Peterborough’s Community Power Task Force held its first public hearing on the draft plan for the town’s community power Tuesday, answering questions on the inclusion of renewable energy sources and the plan’s timeline.

The plan has moved through the drafting phases and was approved by the Select Board to be presented to residents earlier in February. As currently drafted, the plan outlines the process for switching Peterborough’s default power plan away from Eversource and giving residents a chance to pool their energy needs and purchase electricity in bulk.

Task force Chair Joel Huberman and member Tony Cassady said that there would be many benefits for the town, including more control over energy sources and a clearer path to reach the town’s goal of having all electricity be powered by renewables by 2030. 

“I would very much like to commend the community power task force team on the work that they’ve accomplished over these last eight, nine months,” said the task force’s Select Board liaison Bill Kennedy. “It’s astounding the work that they’ve accomplished, and the plan is really solid.”

In response to a question from resident Ron McIntire on who would replace Eversource as the provider of energy, Huberman clarified that while Eversource delivers energy, it does not provide it, and that Eversource’s role in maintaining wires and distributing electricity will not change.

“What Eversource does is something like we’ll be doing,” Huberman said, in terms of going out into the electricity market and purchasing energy. Additionally, Eversource would continue distributing bills when the switch happens.

“Let’s call Eversource the big dog in the room, and Peterborough Community Power is obviously a smaller player,” said McIntire. “Are there any provisions and arrangements that give you equal footing?”

Huberman said Eversource and other utility companies are constrained by rules that make it so they can only buy energy on one day every six months, and that not being held to that rule will even the playing field.

“The rates it can offer are constrained by whatever the price of power is on those two dates,” he said. “In contrast, neither Peterborough Community Power nor any other organization that is not a utility, that is aggregating electricity, is constrained to once every six months.”

Huberman added that this is one of the reasons the task force is confident that they will be able to either match or beat Eversource’s pricing, as they will be able to buy at opportune times in the market. 

Task force member DoriDrachman also pointed out that Peterborough Community Power will not be doing this alone, as the plan sets forth three potential partners to help aggregate energy – Standard Power, which currently provides community power for the town’s municipal buildings; Freedom Energy Logistics, another company in a similar position in the community power business; and the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, a group of towns partnered to provide community power. The task force has not chosen from these partners yet, but will make a recommendation once the plan is approved by voters at Town Meeting.

“No matter which one we end up with, we’ll probably be happy,” Huberman said. 

Another question related to when the plan will be put into place. Huberman said that once the plan is approved by voters, it could be a matter of months, but first, the Public Utilities Commission of New Hampshire needs to finalize its rules relating to community power.

“The legislation enabling community power plans is fairly new,” he said. “The PUC is just beginning the process of making rules that will basically provide the fine details of how each plan will work.”

Huberman said that some in the field of community power estimate that this will be complete by the end of 2022 or early 2023.

Huberman and Cassady encouraged those attending to take a survey that the task force has put together on community power, to further provide feedback and input before the plan is drawn into a warrant article. The survey can be found at bit.ly/222Survey. Task force members said that they have already received over 100 responses, most of which express positive thoughts about the community power plan, specifically its renewable energy possibilities.

For the full draft of the plan, visit the task force’s page on Peterborough’s town website at peterboroughnh.gov.

The task force will hold its second and final public hearing on the community power plan Thursday, Feb. 24 at 5 p.m.