Letter: Choose the Community Power Coalition of NH

Published: 02-20-2024 7:00 AM

The benefits of community power are clear. It can provide lower energy costs through consolidating purchasing power while allowing residents to choose more renewable energy sources. Concord’s Energy and Environment Advisory Committee has been painstakingly exploring whether and how to implement community power for over six months. They’ve formally recommended to city council to adopt community power. The two primary options for implementation are to go it alone with a broker or to join with other communities in the Community Power Coalition of NH. There has been recent reporting that NH’s consumer advocate is asking the NH Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to put some towns’ broker-run community power programs on hold because go-it-alone broker-sourced community power programs aren’t providing savings over Eversource’s residential rates.

These long-term, fixed-rate broker-negotiated contracts cannot follow residential rate fluctuations. Conversely, the Community Power Coalition of NH’s rates are set every six months in line with rates set by the PUC, on the same schedule as Eversource and Unitil. Joining with other towns in the Community Power Coalition will be better for Concord residents because the Community Power Coalition ties their rate changes to the PUC changes, allowing the Coalition’s rates to be lower than the commercial providers’ rates at each change. The Coalition is a non-profit with the goal to support communities to implement successful energy and climate policies while saving residents money on their utility bills. Let your city councilors know where you stand on community power before March 11!

Nicole Fox

Concord

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Concord may finally buy long-closed rail line with hopes of creating city-spanning trail
New Cheers owners honor restaurant’s original menu while building something fresh
Loudon man killed in crash on I-89 in Concord on Sunday
A look ahead at the ‘preferred design’ for Concord’s new police headquarters
New Hampshire targets sexual exploitation and human trafficking inside massage parlors
State rules Epsom must pay open-enrollment tuition to other school districts, despite its refraining from the program