Things have changed in the New Hampshire Electricity market. In the past, the utilities would buy all their power for six months and would charge customers based on their purchases.  It was expected that they would not make or lose any money on the energy supply portion of the electrical bill. In the past, they would adjust the rates for the next period, to make sure they did not lose or profit from the energy supply.

In 2024 the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) changed the rules, requiring the utilities to buy only a portion of the power they needed ahead and buy the rest in the daily markets.  This has resulted in the utilities losing about 50 million dollars over the last year and a half.  Liberty, Unitil, and Eversource should have raised their rates to recover their losses as they did in the past, but the PUC would not approve rates that would have recovered the losses.

In Liberty’s case they lost about nine million and requested a .21 rate per kilowatt hour for the next rate period from August 1 through January 31, 2027.  The PUC did not approve this rate, but they did approve a rate of .15835.  While this will help recover some of the millions, it will not make Liberty whole.

You might ask why the PUC is taking these risks?  It is a good question, but the PUC continues to require the Utilities to buy a portion of electrical power on the open market.  This could increase the losses for all the states utilities.

Walpole Community Power is a member of the Community Power Coalition of NH (CPCNH) which does not have to have their rates approved by the PUC.  However, CPCNH must set rates to meet their costs.

CPCNH rate for the fall period, August 1, 2026 through January 31, 2027, will be .14729.  This represents a modest savings over the Liberty rate of about .01 per kWH.

Walpole Community Power still feels that the CPCNH membership is in the long run beneficial. At some point the PUC is going to allow the Utilities to recover their losses. CPCNH has introduced more competition into the market. 

Tagged: Walpole Community Power