Charles Willing

I support HB 760. The Public Utilities Commission is directing utilities to buy more power to serve the utilities’ energy customers from ISO New England markets, increasing their exposure to wholesale power price swings, while also proposing that any cost overruns be recovered through stranded cost or similar charges paid by all electric customers including those customers receiving power from community power programs and competitive electric suppliers. This is a cost-shift that would force community power and competitive supply customers to not only pay for their own energy supply but also 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 community power and competitive supply customers to compete on a level playing field with artificially low utility supply rates. HB 760 would ensure any over- or under-collections associated with utility market exposure will be borne by the utility’s energy supply customers, not shifted to community power and competitive supply customers. New Hampshire residents benefit from having energy supply choices with fair competition among the suppliers. HB 760 will foster a continuation of New Hampshire’s competitive market, leading to lower energy prices for New Hampshire residents.