Hannah Campbell

To whom it may concern, My name is Hannah Campbell and I’m a resident of Colebrook, NH and have lived in the North Country my entire life apart from attending the USAF Academy and then serving overseas as a Logistics Readiness Officer in the AF. I returned in 2016 to live and work in NH and am active with nonprofit work as President of our North Country Chamber of Commerce, Co-Chair of Coos Economic Development Corporation’s Advisory Committee, and member of the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund Committee. Our North Country’s economy is unlike the rest of the state, and I feel strongly that the rebates for heating homes with wood pellets should continue along with everything that this REF benefits. Our housing base and the efficiency of it, or lack thereof, is a topic that arises in nearly every meeting that I attend. I ask you to keep in mind what the REF has the potential to do for New Hampshire through the programs that it funds, especially if all these programs were promoted statewide in a meaningful way. I was a recipient of one of the residential grants when I installed wood pellets in my home in 2019 and speaking from experience, it has saved my husband and I thousands compared to oil in the last five years to heat my 3,500 SF home built in the 1880s. We also installed an indirect hot water tank connected to the boiler and decreased our electric bill over 30%. My home is similar to many in our state and without incentives like these rebates, people are held to the whim of the volatility of the fossil fuel pricing. Our state spends an enormous amount of money on fuel assistance which could be offset by more people converting their central heat to pellets, which are more stably priced because their cost relies on the pre-existing residual wood market. I am here in support of keeping the REF intact and more actively promoting the programs which it supports, particularly for the North Country. The reason that this bill is put forward is because the program was mismanaged and not promoted. Many people took advantage of these incentives when the funds were made available, and then periodically they would dry up and interest would fall off. Once the funds were available again, interest followed, although there was seemingly no promotion of their availability. It stands to reason that with proper promotion the program would be ever popular. REF rebate programs are important and have helped to grow the wood pellet boiler and bulk fuel business in NH, reducing dependence on imported oil and propane by millions of gallons (NH is second in the nation in its dependence on fossil heating fuels). Wood fuel in modern appliances is a local, renewable fuel and keeps millions of dollars annually circulating in the NH economy. NH DOE should fully allocate available funding to authorized programs every year so that the fund does not accumulate a wieldy balance, and the demand would greatly increase if the DOE did more to promote these programs. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of my testimony.