Dover community power to launch soon: Here's how much you can save on electricity bills

DOVER — The city's community power program launch will occur months ahead of schedule, with customers eligible to enroll in late October rather than next spring.

Dover resilience manager Jackson Kaspari told the City Council on Wednesday the city has worked with the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire to move up the timeline of the city’s program start date. In May, the council faced a decision to begin the city program this summer or in the spring of 2024, ultimately choosing the latter.

However, after the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire’s hiring of Brian Callnan as its inaugural chief executive officer, the city has since been notified it can kick off its program this fall instead.

The start of electricity bill savings for Dover residents and business owners through the program, will begin with the November billing cycle. It is expected to lower costs and increase residents and businesses’ access to renewable energy sources.

“I’m very happy to be able to say that we’re going to launch this program sooner than anticipated,” Kaspari said.

What change means for your electricity bill in Dover

The City Council unanimously voted on Wednesday to establish the city community power program’s default cost to the “Granite Basic” rate. The rate is 10.9 cents per kilowatt hour, which would include 23.4% renewable content and cost an estimated $65 a month on average for customers.

Projected six-month energy savings could range from $61 to $85 compared to other suppliers, per estimates outlined by the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire.

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By comparison, Eversource, the city’s energy distributor, offers a default rate of almost 12.6 cents per kilowatt hour and estimated monthly costs of $75 when it offers 23.4% renewable content.

“While the savings for individual customers are modest, I think there’s overall a great community benefit along with the other benefits that come from this, which include direct representation over our decisions, as well as building up a reserve fund that will eventually allow us to utilize some funding for distributed energy resources to improve our resiliency citywide,” Kaspari said.

Dover community power program will offer higher rates for increased renewable energy

Once enrolled, Dover community power customers will be eligible to opt into costlier energy options that feature higher amounts of renewable sources.

The “Granite Plus” rate, at 33% renewable energy, would cost 11.3 cents per kilowatt hour and require an estimated $68 in monthly payments. Six-month savings could be between $46 and $70.

The “Clean 50” rate, named for its choice of 50% renewable content, would cost 12.3 cents per kilowatt hour and provide estimated six-month savings of $10 to $34. The estimated monthly cost of the plan would be $74.

At 100% renewable energy, the “Clean 100” rate would cost 15.2 cents per kilowatt hour and $91 a month. Compared to other suppliers higher prices for purely renewable energy, however, the six-month savings could range between $70 to $94.

Eversource customers will automatically be enrolled in Dover community power

City Manager Michael Joyal Jr. said that city Eversource customers who utilize the supplier as their default energy provider will automatically be enrolled in the community power program.

“The key here is that in starting up the community power program, the state of New Hampshire has set it up in such a way in their law that says that if you are on default service right now, when the community power program kicks in, you will automatically be switched over to the community power program unless you choose another supplier,” he said. “That supplier could be staying with Eversource or any other available competitive supplier.”

Those automatically enrolled do not have to stay with the community power program and can opt out of it. Residents and business owners not enrolled with Eversource’s default rates will not be switched to the city community power program.

“Customers still have a choice,” Joyal added.

Electricity customers with suppliers other than Eversource can opt-in for the Dover community power program.

The city is forming an outreach plan to notify Dover residents and business owners about the sooner-than-expected launch.

“I think the timing is great in that we can leverage Apple Harvest Day right before the launch period really to let people know, ‘Hey, this is happening,’” Kaspari said, referencing the popular annual downtown Dover festival that is being held Oct. 7.

This winter, Kaspari said, the city plans to enroll its municipal and school buildings in the community power program.

Dover is one of the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire’s 14 founding members.

This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: Dover NH community power starting: Electricity bills to go down