National Grid’s electric customers in St. Lawrence County and across upstate New York will begin to see reduced charges for the delivery portion of their electric bills this month as a recently approved multi-year rate plan went into effect on April 1.

The new rates will help reduce electric bills for the next three years, according to the electricity distributor.

This is the second straight year that electricity delivery costs declined, following a cut in January 2012 of as much as 10 percent for residential users.

The new rate plan, recently approved by the New York State Public Service Commission, will reduce energy deliver costs for the next twelve months, followed by modest increases in the second and third years of the plan, but overall, electricity customers will see delivery bills in March 2016 lower than they are today assuming equal usage.

Starting this month, the typical residential electric delivery bill will decrease by more than 10 percent, or more than $5 per month, before they go up a bit again next year and the year after that.

National Grid does not control the cost of the electricity itself and simply passes that through to customers. Prices for electricity fluctuate daily, although prices for both have been at or near historic lows.

National Grid serves more than 1.6 million electric and natural gas customers across upstate New York.