I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and God with liberty and justice for all.

If there's anyone in the room with you, and if you can hear us.

Here.

See, you have these here.

One, two, three.

You have nine present, correct?

Yeah.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry, and six.

I did hear from Alderman Clemens.

He uh is with his wife who's got some medical issues.

And Alderman Greg was not feeling well and will not be joining us this evening.

Also joining us this evening, excuse me, is Mayor Jim Donchus.

Communications.

From Laura Wilshire, President Board of Alderman.

In regards to calling a special board of Alderman meeting to present, discuss rates, increases with community power.

There being no objection, I'll accept the communication and place it on file.

Discussions andor presentations.

Community power?

I'm good.

Mayor Donchus.

Thank you, Madam President.

So the reason we're here tonight is to discuss the coming rate period beginning on February 1 of the Nashville Community Power because the rates are going to be, and you will hear this from Community Power, considerably higher than the Eversource rates for that six-month rate period.

I just want to go back and say that during the first 18 months or so that community power was in effect here in Nashua.

Since then the rates have been roughly equivalent.

And now community power is proposing a rate that's higher for reasons that they will describe.

But I'd also like to emphasize before I turn it over to Doria and company that under the provisions of Nashua Community Power, anyone can opt out of community power and return to Eversource simply by going on the website or I think by calling community power.

And anyone who wishes to save money in that way is free to opt in, and then if they wish later on, they can opt back to community power.

There's no restriction on uh the number of times you want to go back and forth.

Um so with that I will uh just call on uh Ms.

Brown, who is our energy manager and who has um uh been working on this project good evening, and thank you for having me here tonight to talk more about community power.

I appreciate all of your time and willingness to continue having this conversation.

Um I have here the community power coalition representatives, um Henry Herndon, who is currently the acting general manager, and I have Jackson Caspari here, who is our um I would say our community liaison or director.

Um I definitely botch his title a little bit, so I apologize, Jackson.

Um I am gonna hand it off to them now.

If I could have the clicker to advance the presentation, that would be really helpful.

Everybody's here, here it is.

Yep, thank you so much.

I think I saw it here, right?

Uh very good, thank you, Doria.

Uh, thank you, Madam President, uh, Mr.

Mayor, and uh good evening to the board of aldermen.

My name is Henry Herndon.

I am the acting general manager of the community power coalition of New Hampshire, and I will be leading the presentation and then um handing off some portions to Jackson Caspari, our director of member services.

Um just by way of introduction, I'll note um I was appointed to this role in spring of this past year uh in an interim position, and uh prior to that I was the second employee hired by the organization.

I was a consultant prior to that, uh, participating with the city of Nashua and some of the other founding cities and towns to incorporate this nonprofit power company and stand up the organization.

So it's a little bit about my history, and um I'll be speaking today about um the upcoming rates and um providing information on the status and outlook of community power coalition of New Hampshire's um finances, reserves, and uh competitiveness in the market.

Uh and just to start, I'll do a little bit of a recap of the history.

I understand you know, some of this um body uh have been participants throughout that history um and involved since the incorporation, uh Nashville was a leader in that process uh since 2019.

Nashua was a leader in that process since 2019.

But for some of the board, I'll just provide a brief summary of the context.

So Nashua has and continues to play a key leadership role in transforming New Hampshire's energy market towards local control and community interests.

Was originally one of four founding members of the group alongside the city of Lebanon, the town of Hanover, and Cheshire County in coming together to, once the legislation was enacted in 2019, explore national best uh practices for these types of markets, and then implement this statewide joint powers agency by which cities and towns have control over a nonprofit agent to manage their electricity portfolio in their interests.

So Nashua participated from the very beginning of that, was a key leader in some legislative initiatives in 2021 to improve the legislative framework alongside other communities, and then in April of 2023, um helped launch the first wave of community power programs at considerable savings and discount to the customers participating.

That sort of kicked off a movement where we saw a series of waves of launches where other communities followed suit over the following two year period, and throughout that time, Nashua has been an active leader in the governance, the board, the committees of our nonprofit throughout its scaling to a 100 million dollar annual revenue enterprise.

And again, our organization we are an extension of municipal governments.

We are subject to the same public meeting and right to know right to know laws as you.

So we our meetings are open, notice just as your meetings are.

Our minutes and materials are all available to the public and to expect inspection by the public and the members.

So transparency and local accountability are really built into our structure.

Currently, uh Nashville Community Power is serving about 30,000 retail electric accounts, residence businesses.

Um there's an about a 63% participation rate across the community.

Um so customers they have more choice than they've had before, and they're I think more aware and educated about those choices in exercising that choice.

Additionally, uh Nashville's been a leader in pioneering some of the local programs that can add value.

Um specifically at time of rate discount, applying a discretionary reserve program where the city was able to accrue over uh 200,000 in funds to support home energy audits and an energy coaching program, which I understand is in development and perhaps kicking off soon this year.

Not sure my clicker is um advancing the slides.

Yeah, point it that way.

The computer's over here.

Point it down.

Yeah, right at the numbers.

So many is there a manual option?

Oh, yeah, that would be great.

I did it.

Next slide, please.

Yes.

Uh I'm gonna hand it over to uh Jackson Kaspari and just brief introduction.

Um Jackson was formerly uh the resilience manager for the city of Dover, so a planner on staff with the city of Dover and um an early board director of community power coalition before um coming over to our staff side as a director of member service, being responsible for all of our customer service, communications, member support and engagement, and a number of other things.

And Jackson's gonna speak a little bit about our communications.

Yeah.

Thank you, Henry.

Uh thank you, Doria, for the introduction.

Oh, that's okay.

Um, Madam President, Mr.

Mayor, Alderman.

It's great to have the opportunity to spend some time with you this evening and go through these materials.

Just want to reiterate the importance of us having continued engagement with our communities.

So really appreciate your time again.

Um just wanted to draw your attention to some key elements of the Nashua Community Power website.

I know you got a great overview presentation from Doria fairly recently.

Um I'm not gonna spend too much time on this, but just to show you the home page right there.

I'd encourage you all to take a look.

We're always looking for feedback and ways to improve the information contained within our our website universe.

But we have a lot of great materials that are built into it.

And I'm gonna talk through a couple of those core components.

Uh, but this is really the main spot where customers can interact with their product elections, they can opt in, they can opt out, they can opt up to other levels of um greener energy if they so choose.

But uh some key aspects, one that I just spoke to are the three ways that customers can really interact.

The mayor actually mentioned a couple of those, so we have a phone number, and we ensure that there are you know well-staffed and trained CSRs that are available to answer customer questions and help them process actions for their accounts.

We also have an email address that is you know constantly monitored.

If a customer has concerns that our representatives aren't able to answer, those get elevated eventually making it to myself.

So I do lead the charge on the staff side in responding to customer escalations if they do arise and trying to educate those folks about the process and listen to their concerns.

And then we have the interactive, what we refer to as an IFrame, it's an embedded customer portal where customers are able to self-service enter information directly to select their options that way as well.

If a customer calls another supplier or actually calls a utility, they can also process actions through that avenue.

So there's there's plenty of ways that customers are able to get service.

Additionally, wanted to draw everyone's attention to the mailing list feature that we rolled out.

This is a great way for people to get information directly to their inboxes about the organization, about the community power program.

But one key feature is the rate announcement side of that.

So customers, you know, can get the rate announcement information before rates are set directly to their inbox, and we are rolling out an SMS feature as well.

So we're trying to collect some phone numbers through that.

And our subscriber list continues to grow.

I know Nashua has done a great job in promoting information about the community power program, information about rates, and Doria has been really effective in working with you all on that.

But you know, we're trying to do our own sort of promotions of this, so when it comes up, um, you know, please feel free to let people know that this is available to them.

And in addition to that, um, I'll just say that you know, we are doing our best to constantly maintain good factual, transparent information across our website, um, work with communities on their own press releases, and we have seen you know some significant customer activity occur in Nashua, which is a good thing.

That means the word is getting out there, customers are acting in their interests as a result of that.

All right, with that, I will talk about some of the overarching benefits of Nashua Community Power through CBCNH.

You know, we are going to obviously get into the conversation on rates, but there's a lot more to this than the rates components.

Um, one aspect, of course, being the local control element.

You know, as Henry mentioned, CBCNH as an organization and the reserves that are generated through rates are controlled by our members, the cities, towns, counties that govern us.

We are nonprofit, so we're transparent, we're accountable, and communities always are going to have a say in the organization's direction.

I spoke to the way that customers can interact.

That's a key element to the customer choice and the competition that we're driving, right?

So the existence of these community power programs across the state really has led to an increased competition for the rates that people are seeing, which is a good thing on behalf of consumers to have more competitive options than they've ever had before.

And customers in Nashua since the launch of the program have had more options than ever.

So that's that's a really good thing for them overall.

And you know, market innovation and public advocacy, right?

We work with 68 members across New Hampshire.

There's currently 50 active programs, Nashville being one of those within those 68 members, and that allows us to work with our regulatory and legislative affairs team and committee to promote customer and community interests at the legislature at the public utilities commission, and we have some great examples of progress we've been able to make on bills, progress we've been able to make protecting consumer interests at the PUC as a result of that collective action by being a voice on behalf of the communities that we represent.

So we were able to defend against unfair cost shifting as one example when that did come up, and we had concerns over costs assigned to one group of customers being shifted onto another group of customers that would have impacted folks within Nashwood Community Power.

And we're looking to modernize the energy market.

You know, as the coalition develops more projects and works with our membership, we'll be able to push for a more modernized energy system within New Hampshire.

That's going to deliver benefits to customers in the medium and the long term because we will have a system that is offering more relief in terms of the direct costs that are being applied to our customers, and that could be not just on the supply side but the distribution side of the bill as well.

You have those two components as I know Doria talked to you all through through that.

And then finally, um I'll just end by saying program and project development is a key part of this, and I started to get into that a little bit.

Henry mentioned the energy coaching program.

I know you're fully briefed on the benefits that that will provide.

But we also have some programs as a rec aggregator, so we can interact with local solar folks that have solar, for example, to buy the renewable energy certificates.

That's a value add for them.

And we are working with 11 of our communities right now to construct the largest array in New Hampshire.

That's about five megawatts located in Warner.

And those 11 communities, their local governments are going to see some savings as a result of that project.

But that is just you know one example of more projects that we hope to bring into the pipeline that will benefit our members.

So I'll turn it back to Henry.

Thanks, Jackson.

Um actually.

So uh I'll talk about the rate makeup and buildup for um this upcoming period, and then yes, certainly looking forward to a discussion in a QA aspect of this uh presentation as well.

Um but what we have here on screen is uh a depiction of the rate that will go into effect on February 1st and be effective for six months through the end of July.

Um and I'll talk through this from sort of the bottom up.

You know, 75% of this rate is driven by the cost of energy.

You can see that in the blue base of the chart.

Um as we move up the cost stack, orange is our uh ancillary fees, and uh the daisy charge is the charge in the ISO New England wholesale market.

These are certain fees applied to all energy suppliers that buy bulk electricity in the six state regional power market, uh, and capacity is another component of that market.

So that is a charge applied to the entire market, um, ensuring sufficient availability of generators over time.

Um we move up to the blue line, uh RPS stands for renewable portfolio standards.

So there is um legislation in New Hampshire that requires minimum renewable purchasing for all suppliers, and that is the cost um associated with that.

Um the purple line being the operating expense of community power coalition of New Hampshire, the cost of you know, staff, service providers, contractors, uh interest in financing, um, and things of that nature.

And then at the top, we see the green block being the reserve adder for the upcoming period.

So the primary driver of the rate differential in the upcoming period is that reserve block, and that is driven by a cash flow requirement by accruing sufficient reserve, you know, and CBC and H incurs costs in the power markets.

There is a 60-day plus lag between incurring of costs and receipt of revenue from customers.

So that's one of the reasons behind our financial reserve policy that sets certain goals, as any you know, large enterprise or you know, municipality or business.

Uh it's important to have capital available, we have that through reserves, we could have that through diversifying credit support.

Um, but the current adder being towards building reserve funds, and some of the next slides will elaborate on that discussion.

Over time, uh, in the upcoming rate periods, we will see the several of these components decrease, including you know, energy uh with better portfolio management, including and more flexibility as we mature as an organization, uh, and that reserve line as well as we meet certain minimum reserve balances and have a less need to uh accrue and rebuild reserve funds.

Um also note that the reserves that are accrued, um, they contribute to Nashua's reserve fund and then the reserve funds of other communities.

So they are really the community's monies.

Um this slide is uh depicting a history of uh reserve accrual over time since inception or launch of the organization, and I'll just talk through a little bit of our history.

Um starting from the left, April 2023.

Uh, you can see the launch of the market.

Um at the last meeting, I think there was discussion about uh, you know, when EverSource had 20 cent rates and community power was able to launch between 15 and 16 cents with considerable savings for customers while simultaneously building strong reserves.

Throughout the course of 2023 and 2024, we see the reserve growth, you know, grow gradually but plateau, and this is really a period of scaling and bringing on a second, third, and fourth wave of communities across the state to grow to perhaps um 30 percent of the uh population.

Um moving into the winter of 2025, I believe there was discussion uh with this body as well, but there was uh an unplanned draw on reserve, there was an expensive winter, and uh there was a period in which the board of CPC and H acted very quickly to do uh you know assessments, diagnose issues, and implement course corrections.

Um you can see that occurring in in the uh red shaded area, and we are currently in the midst of what we would call a stabilization or recovery phase, a rebuilding of reserves that were drawn down last winter period.

Um our trajectory is um towards a replenishment of reserve funds, which will result in long-term value and savings for customers over time.

One other item I want to call the body's attention to is you know, there's uh a green sort of the final.

If you look at the dotted line to the far right of the graph, these are rates that have not yet been set.

Those rates are assuming in this graphic the same level and rate of reserve accumulation.

That is not a foregone conclusion.

One of the policy discussions that uh the CPC and H board will take up over the coming months and going into the next rate setting period will be what is the appropriate balance between perhaps a tapering of reserve growth, given sufficient minimums are met to balance rate relief with customers while maintaining uh a growth over time to targets.

I will note that you know we have a financial reserve policy and plan.

That plan has um certain minimums being met in calendar year 2028.

That's actually shown by the orange horizontal line on the graph.

Um so there is flexibility from a policy perspective at the CPC and H board level uh moving into future rate periods.

Uh this image is depicting uh the national community benefit over time.

We calculate and have always calculated community benefit as the sum of the savings accrued to customers and the reserves accrued associated with national community power.

Um as was mentioned earlier, savings peaked at perhaps uh seven million dollars, and then since rate differentials uh in more recent months, we've seen a slight decrease to those, but still strongly positive savings through October of last year.

And then on top of that, so about 5.6 million as of October of the past year.

And then we see on top of that reserves currently or as of October, standing at about 3.5 million dollars.

Additional benefits are the 240,000 in discretionary reserves to support the local programming, energy auditing, and coaching for the total community benefit as well.

So again, what we can anticipate moving through this rate period is perhaps a rebalancing of the uh breakup of the benefit with a decrease in some savings to customers, but uh increase in the reserves that support the longevity and long-term value of the program.

And I'm not sure.

I seem to have lost the slide.

We could go to slide nine, please.

We're on ten right now.

You're moving it, right?

I am, but I'm yeah, nine and ten seem to be missing.

Oh.

That's a if I do it manually and go down to nine.

Do you have one that's titled strategy to increase competitiveness?

We do our own.

Okay, so the printed copies we can follow along on those.

So again, looking forward, um, how and when will rates uh trend towards parity and um you really maximize competition for the state.

So we're in a position right now of a rebuilding of the community reserves, which will allow for future rate relief as the two cent adder towards reserves for this period can decrease over time, um, be brought down to a cent and a half, perhaps, one cent, and then once targets are met and maintained, that could be a quite a thin margin to maintain.

Additionally, in doing that, um that will result in a lowering and an avoiding of interest expense uh due to the depletion of the reserve fund last winter.

Um by accrue and reserves, we can eliminate and minimize financing charges, you know, diversify credit support, eventually secure credit rating, and achieve very low cost capital.

Additionally, the organization is uh actively uh developing uh portfolio strategy and working through our risk management committee to assess um how and when are we buying power in the markets, how and when are we hedging purchasing futures contracts and ensuring that we're maximizing value in that way through things like dollar cost averaging, you know, rather than a single buy at a point in time, um placing uh regular buys throughout um time to average out market costs, perhaps higher volumes during times of low market costs and lower volumes during times of high market costs.

There are some strategies that we're actively implementing, and as we accrue reserves and mature, those strategies and products become the more products and strategies become available to us.

Uh simultaneously, the organization is in process of completing some key hiring um decisions.

So there will be an executive director hired within a month or two, um, and shortly thereafter a director of power operations to sort of bring in-house some of the technical expertise that currently uh we rely on some third party contractors for.

Um, uh, you know, I've mentioned this market ISO New England.

This is the wholesale power market where large utilities, suppliers, power generators trade power contracts, bulk power contracts.

Um we have a service provider that is the registered participant in that market.

We call them a load serving entity.

There are certain collateral requirements.

Uh you could think of it as akin to being perhaps an institutional investor buying and sell uh we have to have a certain scale uh and collateral level to participate directly in that market.

We incur additional costs by using a third party through the accrual of reserves, we can eliminate that middleman directly participate in the market and further improve our competitiveness and rates.

Um I mentioned moving towards obtaining a credit rating, and this is all directionally towards some of the projects and programs that Jackson mentioned.

So with strong reserves, being a direct participant in the market, uh, with a credit rating, we become an attractive counterparty to entities that would like to develop local generation assets, build renewable projects or battery storage within the state to benefit the communities.

Um the organization does have revenue bonding authority and can use other mechanisms to construct local generators that can improve competitiveness, drive down rates, and create direct investment and value within the communities.

So part of the long-term vision is is that some of our cities and towns are certainly thinking about is um in the medium to long term taking control of building local energy assets that are valuable for their citizens.

Um with that I'll I'll pause and be happy to have any discussion and QA and appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All the Mandowed.

Yeah, I thought I read recently that EverSource is petitioning for another rate change.

Do we know where the that's going up, going down, what what how it impacts this?

Uh yeah, they are in uh they recently went through a rate case process to adjust their distribution and delivery rates, and that was a rate increase.

Um that's the delivery side of the bill separate from the supply side.

Um so we are seeing some increases on that side of the bill, and additionally, there's a fixed customer charge where every customer has to pay a minimum fee every month, and there's some increases supplied there as well.

All them endowed?

But that doesn't impact uh people's bills.

The only thing community power versus ever source is the is the supply of electricity, not the delivery, right?

In the immediate term, yes, that is true.

Over time, through development of say local energy assets that could defray transmission costs, we pay wholesale and interstate transmission delivery fees.

And if you have generators that are sort of beneath that interstate transmission network that are, you know, five megawatts or less community scale, that could reduce those costs.

That's a longer term proposition.

That's not going to happen in the next year or two.

And my last question is how does all of this impact our solar arrays?

We have public-private partnerships, we have uh solar arrays on several city buildings, and how does this impact the savings we make from those?

It would have no impact, so those they can sort of coexist happily.

Um your solar arrays will continue on on their net metering products, likely on the Eversource supply.

Um those programs would remain intact.

Again, over time, with you know improvements in public advocacy and the regulatory landscape, there are opportunities to further the development of sort of rooftop or municipal scale projects.

I think Dorothy to speak more about the city of Nashua solar assets.

We have two arrays that are city arrays, um, one on the Lake Street Fire Department and one on the transit garage, and then we have quite a few school solar arrays.

All of them not all of them actually, the the city arrays are currently net metered um and they aren't on um any sort of third-party supply so that we can take advantage of that net meter and credit.

Um some of the school rays, I believe, are not net metered um because they produce not enough electricity to make some sort of benefit from being net metered.

Um currently, as as the way that community power works, um we could not enroll the buildings that we have with solar on them into the community power program because they wouldn't get any of the benefit from net metering.

So we we do not do so.

So it wouldn't have any sort of effect on our solar programming here in Ashua.

Alderman Doug and right now we're looking because of the age of the high schools of uh redoing the roofs, and if we redo the roofs, we'd be looking at putting solar rays on the two high schools, which is our huge raise.

And but right now is there no um public-private partnerships interest or or regulations that are keeping them from doing it or so this isn't related to community power, but to answer your question, um we will be doing an RFP for solar on roofs this year, including the sol or including the two high schools and some other schools as well as some other city buildings.

The market and landscape for um renewable energy partnerships has shifted since um the retiring of the tax credits that uh made uh a PPA agreement with uh impact investor very favorable.

We're interested to see kind of how these projects are quoted to us, um, if there are impact investors that are interested, but we'll know more when we get that RFP out, kind of what the cost of solar is going to be.

Alderman Clee.

Uh thank you, um Madam President.

Um I have a question.

Obviously, with this um the increase in community power, national community power versus the Eversource, um, and the awareness that people are learning about opting out and so on.

I assume we're going to have probably since this summer we've probably seen a lot of people having opted out.

Is that gonna change your trajectory that you were talking about?

Building the reserves and so on.

Um obviously, if you have less people in the adder um, is it two cents?

Is that what the adder is?

Yeah.

Correct.

Yeah, that's a great point.

Uh so we we take this into consideration when we are setting rates and doing financial modeling and forecasting, and we have certain conservative assumptions about what we call customer attrition, which just means customers opting out.

Um so we have built that in.

We feel confident in our assumptions and that they are conservative.

Um, and we're we monitor that actively.

So if we need to adjust the volume we're purchasing as customer participation rates change, we could do that as well.

Thank you.

Alderman T Ball.

Thank you, Madam President.

I got a couple questions.

Um, first one is like about I think about a year ago, maybe maybe a year and a half ago, or just after we got on to this.

I had heard that Manchester was trying to negotiate to come on to uh community power.

Were they able to ever come on?

Uh Manchester has not implemented a program, nor are they a member of the community power coalition as of yet.

We've had a couple of presentations and discussions, but not um action to adopt membership or launch programs.

Um so is it with the the change in the rates being more uh expensive than Eversource?

Is it harder to bring a community on now during this time period?

Like is there nothing in the works?

Because I I I I assume that if you brought on something like Manchester, that would certainly help drive the cost down, correct?

There are economies of scale.

Volume is beneficial to the customers, particularly in the um the operating expense, the component that is a fixed operating expense, the larger the volume, the smaller that charge per customer.

Um and generally communities have a plan locally that says the program will not launch unless the rate meets or beats the utility, after which point we will strive to maintain competitiveness.

So there's not a mandate to always beat utility, understanding that you know markets change over time.

Um there is a portfolio of perhaps 10 plus communities that have gone through certain approvals at a city council or town meeting level and are awaiting the next advantageous time to launch, and we anticipate, you know, within the next year or two being positioned to bring them online as well.

One more and Tebo.

Thank you.

Um hopefully they're bigger than like Dixville Notch or or the smaller places in New Hampshire to help us out a little bit.

Um I'm not saying I'm not advocating for this at all, but what happens to community power coalition if Nashville just pulls out and says we're done?

Um yeah, it's a fair question.

So there is a um, you know, there would be a timeline.

That's not something that could happen overnight, um, but there would be sort of a managed process to ensure that the departure of Nashua from the program would not unfairly shift costs or obligations prior previously associated with Nashua onto other cities and towns.

So we have to manage that fairly.

Um and then what would occur is CBCNH would adjust our portfolio accordingly.

Nashua is the largest member.

That would be a considerable downsizing of the scale of the organization.

So it'd be a non-trivial event.

Um, but we would manage that.

I think as long as there are cities and towns that believe in the long-term vision of community power, we would work to serve them.

Okay.

Thank you.

All of them in the Senate.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um more of a procedural question than anything.

I think a lot of us in the room uh have shared, you know, the the rate adjustment with our constituents and you know, give them the option to um opt out.

Something I heard from a couple of folks is that um unlike a lot of things that you do digitally today, you know, you sign up for a newsletter or something like that, you get some sort of confirmation.

There was no real confirmation that once they made that switch, you know, no email to say, hey, you're switched over to Eversource or you're opted out.

Um is there anything like that that people should have received or something maybe they didn't click to receive that?

Because I Volcandor, I opted out, and I also did not get a confirmation of any sorts.

There should be confirmations and it could be a timing issue.

Do you know how when did you opt out?

May I ask?

About a week ago.

About a week ago.

So you should have received something.

We do, as Jackson mentioned, we're experiencing high volumes at this moment when you have rate announcements, you typically have higher volumes, particularly with this rate announcement.

Um we could take this back and follow up, but there is and should be an email confirmation.

Um, if that could be looked into because it it was more than a couple people that let me know that.

Yeah, that's valuable information, and we will certainly take that back in.

Um perhaps we could follow up with Doria or somebody to close the loop with your Yeah, and any any avenue that you have to get the information back to us would be great.

Thank you.

Waldman Morgan.

Um Thank you so much for taking the time to come back and explain this to us in a little more detail.

Um I wanted to just touch, I have two questions, but first I wanted to touch on one of your goals of modernizing the market.

Um and while this may not be an ideal situation for you, congratulations, you have done it to be able to drive Eversource to drop their rate by half is pretty big.

So I hope while you're looking at all of this scary numbers and in the financial forecasting, you take a moment to pat yourselves on the back and realize what you did accomplish.

It's huge.

Um so my question is uh two questions, answer them however you want.

What is the actual average dollar amount that we're talking about here?

When people are saying, well, I'm opting out to save money, that that's fear-based.

What is the actual dollar amount that we're talking about that they would save?

Uh I believe on a monthly basis the range for this coming rate period relative to Eversource is perhaps 17 to 20 dollars a month, and then getting some nods that that's accurate.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Um, second question, if I may.

Yes.

Um the second question is um could you talk a little bit about the reserves, the community um programs that you would be rolling out with the community audit and the coaching, what that would look like for your average customer?

I I might try to relay that to Doria if you like to speak to that.

So we are currently working on rolling out an energy coaching program here in Nashua.

Um it's funded from the adder, not the two cent adder now, um, the two-tenth of a cent adder from a few years ago.

Um and this program will be open to national community power customers.

The pilot will select uh a group of homeowners to receive energy coaching.

So a series of classes to teach them about energy efficiency as well as a free energy audit that will happen before the coaching occurs, and that the program will kind of walk them through how to make choices and obtain the most um efficient project list that's gonna give them the most bang for their buck.

Um, and on top of that, the program will provide additional rebates to homeowners who are participating in the program to help them get further along in paying for these energy efficiency projects.

And these rebates would be addition to the New Hampshire state rebates that already exist.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My question is I'd like to get see how this process started.

So when Nash was signed up with community power, how did we move all of the rate pays into this program to opt them in?

Yes, good question.

Um I'll start with the legislation which was originally on the books in the mid-90s, but was um uh required an update to make it effective.

And in 2019 and in 2021, based on uh lessons from states that had successful markets, uh the legislation was updated under a bipartisan basis.

Um that legislation provides for this process by which the city of Nashua's legislative body, you, the Board of Aldermen, um, may adopt a plan describing the details of the program and then submit that plan to the public utility commission, the state regulator for review and approval, and then the public utility commission has a 60-day period to review that plan and deem it uh compliant with state law.

So that occurred.

And um the law and then the administrative rules under the public utility commission um rules, the 2200 rules 220.

Um they lay out a process by which all customers must be notified at least 30 days prior to the launch of a program and commencement of service.

So that's a mailed notification.

Uh our partners at the utility companies through this regulated process, provide us with the mailing information for the customer base, issue mailed notifications to customers, provide them with a 30-day notice period, conduct public engagement and awareness campaigns, hold public information sessions, and allow for you know opt-outs.

Um after the noticing period concludes, um then there is uh the default enrollment where customers who take no action are automatically switched from the ever source supply into the new local uh national community power supply, and then any monthly and on a monthly basis thereafter, any customer can choose from either product.

They can opt into Eversource, they can opt back into community power, so it's establishing a new local default option.

I hope that answers the question.

Okay.

Alderman Johnson, yes.

Because I know several people have asked me because I used to sell Ambit Energy, and so there was a very rigorous process.

So if you sold it to them and they wanted the energy, there was a third party that called up to verify that you want to switch over, and then you would switch them that way.

So that's why I'm kind of confused because it's all done by legislation here that the government said that you could do this, but yet on a private sector end, if people are selling it, you can't do it unless there's a third party that verifies everything.

And and maybe to elaborate a little further.

So in the purpose statement, it's RSA 53E relative to aggregation of electric customers by municipalities and counties.

And there's a purpose statement at the stop at the top of that RSA that discusses you know the advantages of competitive markets in um creating more choice and driving costs down for customers and the value of uh local control and energy decisions.

Um so the thinking being um the competitive market has created great value for large customers, commercial customers, municipal customers that have a large load that can shop for good options that have a capacity to do that shopping, but for the mass market small residential base, they largely haven't seen those benefits from that new market competition.

Community power is a way to do that, where now they have a trusted aggregator, their municipality or whichever their provider might be that can you know work for their interests on their behalf and then use their collective buying power.

So I think it would be an interesting to just observe that the purpose statement in the legislature's thinking in the long-term value of uh sort of opening up local control in the market.

Thank you very much.

Alderman Table.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um just to be transparent, I work for Eversource.

Um I'm not in any kind of uh decision making, I work for uh to a product owner to uh improve the customer service IVR.

So I'm not in any decision making or any back to back room learning anything.

Um but can you explain a little bit about how um so it seemed like you guys came into the market and you've been in the market a few years that Eversource started to increase their delivery because obviously there's nothing out there that can help people bring their their delivery down, right?

Because it only comes through Eversource, and then they were able to bring their supply down uh under you guys and a lot of uh other third party suppliers.

Can you explain a little bit about how Eversource wasn't tapping into the same reserves you were as far as like the wholesale market?

And now they can, correct?

Did they go to the regulatory and then are now able to do that?

Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, that's a great question.

And I'll just note um I did hand up hand a document to Mayor Donchis a week ago with just a short half page blurb on this that could be worth referencing if that could be circulated.

But I this is a good point.

So prior to community power, utilities had a fairly simple and mechanical way to provide default supply, where every six months they would put out a bid.

Um some seller would provide them with a fixed price for a six month period.

They call it an all requirements contract.

But essentially it's just the supplier takes on all the risk, um, gives the utility a fixed price.

Utility doesn't have to worry about it or think about it, they just know they're gonna pay 12%, their customers are gonna pay 12 cents and they're gonna pass all that through.

Um that's different from say active participation in this power market or managing a portfolio.

What we have in the wholesale market is a very liquid real-time commodity market, essentially.

So it's prices change, uh, you know, five minute intervals, and um what organizations like suppliers or community power coalition do is they manage a portfolio of contracts.

They, you know, three-month, six month, twelve month blocks of power and are managing that portfolio actively.

So what Eversource did to change was rather than taking the fixed price contract, paying a risk premium to the supplier who's doing the managing, the regulators sort of change the approach, changed the rules, and said um rather than locking in a price, we're gonna direct utilities to set a proxy rate.

We're gonna say, Eversource, um forecast what you think your costs will be for six months, um, fix 50% of the residential portfolio in a fixed contract, and then float 50% on the spot market where prices are changing.

Um that proxy right rate, it might exactly cover their costs.

It might uh it might turn out that the spot market was a little more expensive and they might have an under collection, or maybe the spot market is lower than the rate and they and they would overcollect and verbatim credit.

But it sort of has it has created this space where utilities are um exposed to the volatile spot market and then reconciling an over or under collection into a next rate period.

If the if the rate doesn't exactly collect the costs, then they roll that for the next period or to the next period.

So I think there's about four million in Eversource under collections from some prior periods that they're still working with the regulators about putting that back in to the rates.

Um I uh anyway, that's that's some of the change, and I think there is that active discussion at a policy level of do is it a good thing to have utilities uh taking on spot market risk?

Um, do we want to increase that?

Do we want to reduce that?

Um I I hope that helps.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Alderman Clay.

Thank you.

I have two questions.

One that got triggered just by this comment here.

So if um Eversource has a four million dollar under collection, um at what point do they have to reconcile that?

Um, because that's my concern.

Can they hold this until they get rid of all the competition and then throw it back on us and now we're paying 22 cents a kilowatt hour.

This is one of the discussions that our regulatory legislative affairs team has been, you know, we've been filing testimony or before the public utility commission were registered in those dockets and legal proceedings, advocating for community interests, and one of the I would say small victories was an order where the public utility commission concurred with our testimony to say utilities must reconcile under collections every six months and may only do that onto utility supply customers.

So at first the proposal was if there's an undercollection, let's charge the community power and market for it.

Let's sort of socialize it across non-everstore supply.

We were successful in defeating that proposal.

Uh and now we have been successful in saying these reconciliations can't continue in perpetuity.

There's a six month limit.

Um then I mean you could there's a nuance of there are some under collections from errors in billing systems versus under collections from the proxy rate didn't cover the market costs.

So there's different categories that might be treated differently, but that may be beyond this conversation.

Alderman Clee.

Thank you.

That still leaves me concerned that in six months they could fix the rate and it could jump.

So all those people who have opted out gone in there, but that's just my side comment.

The other question I had, and it may be as much for Dory, Doria as is anything.

Um you mentioned about the National Home Energy Audit program as part of program and project development.

Um if this gets offered and and so on, is this free to um the national community power option, or is there a fee for this?

And um, I did I I know you talked about that other program where uh the National Energy Coaching Program as it's written today um would be open to national community power customers to apply.

Um it would be free to participate in if they are chosen to be a part of the kind of inaugural group.

It's a trial program, so it won't be a a huge group of people who are chosen to participate.

Um it should be free, um, no additional cost.

You just have to be a Nashville community power customer because those who paid into the rate and paid into the adder should be able to benefit from the programming.

Yeah, thank you.

Um so you're saying that the National Home Energy Audit Program, just that one component will only be part of that coaching, at least at the beginning.

It would it would be the the program is currently called the Nashua Home Energy Coaching Program, um, and it includes a free energy audit.

Okay.

Um I I'm sorry to if I'm repeating too much, but the program will be open to national community power customers as it's written today.

Just one other quick question.

Um that does roll out.

Will there be a criteria of you?

I know you said people apply for it, there'd be a criteria that they have to have been in the program, in other words, national community power.

Because the the question I'm asking is there's probably a lot of people that are opting out.

We've heard from this horseshoe of those here.

If they decided to opt in when the rates change, is there an eligibility you have to be within the national community within a certain period of time?

We have not worked that out yet.

Um, but it's definitely a conversation that we're having for sure.

Um, especially in the aggregation committee, which will be meeting in February, March, and April of this year.

So that's a possibility of why people might want to stay in.

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else?

I had uh one more comment to make on an earlier question you had, just so let folks know that our contact center and we're working on integrating this into our iFrame, the portal I showed you earlier as well.

But we're we're encouraging folks that are opting out to sign up for rate information with the simple email address when they do that.

Uh therefore they will have notification when rates will hopefully become more competitive and maybe below the utility in the future so that they can have the information to be able to rejoin if that makes sense for them.

So we're trying to keep people that that we've informed.

Alderman Clee.

Thank you.

To to that end, I I did notice that they um they can get an email, but they're not everybody doesn't always have a lot of emails or read their emails and so on.

Um there was a um SMS component to it too, so they could get a text message, yeah.

In lieu of or in addition to so we're starting to we're we have that feature available and we're collecting information and we're going to roll out alerts.

We're still sort of in the testing phase before we start, you know, sending mass text messages, but something we're working on.

Thank you.

Anyone else have any questions?

No, I think that's it.

Appreciate you being here this evening.

Did you have more to add?

Uh no, just thank you for your time, and we'd be happy to continue the discussion in any format that's appropriate.

Um, and yeah, appreciate the opportunity to present.

Well, we appreciate you all being here and all the information.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Doria.

If you all have any questions for the community power folks, please feel free to email me.

I will make sure that all that information gets to them and help make sure your questions are answered.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um adjourn.

Motion is to adjourn.

Although oh, I have to do a roll call.

Would the clerk call the roll, please?

Sure.

Make sure I have this right.

Alderman Clee says yes.

Alderman Chess?

Yes.

Alderman Thibault?

Yes.

Alderman O'Brien?

Yes.

Alderman Dowd?

Yes.

Alderman Senate?

Yes.

Alderman Johnson?

Yes.

Alderman Morgan?

Yes.

And Alderman Wilshire.

Yes.

You have um nine yes.

That motion carries.

And we are adjourned at 801 PM.

Thank you, everyone.

Stay warm out there.

Thanks, Mayor.