Francestown has joined the growing number of New Hampshire cities and towns launching a community power program.

Community power allows towns to pool residents’ buying power to purchase electricity from a supplier at a discounted rate, potentially lowering their costs and providing options to receive more energy from renewable sources. The program would affect all Francestown residents currently served by Eversource. The Francestown Community Power Committee (FCPC) began meeting in August, and includes Sue Jonas, Jim Pietrovito, Jim Tovey, Ari Levine, Ben Pollack and Kevin Pobst.  Levine, who helped with Harrisville’s community power initiative prior to moving to Francestown, was selected as committee chair.

The FCPC has held three public hearings with potential energy suppliers. On Nov. 29, they heard a presentation by  the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH), a nonprofit coalition created to support cities and towns in implementing community power initiatives. CPCNH currently includes 35 towns and cities and one county. On Dec. 13, FCPC hosted a hearing with Standard Power, another power supplier, followed by a hearing on Dec. 14 with Freedom Energy. Standard and Freedom are both private energy brokers. 

“The committee has been working diligently, with the aid of the town manager and constant support from the Select Board, to bring community power to Francestown. We’ve had 10 to 20 people at each of our public information sessions, and people have asked really good and probing questions. People are very engaged,” said Levine.

The FCPC will meet in January to evaluate the three options and select a supplier. The committee will then draft a warrant article to present to Town Meeting, which would vote on whether to authorize Francestown to move ahead with community power. 

In September, the FCPC administered a survey to Francestown residents asking for feedback about the possibility of the town joining community power. The survey, which was completed by 129 households, indicated “overwhelming support” for developing community power in Francestown, according to Levine. The FCPC notes that “in the absence of customer aggregation electricity, consumers in New Hampshire pay the fifth-highest rates in the nation.” While all Eversource customers in Francestown would be automatically enrolled in community power if the town adopts the program, residents can opt out at any time with no penalty.

Eversource would continue to maintain power lines, provide communication in case of outages and provide billing and support.

In the Monadnock region, Greenfield and Bennington are also in the process of creating warrant articles regarding community power. Peterborough, Hancock, Dublin, Fitzwilliam, Nelson and Wilton have already launched programs. 

The FCPC will hold additional public hearings in January and February in advance of Town Meeting in March.

All residents are encouraged to attend and learn more or share feedback or concerns. For information, visit francestownnh.org/community-power-committee or communitypowernh.gov.