The Intended Route

In August 2024 the Town of Wilmot selectboard voted to join the Merrimack County Community Power, which is a member of the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH). State law required only a vote of the selectboard and the county delegation to join the coalition. If the town had joined on its own, the decision would have required a warrant article.

As of October 2024, Wilmot residents began using electrical power purchased by the CPCNH. During the initial six-month rate period, the CPCNH rate was virtually identical to that of the New Hampshire Electrical Cooperative (NHEC), which serves almost all Wilmot residents.

Several people who were notified of the switch away from NHEC as a supplier immediately wished to opt out of membership in the coalition. They subsequently contacted the Wilmot selectboard office with complaints that the “opt out” process was not as simple as promised. The customer service representatives were reported to be confusing, ill-informed, and unhelpful, and some people had difficulty completing the process.

Reversing Course

At the end of 2024, the CPCNH announced new rates that were significantly higher than those of NHEC. While the coalition did not strictly promise their rates would always be lower, they prominently incorporated a pitch of “lower rates” into their promotional material.  In early January 2025 the Wilmot representative attended a CPCNH board of directors meeting and learned that since its launch in May 2023 the coalition had mismanaged its reserve fund, leaving it unable to offer lower rates than those of the utilities. During that meeting there were admissions of fault and recriminations all around. The CPCNH board’s market analysts expressed consternation that their advice had not been heeded. In the aftermath, the coalition’s CEO stepped down.

The Wilmot Community Power Committee met later that month and voted, based on the foregoing, to recommend that the selectboard withdraw from Merrimack County Community Power. The selectboard was unwilling to reverse their decision and instead suggested a warrant article put the question before the town.

In March 2025 at town meeting the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of withdrawing from the coalition. The selectboard informed Merrimack County Community Power of the town’s decision and the coalition began the process of reapportioning power that had already been purchased for Wilmot.

In May 2025 the coalition distributed a post card to Wilmot residents to inform them “as of your June meter reads, [you will] be returned to the NH Electrical Cooperative default energy supply rate option.”

The Future

When the Wilmot Community Power Committee decides to return to the coalition, it will be with the town as a full member, which will entail a great deal of public discussion and a vote at town meeting. At present there is no timetable for this course of action. 

Community Power Plan Committee

Main Points

1. Community Power purchases electricity on the open wholesale market, and the utilities (N.H. Electrical Cooperative and Eversource in Wilmot) continue to deliver it to your home, maintain the infrastructure, and bill you.
2. The bill will be lower because Community Power’s purchasing is less bound by regulations compared to the utilities. They can get a better price and pass it on to the consumer.
3. No one makes money buying and selling electricity. Utilities make their money in the fees they charge for distributing electricity. Consequently, Community Power does not eat into anyone’s bottom line.
4. Wilmot is presently part of Merrimack County Community Power. They are a member of the Coalition for Community Power in N.H. (CPCNH). For the Town of Wilmot to be a member on its own, the question will have to go to town meeting. That will not happen before March 2026.

Transition to Choice of Power Purchaser

The Town of Wilmot has joined Merrimack County in its membership to the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH). Everyone in town has now received a letter than explains that if you do not want to have the CPCNH buy electricity for you, you can opt out with a phone call or email before this transition occurs in October. 

Please note that the CPCNH promises to offer a lower rate than your existing provider. If it does not, you many opt out at any time, effective in the next monthly billing cycle.

If you opt out, then the NH Electrical Cooperative (NHEC) will continue to buy your electricity for you. Even if the CPCNH buys your electricity, the NHEC will continue to deliver your electricity and bill you for it.

Two things are changing:

(1) you now have a choice of two electrical power purchasers and

(2) if you choose CPCNH as your buyer, your electrical bill will be lower.

The town has opted to join CPCNH in order to reduce the price of electricity for its residents. We have watched as the cost of living in Wilmot has increased and are making an effort to keep it affordable to live here in any way we can.

For those who can afford to do so, the CPCNH has additional options for “greener” alternatives (higher percentage of renewable sources), if you so choose.

The Electricity Market

Electricity providers (utilities) once generated electricity at power plants and distributed it to customers through infrastructure that they owned. This was judged to be a form of monopoly by federal regulators and in many parts of the country this “vertical integration” was disassembled.

In the 1990s New England utilities began buying power from several different sources. By federal law, for-profit utilities must make power buying contracts with electricity generators on two days per year six months apart, regardless of the state of the market. Nonprofit utilities like the N.H. Electric Cooperative at not so tightly regulated, but they are more regulated than a nonprofit like the Coalition for Community Power of N.H. (CPCNH).

In 1996 RSA 53-E created the necessary legal framework for community power. However, it was an “opt in” system until 2022, when the N.H. legislature changed the law to make it an opt-out system. In the last two years CPCNH has added over 50 governments to its membership. Cities, towns, and two counties, including Merrimack County.

The central conceit is to aggregate many small energy consumers under one umbrella, so they can act as a single customer when they contract for energy services (i.e., analogous to a “buying club”).

• A municipal aggregator can build its own portfolio of energy sources and offer several different combinations to consumers. Some products may emphasize renewable energy while other may emphasize affordability.
• A municipality may choose to generate its own power to feed into the grid for distribution to its aggregate members, but this is not a required part of a community power plan. Wilmot could conceivably buy power from another municipality that generates its own.
• The energy distributor (mostly the N.H. Energy Cooperative, in our case) remains the same and continues to bill the aggregator customers.
• It is not required that a resident to join a municipal aggregate. A plan can be either opt-in or opt-out. If it goes forward as the latter, then all residents must receive by mail an invitation to opt-out.

2024 Update

After meeting several times in 2022, the Wilmot committee put on hold plans for a 2023 warrant article to request permission from voters to start buying electricity for them. Plans were put on hold because the Coalition for Community Power of N.H. (CPCNH) could not yet promise lower rates than the N.H. Electrical Cooperative, which serves nearly all Wilmot residents. 

In fall 2023 CPCNH informed us that they had grown enough and their credit had improved enough so that they could offer lower rates than any utility.  The committee finished its aggregation plan and geared up for a 2024 warrant article. Then in early winter 2023 Merrimack County announced it would be joining the CPCNH, which automatically allows any county resident to opt in, but also allows Wilmot to join the county and offer for opt-out plan.

In January 2024 the committee voted to join the CPCNH along with the county. If Wilmot resident appreciate the lower electricity rates and would like full benefits of CPCNH membership, including more autonomy in using reserve funds put aside from customer bill payments for local energy projects (e.g., efficiency technology or local generation of power), then we will pursue full membership for Wilmot.

Net metering

Wilmot residents who are selling power they product to their utility will not yet able to join CPCNH (i.e., may not opt in and must opt out when asked to join). The utilities are still working out how to manage the administrative parts of net metering and have not yet made it possible for net-meterers to sell their power to them but buy it from someone else. However, CPCNH is working with the utilities to find a solution to this problem. See the document below for more information.