About RMLD

Established in 1894, Reading Municipal Light Department (RMLD) is a municipal electric utility serving over 70,000 residents in the towns of Reading, North Reading, Wilmington, and Lynnfield Center. RMLD has over 30,000 meter connections within its service territory. Residential customers account for approximately one-third of RMLD’s electricity sales while commercial, industrial, and municipal customers account for about two-thirds of sales. There are over 3,000 commercial and/or industrial customers in the communities RMLD serves.

RMLD is the largest of the 41 municipal light departments in Massachusetts with regard to electricity load, is not-for-profit, and is locally owned and controlled. RMLD is governed by a 5-member Board of Commissioners elected by Reading voters. A Citizens' Advisory Board, appointed by the four communities RMLD serves, makes recommendations to the Board of Commissioners. A professional staff of 75+ employees brings a broad scope of utility experience to RMLD’s daily operations, including an up-to-date understanding of the evolving energy market.

RMLD purchases power from a variety of sources for distribution to customers. With a peak demand of more than 156 megawatts and rising capacity and transmission costs, peak demand reduction is a continued focus in order to reduce future power supply costs and in turn, maintain competitive electricity rates. To that end, RMLD offers a host of energy efficiency and rebate programs to both residential and commercial customers. Solar Choice, our community solar program, also assists with peak demand reduction by generating power within RMLD’s service territory. Solar Choice provides customers the opportunity to support clean energy production without requiring the installation of a system on their own property. 

RMLD has long contributed to the communities it serves through a variety of community relations programs. These include school education programs, frequent educational events at local libraries and senior centers, participation in local community events such as town days, and active memberships in local civic groups. 

At RMLD, our focus is to be efficient, get greener, and go paperless. Our staff continuously strives toward peak performance by implementing environmentally sustainable processes, creating efficiencies to work smarter, and keeping up with the latest industry trends to provide customers the best possible service at the lowest price.

Mission and Vision

Mission Statement: RMLD’s team mission is to serve our customers with reliable, low cost, and increasingly non-carbon energy.

Vision Statement: RMLD’s team vision is to innovatively support electrification and sensibly facilitate the required non-carbon transition, with customer involvement.

History of Reading Municipal Light Department

• Early Years
• Power Station Built
• 24-Hour Service Introduced
• Power to Lynnfield Begins
• Power to North Reading and Wilmington
• RMLD Continues to Grow
• Cooking Rate Added
• Boston Edison Power Added
• RMLD Makes National and International News
• Haven Street Office
• Expansion Continues
• Moving into the Future
• More Than a Century of Advancement and Achievement
• RMLD Celebrates 125 Years