Greenfield’s Community Power Committee voted to move forward with the process of identifying potential power suppliers Tuesday night.

“Our next step is to start doing the research and see who is out there, as far as power suppliers, and to see who might be interested in us,” said committee member Tom Bascom, the Select Board representative. The committee also includes Karen Day, Dan Walsh, Linda Dodge and Gil Morris. 

At the March 12 Town Meeting, Greenfield voters approved community power, enabling the town to negotiate aggregate electric rates for Greenfield customers currently served by Eversource, with the possibility of increased power from renewable sources. Both residential customers and small businesses are eligible to take part in community power. While Greenfield residents would be automatically enrolled in community power, households can opt out at any time with no penalty. 

Eversource will still provide customer service, maintenance of power lines and communications during power outages to customers enrolled in community power. 

Bascom reported on his recent meeting with the nonprofit Community Power Coalition (CPC) of New Hampshire, noting that that CPC’s nonprofit model, which is similar to a co-op,  enables them to keep rates down by using surplus revenues to subsidize rates if costs rise. 

“So far, they have kept their rates lower than all the public utilities. But they’re fairly new so they have not yet weathered a crisis, such as when the war in Ukraine broke out,” Bascom said. 

The committee has also met with a representative from Standard Power, an energy-brokerage company. 

After discussing the pros and cons of the information they have received from Standard Power and CPC, the committee voted to begin researching other potential suppliers and send out a request for proposals for the project. Bascom noted that “checking references” of potential suppliers is an important part of the research process. 

“The goal is hopefully we’ll get half a dozen suppliers to respond to the RFP,” Bascom said. “We need a minimum of two.” 

The Greenfield Community Power Committee will meet again on May 14. For information, go to greenfield-nh.gov/community-power-committee.