Finance Committee and Selectboard Meeting - Community Room

The Town of Charlestown is hosting two Public Hearings on the draft Charlestown  Community Power plan on January 9 at 6pm and January 16 at 6:30pm inthe Community Room

Residents and taxpayers are encouraged to attend to learn about the proposed plan to create Charlestown  Community Power. The aim of the program is to help electricity customers save money on the supply of their electricity. The public hearings are part of the preparations for bringing a warrant article on Charlestown  Community Power to Town meeting in the spring. 

Earlier this year, the Charlestown Selectboard established the Charlestown  Community Power Electric Aggregation Committee to pursue potential electric cost savings for residents and taxpayers that may come from electricity aggregation under RSA 53-E, also known as the Community Power Law.

In enacting RSA 53-E, the New Hampshire legislature found it to be in the public interest to allow municipalities to aggregate retail electric customers in order to reduce electric costs and encourage innovative solutions to local energy needs.

The Committee’s mission is to recommend an entity to facilitate the Charlestown  Community Power program and to draft an Charlestown  Community Power Plan (also referred to as an Electric Aggregation Plan). At the recommendation of the Committee, the Charlestown Selectboard voted to join the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, a nonprofit power supplier created by New Hampshire cities and towns to share resources and maximize the benefits and savings of community power programs statewide.

Under Community Power programs, electric distribution utilities continue to own and operate and maintain the power lines and infrastructure while local communities gain control over the cost of their energy and where it is sourced from.

Information about Community Power programs is available at www.CommunityPowerNH.gov and www.cpcnh.org.