Boscawen, NH – In December 2023, the Merrimack County Board of Commissioners voted to join the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, a statewide nonprofit electricity supplier created by counties and municipalities. In doing so, the Merrimack County Community Power Committee was established, with the goal of assisting electric customers throughout the county in saving money on their power bills, while expanding clean energy options.
This county-wide approach helps to streamline access to Community Power benefits and savings, while maintaining full control, in two ways:
Once the program is launched, electric customer within the county may elect to join into the program and benefit from lower rates and expanded energy choices; and
Towns that choose to participate by a majority vote of their select board may choose Merrimack County Community Power as the default electricity supply option.
The Merrimack County Community Power Plan is an electricity supply program that, upon launch, will be available on a voluntary opt-in basis to all electric customers within the county. Merrimack County Community Power will also offer electricity supply service on an opt-out basis directly for municipalities that request, by majority vote of their respective governing bodies, to participate in Merrimack County Community Power.
The intent of the program is to lower energy costs, expand energy options, and to avoid the staff time, expense, and administrative/regulatory efforts required to initiate programs by municipalities individually.
For municipalities electing to take opt-out service, initial participation in Merrimack County Community Power can be declined by customers, after which enrollment becomes voluntary. Customers are mailed notifications prior to enrollment, may decline to participate, and may choose to switch back to the utility or to take service from a competitive electric power supplier at any point in time without fee or penalty.
The county will be holding two separate public hearings in February to present and adopt the Merrimack County Community Power Electric Aggregation Plan (click to view). More information on the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire can be found here (click to view), including the current Community Power Rates (click to view). Merrimack County encourages public comment on this important initiative.
As of January 1, 2024 the Coalition is made up of fifty municipalities and two county members.
Coalition Membership is open to all New Hampshire cities, towns, counties and regionally operated Community Power Aggregations.
There are no upfront costs to join the Coalition. The expense of launching and operating each Member’s Community Power program will be repaid after program launch, through electricity rates, and the revenues received from participating customers in each program.