Community Power Survey

Press Release, 9-20-2023

Contact:

Ari Levine, FCPC Chair, adl08046@gmail.com

 or

Jamie Pike, Town Administrator, selectmensoffice@francestownnh.org

 

 

 

As Francestown’s Community Power Committee (FCPC) prepares a warrant article for Town Meeting 2024, the FCPC is seeking input from all town residents. A first step in gathering residents’ preferences, ideas, and questions is a survey that will be mailed to all households the first week of October. The questions in the survey are listed below along with instructions for responding to the survey.

 

In July the Francestown Select Board appointed a Community Power Committee to begin the process of empowering the town to negotiate with electricity suppliers on behalf of participating residents. The FCPC was charged to prepare a warrant article and an Energy Aggregation Plan spelling out the town’s energy goals. The warrant article will ask residents to authorize a committee to negotiate a Community Power agreement.

 

State laws passed in 2019 authorize towns to purchase electricity supply for participating residents and businesses by bundling the buying power of a town’s electricity customers and negotiating a price for the power they consume as well as the sources of the electricity generated.  As of this fall nearly two dozen towns in NH have either begun or are planning to implement Community Power with several Monadnock region towns and cities leading the way.

 

The CPC’s survey of residents seeks to determine what Francestownians want with respect to their electric service. Based on survey results the FCPC will formulate an Energy Aggregation Plan to articulate how the committee will proceed if the warrant article is approved. If the warrant article passes, the process to select an energy supplier would begin immediately. Individual homeowners who prefer to choose an electricity provider on their own would be able to “opt out” of participating in Community Power at any time without a penalty.

 

Instructions for completing the brief survey will be mailed to all town households in early October. Residents will be asked to complete a paper questionnaire and return it to the Town Offices, the Post Office, the Library, or the Village Store, or to go online to submit their responses. The online link is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N5V5MBZ. The CPC hopes for a high level of participation but, if necessary, the committee will go door-to-door in order to ensure that everyone who wants to be heard is given ample opportunity. 

 

The four questions on the survey are: 

1. How satisfied are you with your current electricity provider?

2. Would you support a community-led initiative to secure better rates and more local

control over our energy choices?

3. What do you value most in an electricity provider?

4. How would you like to stay informed about our community power exploration?

 

The FCPC members are Ari Levine (Chair), Sue Jonas, Jim Pietrovito, Jim Tovey, Ben Pollak, and Kevin Pobst.