Community Power Rates Increasing In Concord; Now Higher Than Unitil

CONCORD, NH — Electric rates are going up for Community Power Coalition of NH customers in the city of Concord, are increasing for a second time in a month, and are now higher than the default rate offered by Unitil.

Early last month, Community Power increased the default rate for customers in Concord from $0.086 per kWh to $0.089 per kWh. The new default rate was supposed to stay in place until July 31. However, on Jan. 31, the board voted to increase the rate from $0.089 per kWh to $0.097 per kWh “due to a power purchase agreement with a local generator that did not come to fruition.” This “forced” Community Power “to purchase power at a higher rate,” according to the city of Concord.

As of Feb. 1, according to the Officer of the Consumer Advocate, the default energy service rate offered by Unitil was $0.086 cents — meaning the default rate increase and the second increase due to the agreement falling through are more expensive than Unitil.

Community Power noted on its updated information on the city’s website that some customers were switching back to Unitil and might be subject to the company’s variable rate. Many customers have switched, too, to purchase “clean power” options at a higher price.

Consumer Advocate Donald Kreis said earlier this week while thousands of customers have switched to community power to save money, this was the first time community power customers were paying more than the default rate of the four utility companies in the state. Eversource is $0.089 cents for Eversource, Liberty is $0.084 cents, and New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (Co-op Power) is $0.081 cents.

In the long run though, Kreis said, community power programs should be a boon to residential electric customers.

“It is noteworthy that before the widespread availability of community power aggregation programs, the only non-utility options available to residential customers were competitive suppliers marketing to people on an individual customer basis,” he said. “In my expert opinion, electric customers do better when they combine their buying power.”

More information about the Community Power process can be found here on the city’s website.

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