Town authorizes data requests to seek new municipal electricity pricing and community power options

The Select Board authorized Aug. 11 the town’s energy consultant to seek updated utility data and competitive pricing for municipal electric accounts and a residential community power program, the consultant said.

Ryan Polson of Standard Power, the town’s energy consultant since 2018, told the board the town’s municipal electricity contract ends at year’s end and he planned to solicit quotes from suppliers to present options for fixed-term supply. Polson said the town’s current default supply rate (Eversource supply) is about 11.2¢ per kilowatt-hour and that recent supplier quotes for other municipalities have been in the mid-to-upper 10¢ range.

Polson asked the board to sign an Energy Profiler Online (EPO) form that permits suppliers to obtain historical municipal usage from Eversource to produce accurate bids; he said suppliers pay the fees for those data requests and the town would not be billed. The board also authorized sending a request to a cooperative (the New Hampshire municipal cooperative) so the consultant could obtain the coop’s utility data needed to price the separate community-power (residential aggregation) option.

A board member asked how the rebate from the town’s group net-metering hydro program is calculated; Polson said the firm tracks municipal usage and the program’s rebate rate (about one-half cent per kilowatt-hour) and distributes quarterly checks back to participating municipal accounts. Board members asked that Polson present formal pricing and renewal-term recommendations once bids are in; Polson said he would return with pricing and a recommendation as soon as the data arrive, likely before the municipal contract expires.

The board’s authorizations were procedural: they allow the consultant to gather data and solicit bids; no new contract or purchase was approved at the meeting.