Community power program now covers about half of New Hampshire

This set of power lines crosses Route 9/202 in Hopkinton near Whittier Pond.

This set of power lines crosses Route 9/202 in Hopkinton near Whittier Pond. GEOFF FORESTER/Monitor staff, file

By DAVID BROOKS

Monitor staff

Published: 01-05-2025 1:00 PM

As community power prepares to enter its third full year in New Hampshire, close to half the state’s population will soon have access to a program which gives towns and cities more control over their electricity source.

“We expect continued adoption in 2025, although with potential tapering,” said Henry Herndon, who helped found the Community Power Coalition, a non-profit that is one of three entities overseeing the program in New Hampshire. The coalition was supporting 14 communities in 2023 but now has 46 this year in various stages of the process of switching to community power. That includes Concord, which entered the program this fall.

“About half of the communities in New Hampshire have committed to a service provider. That does leave room to reach other communities,” said Emily Manns, an advisor with Standard Power, a private company that supports 18 communities with community power and has at least two more members planning to take the idea to town meeting.

Freedom Energy Logistics and Colonial Power Group have overseen several more state communities in the program, also called community choice or community aggregation.

Community power was made possible by a 2019 state law, although it has only gotten going in the past three years. When a town or city adopts it, residents have the choice of continuing to buy electricity from the local utility or switching to one of several plans offered through community power, often at lower cost and with options for more renewable energy. 

Herndon said usually around 70% of residences in a community accept community power when the option arises. The rest either choose to stay with the utility, are already buying power through a separate company, or have solar panels with net metering, which doesn’t work with the community system as it currently exists.

The cost of electricity is responsible for about half the typical home power bill. The rest of the bill covers costs for the grid and utility operations and is not affected. 

Herndon noted that a change in state regulation may affect the program. Utilities have previously locked in prices they pay for electricity twice a year as part of the so-called summer and winter rate, leaving the utility on the hook if prices spike unexpectedly during that period.

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Now, however, they can buy a portion of their electricity on the commodity market rather than locking it in. That will give utilities added flexibility and could help lower their cost of buying electricity but also raises risks to rate-payers. 

Power is a “pass-through” for utilities; they buy it on the open market and don’t take any profit from selling it to customers. If electricity prices spike because of weather or other reasons,  that extra expense might be considered a “stranded cost” and be placed on the portion of bills which community power does not control. This could reduce the pricing benefit of community power and shift some risk of volatile electricity markets from the utility onto ratepayers.

Another possible change is that Standard Power, a private company, has been purchased by Relevate Power, which owns a number of hydropower plants. These often produce electricity more cheaply than the market as a whole. 

“We’re looking forward to leveraging those assets for more cost savings and renewable energy,” said Manns.

Cities can enter community power via a vote by the city council. Towns require a vote by town meeting unless the county has already adopted it, in which case a vote by the select board is all that is needed. Merrimack and Cheshire counties have adopted community power while Belknap and Sullivan counties are looking into it.

David Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@cmonitor.com