Cross-party leadership from Bradley and Below helps NH take a big step forward on energy policy
ENERGY
It has been a dramatic legislative session for those who follow energy policy in New Hampshire. As the dust settles, one particularly consequential energy bill emerges from the scrum and made its way to the finish line at Governor Sununu’s desk.
The key energy bill of the session, House Bill 315, will catalyze serious gains in New Hampshire-based renewable energy development that directly benefits our cities, towns, counties and communities.
If HB 315 were a living thing, it would be a kind of happy Frankenstein. The bill was born an evil little monster whose effect would have been to kill New Hampshire’s community power market in its cradle. But as a result of cacophonous public backlash and a series of transformative surgeries (amendments) — including the Senate attaching language quintupling the size of renewable energy projects that public entities may develop under net metering — the bill was born again as the hero of New Hampshire energy policy.
Community power
As a result of substantial public pressure and an encouraging letter from the governor himself, House Science, Technology & Energy Committee Chairman Michael Vose, a Republican, partnered with Lebanon Assistant Mayor Clifton Below to amend HB 315 through a consensus building-stakeholder process. Below, longtime guru of New Hampshire energy legislation, is currently helping lead the formation of the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, a public nonprofit supporting cities and towns to launch community power programs.
The Vose-Below amendment transformed HB 315 from something that would have dismantled community power into something that clarified the regulatory process to ensure successful launch of this exciting new market with broad bipartisan stakeholder support.
Community power is New Hampshire’s last best chance to demonstrate that markets are still superior to state mandates and regulation when it comes to modern energy policy. It is a policy that gives municipalities and counties the local control to procure electricity from the competitive market on behalf of their residents and businesses that don’t choose a competitive supplier. Each city or town can choose for itself whether it wishes to prioritize minimizing short-term rates, developing local renewable energy projects or expanding innovative retail options for customers to adopt small-scale solar, storage or other energy technologies.
New Hampshire stands apart in New England when it comes to energy policy. We spend the least on energy efficiency. Our renewable energy goals under the Renewable Portfolio Standard are pathetically low compared to our neighbors. We do far less as a state to incentivize and subsidize clean energy.
The other New England states have embraced topdown regulation and mandates as their main tools to bend markets towards clean energy. With community power, New Hampshire has an opportunity to chart a path that relies instead on expanded market competition and local control as tools to enable the clean energy transformation.
Net metering expansion
After HB 315 emerged from the House floor a shiny symbol of must-pass energy legislation, Republican Sens. Kevin Avard and Jeb Bradley and Democratic Sen. David Watters saw an opportunity to use the bill to advance another energy issue that municipalities have been clamoring for for several years: net metering expansion.
The Senate amended HB 315 to quintuple the allowed size of renewable energy projects that can be developed via net metering by municipalities, counties, schools and other political subdivisions of the state from 1 megawatt to 5 megawatts. This policy is likely to result in significant development of renewable energy projects that power public facilities.
While the House initially called a committee of conference on the bill, throwing into question its chances of survival, Bradley, Below and other legislative champions rallied to hammer out yet another compromise, this time on Senate Bill 91, that ensured HB 315’s safe passage to Governor Sununu’s desk. There is some good bipartisan energy legislation in SB 91 as well, but that is another story.
Bradley and Below have an enduring history of crossparty energy leadership. Thanks largely to their leadership, alongside leadership in the corner office and that of Representative Vose on down to the grassroots, New Hampshire will be taking a key step forward on energy policy this session.
Henry Herndon is member services director of the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire.
