Bedford council delays decision on joining Community Power Coalition after presentation and Q&A

Bedford Town Council on Sept. 20 heard a presentation from the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH) on forming a Bedford Community Power program and then voted to table action until the council’s Oct. 9, 2024 meeting to allow additional public outreach and hearings.

Henry Herndon, director of member services for CPCNH, told the council the program—created under state law RSA 53‑E—would allow the town to become the default electricity supplier for most Eversource customers while the utility would continue to own and operate the grid and handle outages. Herndon said the coalition’s sample basic supply rate is about 8.6¢ per kilowatt‑hour versus roughly 10.5¢/kWh from Eversource in the example shown, and he noted the organization’s members have produced roughly $14 million in cumulative customer savings since program launches began.

Herndon and Andrew Hatch of CPCNH described joining as a multistep process: (1) the town council adopts a joint powers agreement to join the nonprofit coalition; (2) an aggregation committee is formed; (3) public hearings and a town meeting or ballot vote would follow before any supply agreements are signed. The joint powers agreement itself is nonbinding; formal service agreements and a final launch decision would return to the council.

Councilors focused several questions on consumer protections and local solar. CPCNH said customers would receive mailed notice and have a 30‑day window to opt out at launch; customers already served by third‑party suppliers could remain with those suppliers. The presenters acknowledged a regulatory and utility‑data issue that currently prevents net‑metered solar customers from being automatically enrolled and credited by community power; they called it a “glitch” the group is working to resolve with regulators and utilities. CPCNH also described contractual termination provisions intended to prevent unwinding costs from being unfairly shifted to other members and said the coalition tracks reserve funds by town and returns a town’s share if it later leaves the program.

Council discussion included questions about rate‑setting (the CPCNH board sets supply rates, with operating costs and reserves included), transparency (finance and risk committees are open to member towns), outage response (Eversource remains responsible for reliability), and timing for a warrant article (Herndon said launch would be put on the warrant for a town meeting or ballot, with March town meeting timing discussed).

Councilor Bill Carter moved to table adoption of the joint powers agreement until Oct. 9, 2024 to allow additional public sessions and outreach; the motion was seconded and passed, with one recorded nay by Councilor Michael Strand (motion passed by council vote to table). The council directed staff and the Energy Commission to help post materials on the town website and to hold the public input opportunities CPCNH described before the next meeting.

The next formal steps identified at the meeting were additional public hearings by the aggregation committee, public outreach including a dedicated Bedford page on communitypowernh.gov, and final motions to adopt the joint powers agreement or service agreements only after the town votes to launch the program.