Peterborough’s community power plan will continue forward, after the Select Board voted Tuesday night to move the draft on to be presented to residents at public hearings.
“I want to applaud the task force for putting in countless hours to put this together,” said board member Bill Kennedy.
Community Power Task Force member Tony Cassady presented the draft, including an explanation of what community power is and can do for the community.
“Community power is a way for towns to help ratepayers save money on their energy bills while also getting more energy from renewable sources,” he said.
The way it works, Cassady said, is that local governments can pool their energy needs to purchase electricity in bulk. He said the benefits would be enormous for the town, since Peterborough would have more control over its energy and could use this to meet the town-wide goal of having all electricity be powered by renewables by 2030.
Additionally, Cassady said it promotes equity, since residents of all income levels and housing types would be able to use renewable energy.
“You don’t have to have solar panels on your home,” he said. “You just have to pay your electric bill.”
Peterborough already has experience in this area, as municipal buildings have been on a community power plan since 2013, which has saved an average of approximately two cents per kilowatt-hour and increased renewables on average to 70%.
“Peterborough community power is only new because it’s available to residents,” said Kennedy. “It isn’t as if this is a brand-new concept, and we know it works. We know it can reduce our energy costs at minimum and improve our renewable sources, and I think that’s a good thing.”
Cassady said the plan would be optional, as residents would be provided the opportunity to opt out if so desired. There would be tiers offered to residents on how much to pay for electricity, including a default, an opt-down for the lowest possible rate with fewer renewable sources and two opt-up options for either 50% or 100% renewable sourcing, likely for more money.
Cassady described the remaining steps for the power plan draft: moving it through public hearings and surveys, final approval by the Select Board to be on the town warrant and a vote from residents at Town Meeting. Following that, the plan would be submitted for approval from the Public Utilities Commission, and upon that approval, the plan could be enacted once the town signs with a service provider and launches the program.
“The process for selecting a vendor will by and large be postponed until after the town has voted on the warrant article,” said Joel Huberman, chair of the task force. “Up until then, our task force’s energy will be devoted to educating the public and helping them come to an informed choice on this warrant article.”
There are three options for who the vendor might be: Standard Power, which provides community power for the town’s municipal buildings; Freedom Energy Logistics, another company in the community power business; and the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, a group of towns joined together to provide community power. A representative of Standard Power, Emily Manns, claimed that the task force was showing favoritism in the plan toward the coalition, and that Standard Power had been successful in saving the town money.
“We’re really proud of those savings,” she said. “And our competitors compete against our demonstrated savings.”
Huberman said that there was no bias in the process, and noted that the task force had met with each of the three vendors for two full-length meetings each.
“We were impressed with all three of them,” he said.
Cassady also said the group was not leaning one way or the other.
“The task force feels like we have three excellent potential service providers,” he said.
Select Board members expressed their appreciation both for the task force’s work on the plan and their continued work moving forward.
“A lot of hard work, a lot of time,” said Chair Tyler Ward.
The plan will be presented at two public hearings, on Feb. 22 and 24.