City council seeking public input on switch to community power

LACONIA — City councilors set a public hearing to solicit input regarding community electric aggregation during their meeting at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 25, at City Hall downtown.

According to the city’s draft electric aggregation plan, the program is designed to offer competitive choice to eligible consumers as an alternative to services provided by its two default providers, Eversource and the New Hampshire Electric Co-op. The council set the public hearing during their regular meeting on Nov. 12. 

The city is engaged with Freedom Electric Logistics which, in coordination with Colonial Power Group, would serve as the professional, technical and legal consultant on the program. 

The purpose of seeking electrical aggregation is to provide consumers access to increase their buying power to negotiate rates for electrical supply. The city would seek greater control of its options for the provision of energy, pursuing price stability, savings opportunities and increase the amount of renewable energy procured. 

At the first public hearing on the subject, held Nov. 12, community member Elizabeth Nixon wondered what guarantees the city would get that the consultants would send out letters to city residents, informing them about the program and providing information related to the opt-out process.

Nixon said Belknap County is looking into community aggregation and said the city should not pursue an agreement with Freedom Logistics. 

“It seems at least in the one town that this group has worked with, the contract was for 20 months. I think you probably all are aware but Eversource, at least, their energy service rate changes every six months,” Nixon said. “I find it hard to believe that the rate that this group could provide could be consistently lower for that 20 months and be lower than the utility.”

Mark Cappadona of Freedom told councilors that Colonial has been doing electric aggregation for 20 years and serves around 90 communities in Massachusetts, including the City of Boston. Cappadona said, owing to it being an opt-out program, there is no financial risk to the city or to consumers if the city chooses to enter into an agreement.

“In this plan, it’s really about choice. The City of Laconia is taking no risk in this, they don’t have to have any certain load, regardless if there’s one person or every person in the town that’s in the program — that risk is all borne by the supplier,” Cappadona said. “There’s no risk here whether there’s 10 customers or 1,000, whatever that price is, is the price.”

Ward 2 Councilor Robert Soucy asked Cappadona if the city switched from Eversource to Freedom Logistics whether services for consumers be impacted. Cappadona said services would not be impacted, that Eversource would still be responsible for billing, meter-reading, repairs to poles and infrastructure and other duties they already perform.

“One of the reasons that aggregation is beginning to explode is what happened to you two years ago, when electricity went through the roof. If you had an aggregation and the rates were set, I’m just making this up, could have been at $0.10 and when the rates went up to [$0.20], anyone could have opted back into the program if they had already opted out,” he Cappadona said. “It’s really about flexibility and what the city can do for its residents in bringing an option that did not exist prior — that’s what this plan is about.”

And Ward 3 Councilor Eric Hoffman said he was aware of the county’s discussion regarding a different supplier, but a city committee preferred the option presented by Freedom Logistics. 

“The county is looking at Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire as a supplier. The electrical aggregation committee did hear a presentation from them and we did look at several different suppliers and we unanimously picked this supplier, I think for the reason of local control,” Hoffman said. “With the coalition, we don’t get to dictate our own contract or decide how long of a contract to sign or when we go out to bid for energy prices. With this plan, we get to decide how often that happens, how long of a contract to sign — more local control.”