Portsmouth adopts policy limiting automatic Community Power refreshes after divided debate

Portsmouth's City Council on Monday voted to place limits on automatic "refresh" enrollment into Community Power, the aggregation program that purchases energy supply for participating residents.

The Energy Advisory Committee had recommended allowing the refresh; councilors instead debated whether to pause refreshes when Community Power's rate is higher than the incumbent utility, Eversource, and whether to set a numerical threshold. Councilor Taber summarized the committee view that the program should continue refreshing by default but with clear rate comparison information provided to residents.

Councilor Cook urged caution about automatically enrolling people into a program that could cost them more: "I don't think it's reasonable to have anybody opted into something that is going to cost them more money that they didn't anticipate," she said, and urged a numeric threshold. Other councilors argued the program's broader policy benefits — building buying power and advancing climate goals — counseled against a blanket pause.

After amendments and roll call votes on competing threshold proposals, the council adopted an amendment setting a refresh policy that requires staff not to automatically refresh customers if Community Power's supply rate exceeds Eversource's basic supply rate beyond the council's threshold adopted at the meeting (the council approved a percent-based threshold by roll call). The council also directed staff to ask Community Power to publish clear rate comparisons and opt-out instructions ahead of any refresh.

The action means roughly 1,172 recently added customers discussed in the Energy Advisory Committee materials will be handled according to the new policy and that staff must return with clarifying implementation details for how monthly or periodic refresh cycles will be executed.