Bristol community power rollout delayed

BRISTOL — The Town of Bristol as well as the City of Berlin were scheduled to launch community power programs this spring, but Paul Bemis, chair of the Bristol Energy Committee, said they are delaying implementation because the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire is unable to guarantee its rates will be lower than those of Eversource, the state’s largest power company.

CPCNH formed as a nonprofit agency in October 2021, with the aim of using the buying power of regional coalitions to achieve competitive electric rates, while also allowing communities to focus on clean energy and resilient infrastructure development. As of October 2024, 62 municipalities and four counties were part of the coalition. Each member develops its own plan for handling the mix of energy sources.

Bristol joined the coalition last year and was planning to roll out its power plan in March 2025. All Eversource customers in Bristol would automatically be enrolled unless they opt out, and those served by other energy companies, such as the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, would have the option of opting into the program.

A stipulation when forming Bristol Community Power was it would go forward only if it could offer lower rates to customers.

“At the moment, Eversource’s default rate is low, and they are just a little above Community Power,” Bemis told the Bristol Selectboard on Feb. 13. “So this is the power of the market; it has driven down Eversource’s default rate. Eversource is now looking at Community Power as a threat, so they’re lowering the default rate all the way down, which is good news for everybody.”

He pointed out CPCNH now represents 40% of the state’s electric customers.

“So they’re holding off at the moment, because they can’t guarantee us that they’re going to be able to be below Eversource’s rate this spring,” Bemis said.

He went on to talk about Eversource’s application to the state Public Utilities Commission to increase transmission and distribution costs by 47%.

“What it appears,” Bemis said, “is that [for] Eversource, it’s a shell game. They’re moving costs over to transmission distribution, away from generation. Of course, community partners don’t have that option because they don’t do transmission distribution.

"It’s unclear at this point whether or not the PUC is going to allow them to do that. So welcome to politics.”

William Hinkle, Eversource’s media representative, denied that characterization, saying the distribution rates “have nothing to do with electric supply, community power programs, or other alternative suppliers”.

In an email response to questions, Hinkle wrote, “In New Hampshire, our energy supply price (or default Energy Service Rate) changes twice a year — February 1 and August 1 — representing the cost that Eversource pays for the power that customers use — with no markup or profit to the company. We are required to purchase the power that customers use from the wholesale market through a highly transparent regulatory process. Requiring approval by the PUC and involving the DOE [Department of Energy], the OCA [Office of the Consumer Advocate] and potentially others at the table, Eversource receives bids from wholesale power suppliers that are based on supply costs on the open market. The most competitive offers received from wholesale suppliers — while complying with New Hampshire’s renewable energy requirements (RPS and RGGI) — are presented to regulators with no markup or profit to Eversource.”

The state’s consumer advocate, Donald M. Kreis, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but has written a column about the request for a distribution rate hike, explaining that Vincent Rea of Regulatory Finance Associates of North Carolina had conducted an economic study for Eversource which concluded the company’s shareholders should receive a 10.3% return on their investment in the company. In his filing with the PUC, Rea wrote, “I have concluded that the cost of common equity for PSNH’s jurisdictional electric utility operations is in the range of 10.30 to 11.30 percent, and that a point estimate at the midpoint of this range, or 10.80 percent, is the appropriate cost of equity to apply in the instant proceeding. However, the Company has elected to propose a cost of equity in this proceeding of 10.30 percent, which falls at the lower-end of the range of reasonableness indicated by my quantitative and qualitative analyses.”

That increase, combined with the costs of maintaining and expanding the transmission lines, along with inflationary pressures, leads to the proposed 47% rate increase.

J. Randall Woolridge of Pennsylvania State University countered on behalf of the NH Department of Energy that a 9.5% return on equity would be closer to the national average; while Mark Vatter and Aaron Rothschild of Rothschild Financial Consultants of Connecticut, representing the Office of the Consumer Advocate, said 8.1% would be “shareholder-generous, but nevertheless reasonable” since shares in energy companies tend to be stable, with little risk to shareholders.

Hinkle did not address questions about the increase in the distribution rates.

Bemis said the PUC has asked Eversource to take on more risk in its default rate.

“So the way the default rate is set is, you know, the power cost goes up and down because it’s an open market.

"Somebody like the PUC or Community Power will say, ‘Well, we’re going to give our customers a flat rate, or we’re going to predict that flat rate based on the anticipated costs over a period of time — six months.'

"So this idea of a flat rate is one where they’re going to assure you that that’s going to be the cost, and if they take a beating on it, that’s their responsibility to handle that loss. Well, Eversource is asking the PUC to share that loss across all ratepayers. So this is Eversource, again, trying to use their position to influence the situation.”

Asked about communities that already adopted CPCNH rates, Bemis said the consortium has built into its rate structure a loss pool to stabilize rates if they fall too far out of line.

“They feel like they’re in pretty good shape on that,” he said. “They’ve been building it since they started, but at the moment, from a risk point of view, they want to hold until they can see what happens” with the PUC.

With Berlin and Bristol on hold, current participation through CPCNH includes 60 entities, including Belknap, Cheshire, Merrimack, and Sullivan counties. Central New Hampshire towns of Campton, Canterbury, Gilford, Loudon, Meredith and Tamworth also have active community power plans in effect.

Bemis summed up, “The good news is, market pressure has [made] the default rate the lowest it’s been in a very long time. The bad news is, transmission distribution’s just gone up, or is about to go up. How much, we don't know.”