Residents will have the opportunity to hear Jaffrey’s proposed community power plan, designed to give residents more options for where their power comes from and how much they pay, during a public hearing scheduled for next week.

The town held the first of two required public hearings on the plan on Wednesday, with a second scheduled for Monday, Feb. 13.

Community power allows towns or counties to consolidate customers to bid electricity suppliers, and ideally provide competitive rates for electricity. Jaffrey is one of several Monadnock region towns proposing a community power model for residents to adopt during Town Meeting in March. The plan can only be adopted by a majority vote of the public.

“With community power, the town is able to make strategic pricing decisions about when to solicit bids for our electrical supply and lock in fixed pricing for multiple years,” the town’s draft community power plan reads. “The town can also increase the amount of renewable energy available to individual customers and the community.”

With a community power plan, Eversource would continue to own and manage the distribution polls and wires, including repairs and emergency services, as well as issue bills. What would potentially change is the source of electricity.

Jaffrey residents have indicated that they were interested in access to renewable energy sources. A community survey conducted in 2023 showed that about 53 percent of respondents were interested in having more of their energy come from renewable sources, if they could continue paying about the same amount, and a further 16 percent were willing to pay a little more for additional renewables. Nine percent said they would pay more and were interested in 100 percent renewable sources.

If adopted, the town would bid multiple energy options which residents could select from. There would be a default product, which all residents would be enrolled in unless they specifically chose another option, or to opt out of the program.

The Jaffrey default is proposed to have about 5 to 10 percent more renewable energy sources than the state minimum, which is expected to be competitive with the current utility default service, although that is not guaranteed.

The town also intends to request options for 50 percent and 100 percent renewable plans, and a basic option that provides no renewable energy over the state minimum, which would likely have the cheapest cost. The exact costs of these plans or how they compare to the current utility default rate won’t be known until the town receives bids from energy providers.

Those who are not interested in enrolling in the community power plan have to option to opt out. Customers will be notified with a description of the program, and all available rates. All customers will be automatically enrolled in the default product, unless they specifically opt out, with options to do so online, by phone or with a pre-addressed envelope. The opt-out period will last a minimum of 30 days.

The public hearing regarding Jaffrey’s community power plan is scheduled for Feb. 13 at 6 p.m. at the Jaffery Fire Station. For information about Jaffrey’s community power plan, visit townofjaffrey.com/community-power. To take Jaffrey’s Community Power Survey, visit surveymonkey.com/r/jaffreycp.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext.  244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitte r @AshleySaariMLT.