Portsmouth Community Power hopes to save you money on electric bills: How it will work

PORTSMOUTH — The City Council took a historic first step this week, voting to create Portsmouth Community Power.

The local power company, if it gets through two more votes, could start operating as soon as June, according to City Councilor John Tabor, who serves on the city’s Energy Advisory Committee.

Portsmouth Community Power, Tabor believes, will be able to lower electric power rates for city residents and businesses so they are between 5% and 10% less than they currently pay Eversource, which is the city’s default provider.

Portsmouth is working with the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, which will also include Dover, Durham, Exeter and Rye on the Seacoast, and numerous communities around the state.

Customers of Portsmouth Community Power will receive the group’s default rate, which is the lowest and will likely come from fossil fuel power sources, Tabor said.

But customers can also choose renewable energy and pay more — although hopefully not as much as for Eversource rates, Tabor said.

The main goal of the initiative is to save people money as electric prices spike, Tabor said. But “we’re also empowering our local residents and businesses, not just in Portsmouth but around the state, empowering communities to chart a smarter energy course.”

Eversource will continue to deliver electricity, handle restoration during power outages and send monthly bills to customers.

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How will community power work in Portsmouth?

The switch to Portsmouth Community Power is easy, Tabor said.

All Eversource customers in Portsmouth will receive notices about 30 days before the program launches, showing the default rate for Portsmouth and the default rate for Eversource, Tabor said.

“Our rate will be lower and everyone in Portsmouth will be automatically switched to our default or lowest rate, unless they don’t want to,” Tabor said.

Customers wishing to stay with Eversource for their default service “can opt out online,” he said. “If people want to pay a higher rate for potentially more fossil fuel they can do that."

Portsmouth residents or businesses that are currently getting their electric power from a different competitive supplier than Eversource can stay with them unless they want to switch and opt in to Portsmouth Community Power, Tabor said.

It only takes 30 days to switch from one provider to another, he said.

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Making the case to help Portsmouth residents avoid cost spikes

During this week’s council meeting, Tabor said, “If you believe we can offset some of these high energy spikes and prices by building a strong financial reserve, then we should vote for this. And if you think we can fulfill our residents’ desire to buy more clean energy, which would then reduce our carbon footprint, we should vote for this."

He called the “most exciting” part of the initiative the potential for Portsmouth to work with other community power groups throughout New Hampshire “to fund solar and wind and hydro projects, later in the decade.”

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Portsmouth Community Power is close to launching at “no cost to taxpayers,” Tabor noted, “it’s funded complexly on billed revenue.”

The council still has to approve a cost sharing agreement and a user agreement, Tabor said.

“It’s been a collaboration of a lot of people,” he said, including Councilors Kate Cook and Josh Denton, who he credited for “doing great work.”

The statewide community power coalition

“It’s been the people that put this together statewide, the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire,” Tabor said. “It’s really going to transform the electric power market in the whole state.”

“It will really give us the ability to buy for so many towns, it’s really the second largest utility in the state and it’s nonprofit on top of that,” he said. “In the shorter term it’s good for Portsmouth, in the long term it’s going to be really good for Portsmouth."

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth NH Community Power hopes to save money on electric bills