The Maine Agenda › Live in Maine
Should You Switch Electricity Suppliers in Maine? The State's Own Price List Says Almost Certainly Not
The pitch arrives by phone, by door knock, or by a mailer designed to look like it came from CMP. Someone offers to save you money on your electricity, and the offer sounds plausible because your bill went up in January and you remember that. What almost nobody in Greater Portland knows is that the State of Maine publishes a price list comparing every one of those offers against the default rate, updates it quarterly, and puts it on a public web page that gets a fraction of the traffic the sales calls get.
We read it. As of the July 1, 2026 edition, the Office of the Public Advocate lists 25 residential offers from competitive suppliers serving CMP territory. Twenty-two of them cost more per kilowatt-hour than doing nothing.
That is the article. The rest is the arithmetic, the three exceptions, and the reason this market exists at all.
How your bill is actually split
Since 2000, Maine's electric utilities are not allowed to generate power. CMP owns the poles, the wires, the meter, and the truck that shows up after a storm. It does not own the electricity.
So a residential bill has two roughly equal halves. Delivery is CMP's, it is regulated by the Maine Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and you cannot shop it. Supply is the electricity itself, and that half is yours to choose.
If you make no choice, you get the standard offer, a price the PUC sets each year through a competitive bid it administers itself. Suppliers bid to serve everyone who did not shop, the PUC picks the winning bids, and that becomes the default price for the calendar year. It changes on January 1, and the change is usually announced a month or more ahead.
For CMP residential customers in 2026 the standard offer is $0.1272 per kilowatt-hour, fixed from January 1 through December 31. The Maine Department of Energy Resources puts the whole bill for a typical household at $168.41 a month, built from a $30.21 fixed charge that covers the first 50 kWh of delivery, plus supply, distribution, transmission and stranded costs on the rest. About $20 a month of that is recovery of the 2024 winter storm damage, which is the single most under-explained line item on any bill in this state.
The typical Maine household uses about 550 kilowatt-hours a month, which is roughly 6,600 a year. Hold that number, because everything below runs on it.
Settle into Maine. Free.
Neighborhoods, real costs, and the community worth knowing about for anyone making a life here.
No edition has gone out yet. Sign up and you are on the first one. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
The comparison nobody runs
Here is the state's own July 1, 2026 list for CMP customers, sorted against the 12.721 cent standard offer.
Above the standard offer: Ambit Energy at 14.50, 15.00, 19.00 and 19.50 cents. C.N. Brown at 13.40 and 14.40. CleanSky at 13.99 on both its 12 and 24 month terms. Clearview at 17.99 and 18.19. Electricity Maine at 17.49 and 17.99. Major Energy at 14.79 and 15.25. North American Power at 14.09 and 14.29. SmartEnergy at 16.80. Think Energy at 16.40 and 16.60. XOOM at 14.99, 15.49 and a variable product at 17.19.
Below the standard offer: three offers, and only three. CleanSky at 10.99 cents for six months. C.N. Brown at 11.40 cents for five months, and its green version at 12.40 for five months.
Run it at 6,600 kWh a year. Standard offer supply costs $839.59. The Electricity Maine 12 month product at 17.49 cents costs $1,154.34, which is $314.75 more for the identical electrons off the identical grid. Ambit's Winter Break 24, the highest offer on the list at 19.50 cents, costs $1,287.00, or $447.41 more. That is 53 percent above the default price, published on a state website, with no fine print required to find it.
The three cheaper offers are real, and they are small. Six months of CleanSky at 10.99 saves about $57. Five months of C.N. Brown at 11.40 saves about $36. Both then expire inside the standard offer's calendar year, which means you have to actively re-shop or actively call to return to the standard offer, and if you forget you roll into whatever the supplier's renewal rate is. The savings are one tank of gas. The exposure is open-ended.
Why the market keeps working anyway
About 90 percent of Maine residential and small business customers are on the standard offer, which sounds like the system working. The other 10 percent is where the money is, and the state has had to intervene more than once.
In October 2024 the Public Advocate and PUC staff settled an investigation into Electricity Maine, the best known brand in this market. The company had moved customers onto variable rate contracts without their consent, in some cases charging more than double the standard offer. The Office of the Public Advocate had taken more than 125 complaint calls and emails in a four month span. The settlement refunded roughly 20,000 customers up to three months of charges and imposed a $315,000 penalty.
Note what that case turns on. Competitive supplier rates are not reviewed or approved by the PUC. The standard offer is set by an auction the PUC runs. That asymmetry is the whole game, and it is why the honest default in this state is to do nothing.
If you do want to shop, the consumer protections are worth knowing and they are specific. A supplier has to give you its Terms of Service before enrolling you, and you have five calendar days to opt out. Residential customers pay no fee to start, leave, or return to standard offer service. Suppliers have to notify you before an automatic renewal or a switch from a fixed to a variable rate. Some fixed term contracts carry an early termination fee, and you should find that number before you sign, not after.
The claim Mainers get wrong
Ask anyone at a Falmouth soccer game and you will hear that Maine has outrageous electricity prices. Half true, and the half that is wrong matters.
Maine's rates are high against the national average. Against New England, which is the only comparison that reflects the same fuel mix and the same constrained gas pipelines, Maine continues to have among the lowest electricity rates in the region, per EIA data the Department of Energy Resources publishes directly. New England burns natural gas for about half its power, produces none of it, and imports all of it, which is why a cold snap in Boston shows up on your January bill in Cumberland.
The standard offer history shows the volatility plainly: 17.6 cents in early 2023, down to 10.6 cents through 2024 and 2025, and back up to 12.72 cents for 2026. That is a 20 percent jump this year, worth about $14 a month on the average CMP residential bill, and it is the reason the sales calls got louder this spring. A rate increase is a sales opportunity, and the people calling you know the number went up before you do.
Electricity is one line in a bigger picture. If you are budgeting a move, our Portland cost of living guide puts real numbers on the rest, and the companion piece on heating oil and propane contracts covers the other energy sales call that arrives every August. If you are new here, moving to Portland is the place to start.
What to actually do
Find your current supply rate. It is printed on your CMP bill as a dollar figure per kWh, formatted like $0.1272. Move the decimal two places right to compare it to the cents-per-kWh numbers above.
If it reads 0.1272, you are on the standard offer and you are, per the state's own list, beating 22 of 25 available alternatives. Do nothing.
If it reads higher, you are with a competitive supplier at a rate above the default. Call them, ask to be returned to standard offer service, and ask whether a termination fee applies. There is no charge from CMP for the switch.
Check the state's list yourself before you sign anything. It lives on the Office of the Public Advocate site under Electricity Supply Options, it names every supplier with a rate and a term, and it took us longer to write this sentence than it takes to read.
FAQ
What is the CMP standard offer rate for 2026?
The residential and small commercial standard offer for Central Maine Power customers is $0.1272 per kilowatt-hour, fixed from January 1 through December 31, 2026. It is set by competitive bid administered by the Maine Public Utilities Commission and changes every January 1.
Is it cheaper to switch to a competitive electricity supplier in Maine?
Usually no. On the Office of the Public Advocate's July 1, 2026 price list, 22 of the 25 residential offers available to CMP customers were priced above the standard offer. The three that were cheaper are five and six month terms that expire mid year.
How much does switching to an expensive supplier actually cost?
At the typical Maine household's 6,600 kWh a year, standard offer supply costs about $840. The highest offer on the state's July 2026 list, at 19.50 cents per kWh, costs about $1,287, a difference of roughly $447 a year for identical electricity.
Does CMP charge a fee to switch back to the standard offer?
No. Residential customers pay no fee to begin, leave, or return to standard offer service. Your competitive supplier may charge an early termination fee if you leave a fixed term contract early, so ask them for that figure before you switch.
Why did my electric bill go up in January 2026?
Two reasons. The standard offer supply rate rose from 10.6 cents to 12.72 cents, and transmission rates set by federal regulators also increased. The Department of Energy Resources put the combined effect at about $14 a month for the average CMP residential customer.
Are Maine's electricity rates the highest in New England?
No. Maine's rates are above the national average, like every New England state, but the Department of Energy Resources reports that Maine continues to have among the lowest electricity rates in New England based on federal Energy Information Administration data.
What protections do I have if a supplier signs me up without permission?
Suppliers must obtain your authorization before enrolling you, must provide Terms of Service in advance, and must let you opt out within five calendar days. Complaints go to the PUC's Consumer Assistance Division. In 2024 the Public Advocate settled a case against Electricity Maine that refunded about 20,000 customers and carried a $315,000 penalty.