WALTHAM, Massachusetts, June 3, 2026, 08:03 EDT
National Grid will begin a new round of Worcester customer-assistance events on Thursday as the utility moves to blunt summer electricity costs and prepare its Massachusetts network for higher cooling demand. The push pairs bill help with grid work already underway before the first major heat waves.
The timing matters. Air-conditioning use typically drives New England’s highest electricity demand, and National Grid said households are entering the hot months after another costly winter. The company is offering one-on-one help on payment plans, discount rates and ways to cut usage before bills rise with the temperature.
ISO New England, the regional grid operator, expects enough power supply this summer, but it put the normal-weather peak-demand forecast at 25,228 megawatts and said very hot, humid weather could lift demand to 26,473 MW. A megawatt is enough electricity to serve hundreds of homes, depending on usage.
The Worcester events are scheduled for June 4 at St. Bernard’s Church Community Room, June 5 at El Buen Samaritano and June 15 at Centro Inc. National Grid representatives will discuss payment plans, budget billing, tiered discount rates and arrears management, a program that can reduce past-due balances for eligible customers who make required payments.
“From cooling tips to billing help, our teams are taking a proactive approach,” Bill Malee, National Grid’s chief customer officer, said in the company announcement. National Grid said customers also will get heat-wave text alerts with energy-saving tips. National Grid
The company is also promoting a Payment Assistance Bundle that combines a deferred payment agreement, automatic monthly payments and a budget plan to spread costs and past-due balances over 12 months. National Grid said customers can contact its customer service specialists or use its bill-assistance site to enroll.
On the grid side, National Grid said in a sponsored Massterlist post that crews are inspecting equipment, upgrading assets, managing vegetation and using demand models to find parts of the system most likely to face pressure. The company said its fault location, isolation and service restoration technology — software that finds a fault, sections it off and restores power to other customers — now serves more than 35% of Massachusetts customers.
That work sits in a wider Massachusetts utility market. Eversource and Unitil, along with National Grid and Cape Light Compact, are part of the Mass Save energy-efficiency collaboration, which promotes efficient products and practices to state customers.
But the summer plan still has weak points. ISO New England said very hot and humid weather could create challenging conditions if it coincides with an unexpected loss of generation or other problems. It also said the spread of rooftop and behind-the-meter solar has pushed grid demand later into the early evening, when solar output fades.
ISO operators are preparing for that volatility. “We plan and train to the extreme,” Jon Gravelin, ISO New England’s senior manager for control room operations, said in the grid operator’s summer outlook. ISO New England
For customers, the bill structure remains central. National Grid says it delivers electricity regardless of a customer’s chosen supplier, while customers without a competitive supplier receive Basic Service purchased by the utility. The company’s Massachusetts residential delivery rates include distribution, transmission and clean-energy-related charges, while eligible low-income customers can receive credits of 32% to 71% of total bill charges.
More assistance events are scheduled across central Massachusetts, including Uxbridge on June 17 and Clinton on June 22. The practical test is simple enough: keep the wires steady, and keep more customers from falling behind before the hottest part of the season arrives.
