Dear Editor,
The Charlestown Selectboard created a committee last year to look into community power supply. I’d like to give a short overview of what this is, and what you will be asked to consider at Town Meeting.
In New Hampshire, our electricity utilities distribute power to us, and are termed distribution utilities. These companies that bring power to Charlestown include Liberty, Eversource, and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC). These companies do not generate the power supplied.
Supply of power, meaning generation and transmission to the distribution utilities to meet our needs, was separated from the local distribution many years ago to create a competitive marketplace for the supply of the actual electricity. The idea was supposed to provide for lower cost for the supply line on our electric bills. Few companies offered any decent terms for such competitive supply, but larger businesses were able to negotiate improved contracts for themselves.
Community power was authorized more recently, and provides a way for an entire town to get better rates for all residents of the town by leveraging the buying power of all of the accounts in the town.
When the power supply rates went through the roof last year, it was the result of the way the investor-owned utilities (Liberty and Eversource in Charlestown’s case) are required by law to obtain supply contracts. They’re specifically required to buy contracts twice a year at whatever price they can get. NHEC can do better, because it is not under the same regulations and can buy short, medium, and long-term contracts and react to market conditions.
Our community power committee has evaluated options for obtaining better rates for the town residents, and has selected the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH) as our recommended partner in this project. CPCNH is able to buy power in a more competitive way, and has undercut the “default” power supply prices from all three distribution utilities serving Charlestown. The Coalition has already signed up many towns, and is supplying power to those towns at these better rates.
Your electricity will still be delivered by whichever utility has the poles and wires on your street. In the event of an outage, they’re still the ones to call. The distribution fees on your electric bill will not change as a result of this vote. The only change on your bill will be to see Charlestown Community Power listed as the supplier of power.
CPCNH is a nonprofit, and is governed by a board of directors made up of representatives from the many towns that have joined. We have produced a short video in which we discuss what we have put together, which can be found at www.sapatv.cablecast.tv/CablecastPublicSite/show/36629.
You’ll find an article on Town Meeting Warrant asking for approval or rejection of this proposal. This is a required step under the enabling RSA. We want to stress that the article and the purchase agreement do not have any tax implications for the town or its residents, nor any liability.
Daniel Senie, chair
Charlestown Community Power Committee