17 New Hampshire Communities, Which Recently Formed Joint Powers Agency To Accelerate Opt-out Municipal Aggregation, Issue RFI

Sixteen municipalities and one county in New Hampshire which recently joined together to incorporate the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH or The Coalition) have issued an RFI for support services

The RFI is to be followed by an RFP to select, "a qualified entity or group of entities to provide comprehensive services and credit support to support CPCNH with the development, financing, launch, and operations of Community Power Aggregation (CPA) programs for its local government Members."

Under the terms of the RFP, CPCNH anticipates that the development and launch phases of the Scope of Work will be undertaken by the Proposer at the Proposer’s risk. The Proposer would receive on-going operations fees after and contingent on the successful launch of each local government Member CPA program. Under this model, CPCNH would incur no upfront costs from the Proposer. CPCNH intends to enter into an Agreement with the selected Proposer(s) for an initial 3-year term

The founding members of the Coalition are: Cities of Lebanon, Nashua and Dover; Towns of Hanover, Harrisville, Exeter, Rye, Warner, Walpole, Plainfield, Newmarket, Enfield and Durham; and Cheshire County. The towns of Hudson, Pembroke and Webster joined after incorporation.

The 17 members of the Coalition represent more than 210,000 residents, or ~15% of the population of New Hampshire with a potential default service load (793,000 MWh annually) larger than Liberty Utilities’ default service, approximately equivalent in size to both Unitil and the New Hampshire Electric Co-op

Some 24 additional communities which have expressed interest in joining CPCNH represent a combined population of roughly 345,000 and approximately 1,100,000 additional MWh per year in default service load.

The Coalition aims to begin providing electric power supply for initial communities in 2022.

CPCNH said that, while many of the broader benefits that CPCNH intends to create will be developed over time, the agency’s immediate objectives are to:

1. Offer competitive default supply rates compared to utility default service.

2. Accrue a reserve fund sufficient to ensure long-term financial stability.

3. Offer voluntary products that retail customers may opt-up to receive as well as Net Energy Metering supply rates that allow customer generators to participate in the program

See the RFI at https://www.cpcnh.org/solicitations