New Hampshire’s consumer advocate has formally requested all three public utilities commissioners be disqualified from upcoming proceedings regarding the state’s Triennial Energy Efficiency Plan.
The motion filed Friday by Consumer Advocate Donald Kreis comes on the heels of a report released by the Public Utilities Commission in January that he feels “expresses unabashed hostility toward fundamental aspects of the NHSaves programs even though the General Court has enshrined them in statute.”
Kreis seeks the commissioners to be disqualified from the upcoming Triennial Energy Efficiency Plan proceedings, where the state’s electric and gas utilities have to file 2024-2026 plans with the PUC on July 1. In the past, Kreis said, commissioners have ruled individually on motions that they disqualify themselves from proceedings. If the commissioners are disqualified, then Gov. Chris Sununu would have to appoint temporary commissioners, subject to Executive Council confirmation.
The PUC’s January report raised concerns that the commission may once again be gearing up for cuts to the NHSaves program — a collaboration of the state’s electric and natural gas utilities that provides consumers with information, incentives, and rebates to save energy and reduce spending.
In 2021, the PUC approved a plan to slash NHSaves’ funding down to 2017 levels. Following an outcry, the Legislature passed an emergency bill to override the decision and restore the dollars.
The January report, which Chairman Dan Goldner previously called a “fact-finding analysis” that did not draw conclusions, appeared to take aim again at energy efficiency programs, in that it seemed to cast doubts on how the state assesses its energy efficiency investments. The PUC alluded to more conservative assessment models, in the context of a 144% increase in investments in recent years.
The report, Kreis said, “and therefore the three sitting PUC commissioners, is highly critical of the benefit-cost test used to determine whether to fund energy efficiency programs,” and “expresses unvarnished dislike of energy efficiency programs designed specifically for low-income customers,” among other things.
Kreis and others have expressed concerns that commissioners Goldner, Pradip Chattopadhyay, and Carleton Simpson overstepped their authority with the report and could possibly enter future regulatory proceedings with a bias.
During a forum with New Hampshire’s utility companies in Concord last week, Liberty Utilities President Neil Proudman said the state’s energy efficiency programs are “under threat.”
“I really do believe that we as a community need to protect them, not for our utilities and not for our bottom line but for our customers,” Proudman said.
Not everyone feels the PUC is targeting the programs, though. Rep. Michael Vose, an Epping Republican and chair of the House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee, previously said he felt the report was in line with what the PUC should be doing, and that the adjudicatory process will likely ensure the proper end result.
Goldner did not immediately return a request for comment but in the past has said that as a quasi-adjudicative body with functions similar to a court, the PUC is prohibited by law from engaging in any communication about matters before it, outside of its proceedings.