Henry Herndon

HB 760 protects the market from the anti-competitive threat posed by regulators and utilities to shift utility supply costs to all customers through compulsory stranded cost charges. Utility supply costs should not be shifted onto the delivery side of the bill. Analogy: A business sells a product on Amazon.com, and Amazon sells a similar product. But what if Amazon sold its product at below cost, and made up the losses by increasing shipping fees associated with its competitor's product? That would be a clear anti-competitive abuse. This is essentially what regulators are proposing for utility energy supply. The Public Utilities Commission is directing utilities to take on 30-100% commodity market price exposure over the next year, while proposing any cost overruns be recovered through charges paid by all customers. Shifting utility supply costs into stranded cost charges would force Competitive Supply & Community Power customers to subsidize utility supply cost overruns. The cost shifting proposal is anti-competitive and would undermine NH’s competitive electric market by making it impossible for 3rd parties and Community Power to compete on a level playing field. HB 760 would ensure any over- or under-collections associated with utility market exposure will be borne by utility supply customers.