BANGOR – Residential power users, along with small-business owners, in the Maine Public Service territory will pay less for their electricity than they do right now beginning March 1.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission this week set new standard-offer electricity rates that will be between 1 and 6 percent lower for residential and small commercial users. The new rate will be 5.459 cents per kilowatt-hour, down from 5.81 cents per kilowatt-hour. The price will be in effect from March 1 through December 2006.

For large commercial and industrial users, standard-offer rates will increase 2.4 percent. But, more than 99 percent of the larger companies purchase their electricity through a competitive marketplace and not through a standard-offer rate, according to at PUC statement.

The rate change applies to electricity prices and not the cost of transmitting the power. Standard offer is a default rate charged to customers who have not chosen a competitive energy supplier to sell them electricity.