2 weeks Ago By Clare Shanahan - Valley News
This story was originally produced by the Valley News . NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative . All of Sullivan County may soon join the state’s Community Power Coalition as part of an effort to reduce and stabilize energy costs, and increase renewable energy options for residential customers.
At the same time, Cornish is considering adopting the program on a town level, as many other Upper Valley communities have done. Sullivan County commissioners are working with the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, or CPCNH, to bring community power to the county’s smaller towns, which may not have the capacity to partner directly with the nonprofit or another broker. CPCNH is a Lebanon-based nonprofit incorporated in 2021, although a group of representatives from cities and counties in New Hampshire, including Lebanon and Hanover, began researching how to establish a community power nonprofit in 2019 that later became the coalition.
The coalition provides resources to support implementing and operating community power systems, including covering the initial cost of implementing programs. At two upcoming public hearings — Nov. 14 and Dec.
3 — Cornish residents will have the opportunity to learn about the town’s proposed community power plan and to voice their feedback ahead of the March 2025 Town Meeting, when residents will vote on whether to proceed. A government implementing a community power program has to write and approve a plan that describes details such as organizational structure, funding, rate setting methods and more, according to NH RSA 53-E, which was passed in 2019, and permitted community power aggregation. The plan must go through a public hearing process and be approved by the town’s legislative body.
The 2019 community power law allows municipalities to buy electricity on behalf of residents, while utilities deliver the electricity on existing transmission lines. If voters approve the plan, it will grant the Selectboard the authority to decide if Cornish will join CPCNH or contract with a private broker to set rates and oversee the program. “This community power, especially if we decide to partner with (the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire), could offer the town a lot of options energy-wise that we would (otherwise) not be able to take advantage of,” Cornish Energy Committee Chair Joanna Sharf said Thursday.
CPCNH has been involved in community power programs in New Hampshire since the beginning, with the first bills under their partnership program rolling out in May 2023. Lebanon, Enfield, Hanover and Plainfield were among the first municipalities to launch community power. Since then, Charlestown, Grantham, Springfield and most recently Newport and Lyme have launched community power programs as part of the coalition.
CPCNH now has 62 municipalities and four counties as members, which increases the support they are able to provide, Henry Herndon, director of member services, said. With more members, the coalition has greater purchasing power, which can further stabilize electricity rates for customers, and also creates a wider network of communities to educate and collaborate on energy projects. Joining CPCNH has largely decreased the cost of electricity for participating residents, according to its community benefit reports.
CPCNH also gives communities the opportunity to collaborate on energy projects, advocate for energy issues and share services and support, according to its website. For Aug. 1, 2024 through Jan 31.
2025 — one of two six month periods that electric companies in New Hampshire set default energy service rates for — CPCNH’s Granite Basic plan, which is the default plan for most member towns, has a lower rate than traditional utilities Liberty, Unitil and Eversource. Community power customers can choose between four different options with varying levels of renewable energy. By and large, CPCNH has saved customers money on their electric bills, according to CPCNH community benefit reports.
For example, between its launch in April 2023 and Aug. 31, 2024, Lebanon Community Power in partnership with CPCNH saved customers an average of $1,658 compared to the utility’s default residential rates. Unless they choose to opt out, residents and businesses on a default utility service will automatically be bumped into the program.
Customers can opt in and out when they choose and can choose to upgrade their plan to include more renewable energy. To date, the number of qualifying customers who have chosen to opt out in the Upper Valley is minimal; in Lebanon, 2% of customers who were enrolled have opted out since the April 2023 launch. The Cornish Energy Committee and Selectboard have been paying close attention to community power since the beginning, but wanted to see how community aggregation worked for other area towns before adopting a plan themselves, Sharf said.
“The energy committee has been talking with the Selectboard about this for several years and it finally seemed like it was worth moving forward on this year,” Sharf said. At the upcoming public hearings, the energy committee will explain its draft community power plan, including what community power is and the benefits it might provide the town. Residents can ask questions and provide feedback on the plan, Sharf said.
Cornish is far from the first Upper Valley town or community to adopt community power and join CPCNH. However, one thing that many of the towns that have adopted community power in Sullivan County have in common is that they have more municipal capacity than the towns that have not, which are primarily smaller. Sullivan County is currently working on adopting a county-wide community power plan to fill in the gaps.
“I think this is a real sweet spot for the county to step in and help their citizens gain access for better pricing and more options,” County Manager Derek Ferland said in a Thursday interview. Because the plans are entirely voluntary, Ferland said it is an example of how county government can support citizens without infringing on the power or control of local governments. A County-wide Community Power Committee has been working on this since and have written a draft electric aggregation plan.
The committee’s next steps are to hold public hearings; they currently plan to have three hearings but there may be more, Ferland said. They will use feedback from the community to revise the plan. From there, the county delegation of 13 state representatives has to approve the plan, followed by the Public Utilities Commission.
If all goes as planned, Sullivan County community power can launch in June 2025, he said. Towns that already have community power plans will not be included in the plan, Ferland said. But residents in all of the remaining Sullivan County towns will be able to opt in to county community power.
This is the largest difference between county and town community power; in towns that have adopted community power, customers with default electric suppliers are automatically opted in to community power when it is implemented and can choose to opt out. Customers on the county plan will only be able to opt in, unless individual towns vote to make Sullivan County community power the default supplier, Ferland said. “The baseline for this is if the county does the aggregation and nothing else happens, citizens can choose to opt in.
To make it the opt-out, that requires more local action taken by the selectboard or the city council,” Ferland said. Sullivan County has partnered with CPCNH to implement its community power plan if it is approved, and will offer the nonprofit’s basic plan options. With all of the benefits community power provides, there are still some sticking points.
Lyme officially launched community power Sept. 25, but the first billing cycle comes out in November. Some customers have been confused by how adopting community power will change their bill, Hebe Quinton, who is a member of the Lyme Planning Board and the CPCNH member representative for Lyme, said Thursday.
Quinton said that when the first community power bills come out, they will still come from the utilities that distribute the power; the only difference will be in the bills “supplier” line, which will say Lyme Community Power. CPCNH’s Herndon acknowledged that there is som etimes confusion about the role of the utility and the town when it comes to community power. Another issue is that because of how electricity is regulated, customers with solar panels cannot opt in to community power, Herndon added.
The solar issue “is being worked on, it’s going to require changes to utility practice and regulation and that takes time ...
(and) collaboration or potentially clearer direction from policymakers,” Herndon said..
