its own version 32 to 8 on July 1, and on July 16 the chambers named a conference committee: Cusack, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Rep. Bradley Jones for the House, and Sen. Michael Barrett, Sen. Cynthia Creem and Sen. Bruce Tarr for the Senate. Neither chamber has acted on the bill since.

What households can do now

The fuel assistance season starts Sunday, Nov. 1, for households of any heat source with income up to 60% of the state median, and households can apply now. PACE serves New Bedford, Acushnet, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester at 508-525-4271 and opens online applications for new households at toapply.org/PACE on Nov. 1. Citizens for Citizens serves Fall River, Somerset, Swansea, Westport, Freetown, Dighton, Rehoboth, Seekonk, Lakeville and the Taunton area through its online portal or at 508-679-0041 and 508-823-6346. Wareham residents can find their agency at masscap.org/heatinghelpma.

The new oil heat benefit of up to $680 and the January to March solar charge break: State will take the solar charge off electric bills January to March and offer up to $680 to middle-income oil heat households.

Winter shutoff protection for households with a financial hardship: Winter heat shutoff protection runs Nov. 15 to March 15: who qualifies on the South Coast and how to claim it.

Eversource and Liberty gas heating rates from Nov. 1: Eversource's Nov. 1 proposal would put New Bedford-area gas heating bills about $37 a month above last November's rates.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.

Notes

Every price, rate and charge comes from public records: the U.S. Energy Information Administration's price data and outlooks, National Grid's Massachusetts rate summaries and basic service table, Department of Public Utilities filings and notices, ISO New England's market monitor report, the White House's March 2 letter to Congress, the Supreme Judicial Court's 2016 opinion, the Legislature's bill history and the Congressional Research Service. Statements from letters, interviews and news conferences are credited to the newsrooms that reported them. We read the records on Oct. 29. We did the bill arithmetic ourselves from the published rates, for a home that uses 600 kilowatt-hours a month. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar. We have asked the officials and companies named above for comment.

Corrections

No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.

Sources (40)

  1. U.S. Energy Information Administration: Weekly Massachusetts No. 2 Heating Oil Residential PriceWeeks of Oct. 27, 2025 ($3.612), Feb. 23, 2026 ($4.207), March 9, 2026 ($5.437) and Oct. 5 to 26, 2026 ($6.137 to $6.254). Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  2. The White House: letter to the President pro tempore of the Senate on military action against Iran, March 2, 2026 (War Powers Resolution report), copy posted by Just SecurityRead Oct. 29, 2026.
  3. EIA: Short-Term Energy Outlook, March 2026Forecast completed March 9 to 10, 2026; Global oil prices section. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  4. EIA: Short-Term Energy Outlook, April 2026Global oil prices section. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  5. EIA: Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Global oil marketsReleased Oct. 6, 2026. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  6. EIA: Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Petroleum products (East Coast distillate inventories)Released Oct. 6, 2026. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  7. EIA: Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Natural gas (Henry Hub 2025 and 2026)Released Oct. 6, 2026. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  8. National Grid (Massachusetts Electric Company): Summary of Electric Delivery Service Rates, M.D.P.U. No. 1-26-GEffective July 1, 2026, issued May 21, 2026; Rate R-1 lines. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  9. National Grid (Massachusetts Electric Company): Summary of Electric Delivery Service Rates, M.D.P.U. No. 1-25-MEffective Oct. 1, 2025; Rate R-1 lines. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  10. National Grid: Basic Service Rates for Customers on Residential rates (8.1.2026)Fixed price 17.185 cents Aug. 1, 2026 to Jan. 31, 2027; 15.484 cents Aug. 1, 2025 to Jan. 31, 2026. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
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  18. EIA: Natural Gas Prices, Massachusetts, annual2025 citygate $8.14 and residential $25.06 per thousand cubic feet. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  19. EIA: Natural Gas Prices, United States, annual2025 citygate $4.85 and residential $15.34 per thousand cubic feet. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  20. State House News Service, published by WBUR: Kinder Morgan Suspends Work On Controversial Pipeline ProjectPublished April 20, 2016, updated April 21, 2016. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  21. WAMC: Mass. AG And Opponents Fight Electric Bill Charge To Fund PipelinePublished June 15, 2016. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  22. Supreme Judicial Court: ENGIE Gas & LNG LLC v. Department of Public Utilities, SJC-12051 and SJC-12052, slip opinion (copy posted by the Conservation Law Foundation, a party)Decided Aug. 17, 2016; the department's order is D.P.U. 15-37 (Oct. 2, 2015). Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  23. Williams: Constitution Pipeline fact sheetPosted May 2025. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  24. D.P.U. 26-PGAF-NSTAR: NSTAR Gas Company d/b/a Eversource Energy 2026-2027 peak seasonal cost of gas filing (Sept. 17, 2026), as read for the SC360 Oct. 28 gas bills storyRead Oct. 28, 2026; figures rechecked against that story's verified record Oct. 29, 2026.
  25. D.P.U. 25-85: Liberty, Order on Proposed Settlement (March 27, 2026) and settlement bill tables, as read for the SC360 Oct. 28 gas bills storyRead Oct. 28, 2026.
  26. D.P.U. 26-PGAF-LIB: Liberty 2026-2027 peak gas adjustment filing and proposed bill message, as read for the SC360 Oct. 28 gas bills storyRead Oct. 28, 2026.
  27. WBUR: DPU approves Mass Save three-year plan with a $4.5 billion capPublished Feb. 28, 2025. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
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