By Francois Poisson
You would think that the City of Portsmouth would want to support Community Power, the promised solution to skyrocketing utility costs AND climate change.
Recall that Community Power is that scheme to kill two birds with one stone: provide City residents with cheaply priced electricity and use that most virtuous of all virtues, green energy. We have all received the promotional material telling us to “opt in” and sign up.
According to the Community Power plan, if you are an Eversource customer, you will automatically be entered to win! Just don’t “opt out!” That would mean Community Power captures you and converts you into their customer.
Their fear apparently is that if you do “opt out”, you will leave Eversource and go with another provider. Community Power would never capture you, nor would they get enough customers to make this work … for them.
Hear What the City Has to Say
Let’s listen in on the May 15, 2023, City Council Budget Work Session. Assistant Mayor Kelley posed a perfectly reasonable question to the Portsmouth Director of Public Works, Peter Rice:
“As we know, [that] we are, as a community, switching over to Community Power. Do we assume that we will see an overall reduction of electricity costs to maintain our facilities?”
As it turns out, Mr. Rice lets the cat out of the bag.
He says the City turned down its chance to support Community Power.
Instead, it found a cheaper and more reliable power source elsewhere.
“At this point, we’ve negotiated a 2-year agreement for electricity and natural gas.” (And oh, by the way, not with Community Power.)
“We did this in part because the Community Power isn’t standing up until June of this year. And also, we had to lock in for budgeting purposes.”
“We have the opportunity to watch how Community Power rolls out over the next years and if it’s appropriate and acceptable to the coalition, once we get to the time when we need to renew, instead of renewing, we can just opt into the system.”
“So it was, from a management standpoint, we believed that it was prudent to do it this way. Because we couldn’t wait, and we locked into a reasonable rate relative to the overall cost.”
In essence, Mr. Rice told City Council their Community Power darling wasn’t ready for prime time. So, the City nixed it. Maybe, once all the problems are worked out, Mr. Rice will consider Community Power. In a couple of years. Meanwhile, the City found something cheaper.
Here’s the reaction from the City Council:
Silence.
Then Councilor John Tabor, the major supporter and proponent of the virtuous Community Power scheme, helpfully chimed in that Peter was being “modest” and locked in 8 cents.
Rice responded (with nervous laughter?), “We’re at 11 cents now.”
If the City Refuses to Be a Sucker, Why Can’t You?
Check out available energy supplier plans at this link:
Residential Energy Comparisons
Note, this web page has alternative power suppliers listed if you are currently an Eversource customer. You can be as savvy as Peter Rice and avoid Community Power’s 16.9 cents per kilowatt-hour electricity.
You need to read the offerings carefully since some will charge you a fee to sign up or to cancel. Different plans run for different lengths of time. Direct Energy, as an example, offers plans without either a sign-up or cancellation fee.
There’s no reason you have to accept Eversource’s current rate of 20 cents per kilowatt-hour price or Community Power’s proposed 16 cents per kilowatt-hour rate.
Be Careful!
A word to the wise: Eversource is about to offer power at 12 cents per kilowatt-hour in another month or so. They want you to remain with Eversource or to switch back to Eversource. That way, you will be “caught” and you will automatically be switched to Community Power because you have chosen to “opt in” to Eversource.
Thank You, Mr. Tabor and City Council
Because Mr. Tabor is such a strong proponent of selling you relatively expensive energy at a high cost, he and his cronies (Community Power consultants and a steering committee of Eversource executives) managed to “sell” this package to the City Council a couple of months ago.
This spring, the City signed an agreement to be one of the initial supporters of this consortium, which means putting up the initial funding cash provided by YOU, THE TAXPAYER.
We appreciate Mr. Rice not signing up the City for Community Power’s expensive energy. It helps control the City’s expenses. He didn’t fall for the “climate change” tactic.
But the City Council did fall for the climate change tactic.
It has agreed to sign up Portsmouth to join Community Power as one of New Hampshire’s initial supporters. Once this was done, there were loud cheers in the smoky backrooms of politicians around the Granite State.
You see, Portsmouth is a plum target. Its “big city” structure of water and sewer utilities lends itself to giving Community Power the critical bureaucracy necessary for legitimacy and economies of scale.
Now, Community Power can spread its costs across the entire Portsmouth taxpayer community.
As Portsmouth taxpayers, we get to shoulder the start-up costs and initial personnel costs of Community Power so it can get organized and funded. All on our dime, thank you very much.
Fool Me Once, Shame on You
This ingenious operation, organized by cagey politicians like Councilor John Tabor, and shrewd consultants and industry experts from Eversource, is being sold to make us feel better. That’s the world of virtue signaling.
We get to pay for setting up this scam and some of us might feel virtuous.
But we don’t have to buy our power from these crooks. That would be:
Fool Me Twice.
Image Source: Portsmouth Community Power website
