Portsmouth holding public hearings on community power for lower electric bills

PORTSMOUTH — This spring, 12 cities and towns in New Hampshire — including Rye, Durham and Exeter — are planning to go live with a new electricity supply option with the potential of lower costs, more renewable options and future prospects for “green” energy projects. Portsmouth may join them in June.

The Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire formed in 2021 as an initiative made possible by new legislation, and Portsmouth became one of its 27 initial members. State law gives the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission the power to approve community energy aggregation entities, such as the new Portsmouth Community Power. These agreements allow CPCNH to act as the agent for towns and cities to obtain electric supply and set electric rates alongside Eversource, Unitil and Liberty.

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Eversource, the utility company serving Portsmouth, will continue to provide and maintain the infrastructure that delivers electric power to homes and businesses. CPCNH, as agent for Portsmouth Community Power, will source the electricity, set the rate options available to citizens and provide customer service for billing. Eversource will continue to service distribution lines and respond to outages.

The result, according to forecasts by Ascend Analytics, which is working with CPCNH, is the ability to sustain average consumer power rates below companies like Eversource. The aggregated buying power of so many electric customers also gives towns and cities like Portsmouth more say in the mix of renewables – from 22% currently required by the PUC from Eversource and others, to 100% “green.”

The Portsmouth Energy Advisory Committee, formed last year with City Councilor John Tabor as chair, has worked with CPCNH to prepare Portsmouth’s Energy Aggregation Plan for review by the PUC in February. In addition to Tabor, the committee includes Councilor Kate Cook, Ben D’Antonio, Kevin Charette, Allison Tanner, Tom Rooney and Peter Somssich with staff support from city public works director Peter Rice and planning and sustainability director Peter Britz. For more information on the PEAC, go to: cityofportsmouth.com/citycouncil/portsmouth-energy-advisory-committee.

To assess community interest in a Portsmouth Community Power option, the PEAC is conducting a survey of residents and businesses within the 03801 zip code. Postcards were mailed last week to 14,000 addresses with this link to the survey:https://us2.list-manage.com/survey?u=09a251212294eb25c93966499&id=a92ccc5d11&attribution=false.

Participants are asked to complete the survey by Feb. 1.

The PEAC is hosting two public hearings on the topic on Feb. 2 and Feb. 9, both at 6 p.m. in City Hall Conference Room A, to provide more information and answer questions.

Customers will see no change except for the referenced supplier on their Eversource billing statement, according to officials. Residents can opt out and return to Eversource at any time.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth NH community power: How to save money on electric bills