More than 20 local governments have sent a letter to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission seeking rules that would help them create community power programs.

Through such programs, the municipalities could purchase power on behalf of residents and businesses — something proponents say is to encourage use of renewable energy and lower costs to ratepayers.

Henry Herndon of Clean Energy New Hampshire helped draft the letter from a newly formed nonprofit, Community Power New Hampshire. It specifically asks the PUC to include cities and towns in the rulemaking process.

It also pleads: “We call on you to refrain from burdening use with heavy-handed regulations.

“Community power is a bipartisan and market-oriented approach to realizing a more innovative and sustainable energy system for our smaller customers, our cities and towns, and for our state as a whole,” the group wrote.

“It’s often not the cities and towns, that have limited resources and time, who are able to voice their perspective, and it’s really those communities whose perspective is most important when implementing these rules,” Herndon told New Hampshire Public Radio.

Some of the regulations that need to be hammered out include access to customer data and when these programs can buy power.

Communities, including Lebanon, Keene and Hanover, have plans in the works to set up community power programs next year.

Hanover, where April Salas is sustainability director, has a goal of transitioning to 100% renewable electricity by 2030.

Salas told NHPR the letter is the municipalities’ way of letting the PUC know that there’s interest across the state in making community power work.

“What we’re looking for is an equal playing field,” she said. “We should be given the same support as the investor-owned utilities or the large commercial customers that are able to do this on their own.”

Salas said she and others on the town’s electric aggregation committee are drafting a plan to present to voters for approval next town meeting.