County residents won't get access to community power purchasing just yet

LACONIA — Belknap County won’t enter into an agreement with a power aggregation company — at least, not now. 

The county delegation, made up of representatives to the Statehouse, elected to defer doing business with the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire at their meeting on Monday night, expressing interest in their programs but skepticism regarding the timing.

Gilford adopted their community power plan with Community Power Coalition at their Town Meeting in 2024, and the City of Laconia approved their plan with Freedom Energy Logistics in coordination with Colonial Power Group at a city council meeting on Feb. 10. Laconia’s plan is under review at the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. 

Rep. Paul Terry (R-Alton) said the cheapest plan offered by Community Power Coalition is more expensive than current rates at major public investor utilities and the New Hampshire Electric Co-op. 

“It is clear that Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire is slanted in terms of favoring or advocating or wanting to pursue green power options — that’s fine, that’s what they believe and that’s where their hearts are and that’s what they want to do,” Terry said. 

Eliza Leadbeater, who served on the committee in Gilford which worked to prepare their electric aggregation plan, said they moved forward with the Community Power Coalition because of the way they do business.

“We’re very satisfied with what’s happened in Gilford, and hopefully it will give the options to smaller communities to opt-in,” Leadbeater said. “It will be a real benefit to the county, it will be a real benefit for our small businesses, for economic development, which I have served this county 15 years doing.”

The electric aggregation plan provides an opt-out option to residents of Gilford and, soon, Laconia, which is at times cheaper and at others more expensive than traditional power suppliers Eversource and NH Electric Co-op.

“I know that there’s several of them at this point. Gilford hired one and Laconia hired the other one,” said Rep. Harry Bean (R-Gilford). "Representative [Steven] Bogert told me that, and he’s a city councilor and he’s not here tonight.”

RSA 53-E, effective Oct. 1, 2019, authorizes city, town and county governments to launch community power programs. Power, while provided by the aggregate service, is still delivered through the existing infrastructure. 

Community Power Coalition of NH includes more than 60 municipalities across four counties and jointly purchases wholesale electricity and then sells it to constituents and businesses. If the county joined the plan, all 11 municipalities in Belknap would have access to power aggregation.

“The thing is, is that communities can already opt-in to do this and it shouldn’t be us to take that away from the local communities on who they want to choose,” Rep. Barbara Comtois (R-Barnstead) said. “Right now, businesses and individuals can already choose another supplier — you can go on to the state’s website, they will give you a list.” 

“The Town of Gilford, who has this community power, it’s an opt-out,” Comtois said. “I don’t like anything where I have to opt-out of and they weren’t, to me, it wasn’t really forthcoming with all the information.” 

New Hampshire’s Consumer Advocate, Donald Kreis, wrote a column in March for InDepthNH. He explained the Public Utilities Commission resets each utility’s default price every six months, but the spot price changes all the time, which can cause the retail service price to be too low to recover wholesale costs.

Eversource, for example, is facing a $6.5 million default shortfall, and is asking the PUC for permission to spread it among all consumers, including those receiving power through Community Power Coalition of NH, Kreis wrote, which could harm the Community Power Coalition by, in essence, requiring its customers to pay twice. 

“They offer different mixes of power ranging from 25% to 100% green, but even at the lowest percentage of green — 25.2% — the current rate is higher,” Terry said. “If the Community Power Coalition came to this delegation in six months or a year and tell us that they are beating, hand-over-fist, Eversource, Liberty, Unitil, New Hampshire Electric Co-op or all the other providers that we can choose from on the consumer choice page of the state’s energy website, then I might really, seriously be interested in listening.”

“Right now, this does not seem economically feasible — it’s maybe the right thing, but it’s not the right time,” Terry said. “The price isn’t there and I think competition is what carries the day for me.”