Mari Brunner, center, a senior planner with the Keene community development department, speaks with clean energy and community power advocates on April 5 at City Hall in Keene. (Raquel C. Zaldívar / New England News Collaborative)
A month after its launch in June, city officials are saying Keene Community Power is off to a great start.
City Manager Elizabeth Dragon said Thursday that out of 10,477 residential and commercial customers of Keene's previous default utility, Eversource, 9,465 have enrolled in Keene's new program. She added that the plan will go into effect for customers after their first meter reading after June 1.
"We had a very successful launch," she said at a City Council meeting.
A community power arrangement works through a municipal government or collective, instead of a utility company to source electricity for local consumers. The municipality has more control over the power supply, enabling it to seek lower-cost or greener options. A utility continues to maintain transmission lines and deliver the electricity.
In March, Keene joined Swanzey, Marlborough and Wilton in securing a 30-month contract with Direct Energy to serve as an electricity supplier in those communities, Brunner said. So, while Eversource — the utility that serves these municipalities — will continue to handle the delivery of electricity and maintain transmission lines, Direct Energy, a North American electricity retailer, will supply that power at a cheaper rate.
Keene’s plan, which the City Council adopted in May 2021, includes a standard rate for eligible customers, and shaves off about 8 cents from Eversource’s current default rate of 20.22 cents per kilowatt hour.
The utility recently announced that it plans a significant electrical rate reduction in August, dropping to about 12.6 cents per kilowatt hour. An average homeowner using 600 kilowatt hours of electricity per month would see an overall decrease on their bill of about $46, or 24 percent, the company said in a news release in June.
If approved by the N.H. Public Utilities Commission, the new rates would be in effect from Aug. 1 to Jan. 31.
At 11.47 cents per kilowatt hour, Keene Community Power's default plan — which Eversource customers of the Elm City were automatically enrolled in — remains cheaper.
At launch, Keene residents were given four electricity options to choose from, each at varying price points, according to the city’s website. Under Keene’s default option, 33 percent of a customer’s electricity is sourced from renewable generation.
Customers can get 50 percent renewable energy for 12.05 cents per kilowatt hour, and can get 100 percent renewable energy for for 13.90 cents per kilowatt hour. Community power also includes a basic plan with no renewables at 11.10 cents per kilowatt hour.
On Thursday, Dragon said that only 633 Keene customers chose to opt out of the program, while 243 people chose to opt in. City officials have said that those who would need to opt into the program would be those who already source their electricity from a third party supplier.
While a majority chose to stay with Keene's new default plan, 38 people enrolled into the option for 50 percent renewable energy and 216 people chose 100 percent renewable energy, while 207 chose the basic option with no renewable energy.
"Through this program, businesses and residents are saving money on their electric bill, and for a majority of people enrolled in the default option they are buying at least 10 percent renewable energy, so great, great launch," she said.
Community Development Director Jesse Rounds said in an email to The Sentinel Friday that the renewable energy options require that Keene's power supplier either provide evidence of enough renewable generation within their system to cover the required amount of energy, or they must purchase renewable energy credits, which represent generation elsewhere in the system.
"The power generated is not necessarily local, although the city would like to see that change over time," he said.
Keene is actively working toward 100 percent of all electricity in the city limits being sourced from renewable energy by 2030. Rounds said that the 100 percent renewable energy option for Keene Community Power customers will make achieving that goal easier.
As Keene's new program continues, Rounds said he hopes residents will soon begin to feel some economic relief.
"We're excited to see the program operating so people will start to see the impact to their electricity bills," he said. "We hope to keep the program at the forefront so more residents will choose to participate in the coming months and years."
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.
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