NH legislature considers two bills that would affect electric utilities, consumers

A pair of bills introduced in the New Hampshire legislature would change the energy landscape in the state.

The first bill, New Hampshire House Bill (HB) 106, would remove any cap for municipalities and nonprofits to participate in net metering.

According to state Rep. Michael Vose, chair of the Science, Technology, and Energy Committee for the New Hampshire Legislature, “The bill will allow net metering above 1 megawatt for a county, city, or town to provide its own generated electricity to a group of publicly-owned structures, such as school or municipal buildings.”

The current 1 megawatt (MW) cap would remain in place for everyone except municipalities and select nonprofits.

Rep. Vose said the bill would “somewhat reduce public expenditures for electricity by raising the cost of electricity for all other users. This additional cost could hamper business expansion and growth. It should not harm utilities since they pass through the cost of electricity and make money on its transmission and distribution. Increased electricity costs will hurt low-income customers the most.”

However, some stakeholders argue it may not be the right bill for net metering in the state. New Hampshire utility Eversource is also concerned about the removal of the cap.

“As we work toward advancing clean energy in the region, facilitating the interconnection of distributed energy resources like solar is obviously an important part of those efforts,” William Hinkle, media relations manager with Eversource, said. “House Bill 106 is a more measured approach to expanding net metering for municipalities in New Hampshire, but we’re concerned that there isn’t a cap for a project’s size in the bill, which doesn’t exist anywhere else in the nation. We’ll continue working with legislators from both parties as this bill makes its way through the legislative process.”

The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) also is not satisfied with the bill. The added cost to non-net metering customers has been one of the main concerns as different states have been looking at the continued relevance of net metering. In many cases, low-income customers are the ones who are affected the most.

“Over several years, Consumer Energy Alliance has been fighting for fair, accessible and affordable solar energy,” said Marc Brown, regional director of CEA-Northeast. “HB 106 as written would change the current standard by increasing the compensation paid for energy that is produced and then sent back to the grid for systems greater than 1 megawatt in size.”

However, CEA is not supporting the bill because of what it would cost all consumers.

“Retail net metering policies like those proposed in HB 106, always increases costs to other consumers,” he said, “especially those who can least afford higher energy costs such as low-income consumers, those on fixed incomes, small businesses trying to recover from the pandemic and people living paycheck-to-paycheck.”

The second bill, New Hampshire HB 315, would change the relationship between utilities and customers. In New Hampshire, municipalities or counties are allowed to choose their energy supplier, although they still use the utility in their area. HB 315 is a change to a 2019 bill meant to remove the parts which were less than favorable.

According to Rep. Vose, one of the sponsors of the bill, the 2019 bill allowed for community power aggregation to “allow cities and towns to form large electricity purchase coalitions to negotiate and acquire power at lower costs, similar to competitive energy suppliers.”

“HB 315 attempts to ameliorate the implementation hurdles faced by the original bill,” he said. “An amended version of the bill will likely satisfy utilities and aggregators alike by: Allowing communities and counties to receive customer information from utilities; creating an opportunity for a Purchase of Receivables program, requested by aggregators; [and] requiring the public utilities commission to begin a review of the benefits and costs of implementing the advanced metering for customers of municipal aggregation.”

Eversource is one of the stakeholders that agrees the 2019 bill needs an update, and is happy with the new changes. Hinkle said that HB 315 is important to achieve the company’s goals of “innovative solutions that lower costs for our customers, enhance reliability and advance clean energy in New England,” by providing a formal and streamlined regulatory process to help municipalities with their community aggregation programs.

“Stakeholders from all sides agree that there are issues with the law as currently constructed, and changes need to be made for aggregation to become a reality sooner rather than later,” he said. “House Bill 315 will help align New Hampshire with what is successfully being done in Massachusetts while addressing concerns about customer service and cost-shifting to municipalities that do not elect to pursue their own aggregation programs. It does nothing to prevent municipalities from aggregating electric supply today; it would only serve to facilitate that process. Without the passage of House Bill 315, aggregation could be held up for years if other items such as metering, data platforms and security are hashed out as part of the same process at the NH PUC [Public Utilities Commission].”

CEA is most concerned about what the bill will mean for consumers of all kinds. Brown said the organization is not opposed to community aggregation, and is concerned the 2019 bill “opens the door for those that have opted out of the CCA [community choice aggregation] to be responsible for some of the costs of the program.”

“HB 315 would rectify those concerns without restricting a community’s ability to aggregate customers,” he said. “There have been a lot of potential amendments floating around including purchase of receivables provisions that are important to aggregators. Hopefully, the bill and any amendments will move the PUC closer to adopting rules, which it has yet to do for well over a year, all without negatively impacting consumers who choose not to participate in community choice aggregation.”

House Bill 106 is due to be out of committee on March 11, and the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee will hold a public hearing on House Bill 315 on Feb. 12.