Dover joins NH Community Power to help residents save money on electricity: What to expect

DOVER — The plan for Dover to move forward with joining the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, an effort to help residents save money on their electricity bills, was approved by the City Council Wednesday night.

The coalition is a nonprofit program with the goal of providing communities lower electric bills, and more access to renewable energy sources.

Dover is joined by Durham, Exeter, Newmarket, Rye and Portsmouth as Seacoast communities taking part in the coalition.

How will Community Power work in Dover?

Eversource will remain Dover's distributor of energy and send people their electric bills. What will change is the coalition would become a new supplier through which people obtain their energy.

According to Community Power leaders, unlike Eversource, which can only purchase its energy from a supplier twice per year, the coalition would have the ability to buy multiple short- and long-term energy contracts in bulk. This would provide a larger range of energy sources for people to choose from and avoid extreme surges in electric costs, leaders believe.

“By nature, you can leverage economies of scale, so you have pool purchasing power and therefore be able to get really competitive rates,” said Jackson Kaspari, resilience manager for the city of Dover. “The plan is to offer a number of product options that are not currently available to folks, including higher access to renewable energy."

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The program would allow citizens to choose, from an option menu, where they want their energy to be sourced from. Residents could choose to use only renewable energy sources, or a mixture of renewable and non-renewable energy.

“With the city's goals towards resiliency, I think this is a great opportunity for us to start exploring renewable energy sources,” said Robbie Hinkel, a Dover city councilor.

When will the Community Power program get started in Dover?

The coalition, with no cost for residents to enter, is set to be implemented in stages, with Durham being in the “first wave” of municipalities. Dover could join the “second wave,” set to begin in spring 2023 or spring 2024, depending on how quickly the city wants to move forward, according to Kaspari. The council’s decision for the date is still in the works, but it is moving towards finalization in the next few months.

Henry Herndon, consultant with the Community Power Coalition, said spring is the ideal time to launch a program like this, as prices and demand for energy begin falling.

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Herndon told the Dover council there are currently 27 communities in the coalition throughout New Hampshire, with some further along in the process, planning to commence in the spring.

Kaspari said the coalition would not be in competition with Eversource, but rather, working alongside them, a statement Eversource has confirmed. The only thing that’s changing, Kaspari explained, is the supply portion of people’s bills.

“Eversource will continue to own and operate the grid, poles and wires, and deliver electricity and send the bill to customers. Dover just now gets to decide where the source of electricity comes from and can do it in a way that will offer lower energy supply rates for customers,” said Herndon.

“The real hope is to leverage economies of scale by combining forces with other communities to get people the best rates that we can possibly achieve with expanded product options,” Kaspari told the council.

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Another advantage to the coalition is the availability of data. Kaspari told the council that the coalition has the ability to have more automated data than what exists currently, which would help keep track of municipal electrical usage.

The coalition’s initial estimates predict the majority of residential customers from Dover will participate in the program, according to Kaspari.

When can Dover residents sign up for the program?

Herndon said when the coalition is launched in Dover, each customer will receive a mailed notification that welcomes them to the program, with the Community Power Coalition’s rates compared to Eversource’s rates. Rates change often, and it is not yet known how much money residents will save.

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Bill Baber, chair of the city Energy Commission, said although residents would be automatically enrolled to have the coalition to supply their energy, they can opt out at any time to choose a different supplier.

“The intent there is to maximize community benefit,” Kaspari said. “There are a lot of advantages to doing this, and we want to minimize the steps that people have to go through to take advantage of everything that's involved.”

This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: Dover joins NH Community Power in bid to save money on electric bills