New Hampshire's Renewable Portfolio Standard – Part 3

In previous posts, I provided some introductory information about the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in NH, as well as specific information about Renewable Energy Credit (REC) trading and pricing. In this post, I take a closer look at the money flows in the RPS program and what it costs NH ratepayers.

                    

But first a quick review. Electricity providers in NH are required to source a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable energy (RE) sources by purchasing RECs generated by RE operations. There are different classes of RE and obligations for each class. RECs are a tradable commodity: their prices depend on supply and demand, which are driven by the various RPS requirements in each state. There is a upper limit on REC prices: as noted in my previous post, the Alternative Compliance Payment (ACP) sets a price cap on what the utilities are required to pay for each REC. If prices of RECs are above the ACP, the utilities are obligated to pay the ACP instead. When there is a shortage of REC in a specific class, their prices quickly rise to the ACP value set for that class; when a surplus occurs, REC prices can drop way below the ACP.

The flows of money (black) and RECs (green) within the RPS program are shown in the figure below. NH electricity suppliers, which include the four electrical utilities (Eversource (PSNH), Liberty, Unitil, and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative) as well as the competitive electricity suppliers (for example, Constellation and TransCanada Power, among many others), can purchase RECs from NH RE plants or from RE generators in other states, as long as the generators meet the NH class requirements and are registered with the NH Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for that class. Some utilities have entered long-term contracts with RE generators  to buy electricity and the associated RECs directly. An example is the power purchase agreement between Eversource/PSNH and the Berlin Biomass facility that was put into place in 2011. These power purchase agreements have to be approved by the PUC.

When there are insufficient RECs available to meet the various class requirements or if REC prices are higher than the NH ACP, electricity suppliers are obligated to pay the ACP to the PUC. These payments go into the Renewable Energy Fund, which is used to support RE projects in NH. These projects, in turn, generate more NH-based RECs, which can then be purchased by electricity suppliers in NH.

Ultimately, the RPS program is paid for by ratepayers or customers of the various electricity suppliers because all monies paid out by electricity suppliers, either to buy RECs or in ACP payments, are bundled into their overall costs, which then find their way into the rates that the supplier charges its customers or ratepayers.

The money for the RECs is paid directly to the RE generators and is a valuable source of revenue for them. The wholesale price for electricity in NE is typically about $30/MWh, so the additional revenue from RECs, which can range from $10 to $55/MWh, is a very important part of their income. In fact, most RE projects could not survive without the REC income and, for many, it comprises the larger part of their income.

These RECs are, in effect, subsidies for RE generation. It is these subsidies that cause opponents of the RPS a great deal of angst: they view these subsidies as picking winners and losers in the energy market – the winners are subsidized RE generators over fossil-fuel based losers. However, another way to view these subsidies is to consider that they provide stimulus for innovation. We all live our very modern and connected lives due to innovation that has been driven by public policy. Just think of improvements such as microprocessors, vaccines, and the internet, all of which had their origins in government-funded research that was paid by our tax dollars. The RPS is similar: it is a public policy that provides subsidies that allow innovation in the energy field to take place; once technological advancement has proceeded to a certain point, the new technologies can stand on their own merits and compete head-to-head with non-renewable technologies.

One hitch with RECs being a revenue source is that it complicates the wholesale markets for electricity. Revenue from RECs is often much greater than that from the sale of electricity: RE generators want to sell power, regardless of how low electricity rates drop, so that they can generate the associated RECs and earn that income. There are times when RE operations, especially the larger wind operations in New England, will bid into the electricity market at zero or even negative prices, just to earn the REC-based revenue. This can cause market distortions and complicate the economics for non-RE plants, such as nuclear, that are not similarly subsidized.

Let’s turn our attention to those ACP payments. As noted previously, when there are insufficient RECs available to meet the various class requirements or if prices are higher than the ACP, the utilities are obligated to pay the ACP. That money goes into the Renewable Energy Fund, which is used to supplement funding for RE generation by state and local governments, commercial and industrial enterprises, and smaller residential-based projects.

The Sustainable Energy Division of the PUC administers the Renewable Energy Fund and runs two types of programs: a rebate program and a grant program. The rebate program provides direct financial support for commercial, industrial, and residential projects involving the installation of solar photovoltaics (PV), solar hot water, and wood-pellet furnaces. The grant program is a competitive scheme for the installation of RE projects at commercial and industrial operations. There is a rigorous selection process to determine which projects receive funding. The focus of the grant programs changes depending on the particular RE needs. At the moment, the preference is for thermal and small hydropower projects because there are REC shortfalls in these classes and attention is required to get additional facilities up and running to generate more RECs. Funding and disbursement of funds through the rebate and grant programs are reported annually by the PUC. This makes for informative reading if you are interested in these matters.

As can be seen in the figure below, ACP payments fluctuate significantly from year to year depending on a host of issues, including the NH RE requirement (which can ramp up annually), REC prices in other states, eligibility of NH RECs in other states, the number of RE facilities coming online and adding their RECs to market, and operational issues, such as shutdowns at larger RE plants. The ACP payments are typically of the order of $1 to $4 million, but, in some years when there was a shortage of Class 1 RECs, they were very high: in 2013, the total ACPs were $17.5 million; in 2011, they exceeded $19 million. Over the past few years, those very high ACPs have abated as the shortage of Class I RECs has subsided.

I took a look at the most recent report of ACP payments and used the data, plus some calculations, to generate the table below. Based on 2015 retail sales of electricity and the prevailing ACP rates at that time, I calculated that if no RECs were available in any of the classes, the total ACP payable would have been ~$47 million. However, the actual ACP amount paid was only $4.2 million—9% of the maximum payable— which indicates that the electricity suppliers were able to source the difference (91% of their REC needs) from RE generators.

The data also show that, for Class I Thermal and Class IV, more than half of the RE obligation was met by paying the ACP. For the other classes, most RE obligations were met by purchasing RECs, indicating their ready availability, for the most part, in these classes. It is this shortage of Class I Thermal and Class IV RECs that has shifted the focus of the NH PUC Renewable Energy Fund to promoting and supporting thermal and small hydropower projects.

Information on the ACPs is readily available, but, interestingly, that for RECs and what the electricity suppliers pay for them is not. This information is considered confidential and only manifests in the rates that the suppliers charge. For a data geek like me, this is a little disappointing, as I think more transparency would be useful here: we could learn about the origins of the RECs being purchased and see how much is used to support in-state and out-of-state projects. This information would also allow us to determine exactly how much the RPS program costs NH ratepayers. As I noted previously, the extra money paid for RE in the form of RECs or ACPs is funded by rate payers via local electricity rates, but this begs the question: How much does the RPS plan cost NH rate payers? A key piece of information—the costs of the purchased RECs in the different classes—is missing.  

Although this information is not directly available, I made some assumptions, using  historical REC prices, and calculated that, in 2015, the costs of the ACP payments and REC were of the order of $40 million. This is 2.2% of the $1.8 billion that was paid for electricity by NH ratepayers (based on $160/MWh ($0.16/kWh) retail rate and 11 million MWh of electricity). This is in line with data calculated by the Berkeley Lab, which determined that RPS costs for NH were 2.7% in 2012 and rose to 3.2% in 2014.

My calculations were, however, carried out using the 2015 RE requirement of 8.9%.  As we climb up to the 2025 level of 24.8% RE, we can anticipate that costs will increase. Based on moderate electricity use and rate increases, I have calculated that, in 2025, the costs of RPS compliance will be a maximum of 8% of electricity rates, assuming only ACP payments, but are more likely to range from 3% to 5%, depending on the availability and pricing of RECs over the next eight years. 

This post has taken a look at money flows in the RPS program and seen how ratepayers ultimately subsidize RE projects through their electricity suppliers purchasing RECs and paying the ACPs. The program presently adds about 3% to NH electricity rates, but it can be viewed as an important stimulus for innovation of RE sources as we, over time, deplete our resources of fossil fuels.

In the meantime, do your bit to reduce our needs for both renewable and fossil fuel-generated electricity by remembering to turn off the lights when you leave the room.

Mike Mooiman

Franklin Pierce University

mooimanm@franklinpierce.edu

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New Hampshire’s Renewable Portfolio Standard – Part 1

Just like the regular attempts to repeal New Hampshire’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, there are perennial attacks on the NH Renewable Portfolio Standard. It is important to know about these programs so that the associated debates can be fact-based. In my next couple of posts, I have assembled information on the Renewable Portfolio Standard and how it impacts NH. This post presents some general information; in follow up posts, I will dig into the details, money flows, and costs of these programs.

A Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is a mandate by a government, local or state, that requires electrical utilities to source a certain amount of their electricity supply from renewable energy sources. The intent of an RPS is to promote and subsidize the use of renewable energy sources such as those produced by natural processes such as solar, wind, hydro, ocean, biomass, or geothermal sources. The use of renewable energy decreases the burning of fossil fuels, which, in turn, reduces emissions of greenhouse gases and other associated pollutants. In the process, it improves public health, uses local natural resources, and creates local business opportunities and jobs.

Most states already have an RPS in place: by April 2017, 29 states had a mandated RPS program, eight had renewable energy goals, and only 13 did not have any renewable energy requirements. The map below shows the RPS status across the US. The site from which I copied this information, the National Conference of State Legislatures, has a very useful interactive map that provides specific information for each state. Each state has different regulations and requirements for their RPS programs. The most ambitious is Hawaii, which mandates that 100% of their energy needs will be generated by renewable sources by 2045.

 Source:NCSL

New Hampshire’s RPS was implemented in 2007. Its main components are as follows:

• By 2025, 24.8% of electricity sold in NH must come from renewable energy sources;
• Four classes of renewable energy sources are considered;
• Sourcing of renewable energy by electricity suppliers is demonstrated by the purchase of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) in each of the classes;
• An alternative compliance payment has been established for each class to provide a cost cap on  REC prices;
• The total amount of renewable energy increases each year: from 4% in 2008 to 24.8% in 2025 (although adjustments in the total amount and amounts in each class can be —and have been— made to accommodate market conditions).

The four NH classes of renewable energy are shown in the figure below. Classes I and II refer to newer renewable energy technologies and operations that have been commissioned since 2006. Class II is a special carve out for solar power. Classes III and IV are for the older biomass and smaller hydro operations that were established before the end of 2005.

The implementation of an RPS occurs through the generation, sale, and purchase of renewable energy credits, RECs.  A REC is a digital certification that the particular generator has produced 1 megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity from a renewable energy source, such as those listed above. Each megawatt of renewable electricity gets assigned a unique certificate number and a date of production and it then becomes a tradable instrument - a REC that can be bought and sold like a stock or bond. They give renewable generators two products to sell: the actual electricity that they produce and the RECs. The RECs therefore provide an extra revenue stream – in effect, a subsidy – for renewable energy generation.

RECs are issued and tracked by the New England Power Pool Generation Information System (NEPOOL GIS) and there is a regional market for these certificates. The sellers are generators of renewable energy and the buyers are usually electricity suppliers, like Eversource, that are looking to comply with the RPS program. Like any other market, there are supply and demand aspects and, should there be a shortage due to insufficient renewable generation, REC prices go up, signaling to the market that more RE sources are required. It is important to note that the price of RECs has little correlation with the price of electricity: REC prices are set by supply and demand in the markets where they are traded. The supply is set by the amount of renewable energy that is generated and the demand by the amount of renewable energy the utilities are required to source, which, in turn, is dictated by different RPS regulations in each state.

To comply with the RPS, the NH electricity suppliers, utilities (such as Eversource), and competitive suppliers (such as Constellation) are required to purchase a sufficient number of RECs to match their renewable energy obligations in each class for any particular year. This demonstrates that the required portion of their supplied electricity is generated by renewable energy sources. NH is a deregulated state, so utilities are not allowed to own power plants, even renewable ones: they must therefore meet their renewable energy requirement by purchasing RECs that are generated by non-affiliated renewable energy generators.

REC prices can fluctuate with changing demand and supply; in the case of short supply and/or high demand, prices can escalate so a price-cap mechanism has been built into the program. This is known as the Alternative Compliance Payment (ACP). It sets an upper limit on what the utilities are required to pay for each REC. If prices of RECs are above the ACP, the utilities are obligated to pay the ACP instead. A table of recent ACP prices published by the NH Public Utilities Commission is provided below, showing a separate ACP for each class of renewable energy. Adjustments in the ACP are made from year to year, depending on the rate of inflation and legislative modifications to the RPS program.

Before wrapping up this introductory post, I thought it would be useful to get a sense of what is involved in producing 1 MWh of electricity from a renewable energy source, which is the requirement to produce a single REC. One megawatt hour (MWh) is equivalent to 1000 kilowatt hours (kWh), which represents approximately six weeks of electricity use in an average NH home (assuming a monthly use of 600 kWh). This is also the approximate amount of electricity that a three-panel solar array, rated at 0.75 kW, would produce in one year. Most residential solar systems are larger, ranging from 2 to 5 kW, and produce ~2 to 7 MWh/year, or 2 to 7 RECs per year. At the other end of the scale, the Lempster wind operation,  which has 24 wind turbines each rated at 2 MW, would generate ~105,000 RECs per year (assuming a 25% capacity factor).

Having covered some introductory information about the RPS program, such as the different classes, RECs, and the ACP, I will turn my attention in my next posts to the renewable energy quotas for each class, REC pricing, and the money flow in the RPS program. Until then, reduce your need for both fossil and renewable energy by turning off the lights when you leave the room.

Mike Mooiman

Franklin Pierce University

mooimanm@franklinpierce.edu

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Back Home* – Electricity Prices After the Mild Winter of 2015/2016

After a year away on my sabbatical in Botswana where I spent my time researching off-grid solar systems and learning about energy challenges in Southern Africa, I have returned home and am back to teaching and doing research at Franklin Pierce University. My time in Botswana was interesting, complicated, frustrating, and ultimately very rewarding. I had the opportunity to meet some very interesting people, I visited solar installations in some very unique and remote places, and was involved in the installation of a 20 kW photovoltaic system in a village just outside of Gaborone, the capital of the country. During my time in Botswana, I developed a far more nuanced understanding of the challenges associated with energy supply and demand in the developing world and learned to appreciate the reliable and inexpensive electricity and water supplies we have here in the US.  

Even though I plan to continue my interest in Southern African energy matters, I am now focusing again on NH energy issues. I thought it would be fitting to start where I left off a year ago and take a look at electricity prices and what the future might hold, especially after the mild weather experienced in New England last winter.

When looking at electricity prices, I always start by looking at wholesale prices. We have a very dynamic market for electricity in New England because we have a formal and well-run market organized by the independent system operator in New England, ISO-NE. (See my blog Extraordinary Machine to learn more.) We have 350 generators of electricity bidding to sell their electricity into the market. This includes nuclear power plants, coal, natural gas- and biomass-fired operations, as well as wind, solar, and hydro. This all makes for an interesting and dynamic market.

The figure below shows historical wholesale prices for electricity going back to 2010. It is interesting to note that, after three winters of spiking electricity prices, prices were very calm this past winter. This resulted from several factors.

Source: EIA

 First and most important, it was a mild winter – some have called it the winter that wasn’t (while I was away in Africa, my snow blower only received one workout). A good indication of how mild the winter was comes from examining the heating degree days (HDDs) (see A Hundred and Ten in the Shade for an explanation of heating degree days). The chart below shows HDDs for the past 12 years. We normally experience about 7000 HDD over a year (July to June) in NH and 6000 for the whole of NE; this past year, the values were ~15% lower, with values of 6000 and 5300, respectively. That was indeed a whole lot warmer, but I was taken by surprise that the HDD values for 2012/13 indicated an even warmer winter that year. Like many other folks, I tend have a short memory about past winters, except when they are extreme, but the data show that the winter of 2012/13 was the warmest in the past 12 years – at least as measured by HDDs values. An examination of the wholesale prices for that winter in the figure above shows some daily prices spikes, but nothing to the degree we experienced in the following three winters.

Source: ISO-NE

The other key driver for low electricity prices is low natural gas prices. Over the past winter, ~55% of the electricity produced in New England was from natural gas: as a result, natural gas prices had a big impact on what we paid for electricity. The two big uses of natural gas in NE are for home heating and electricity production. With the mild winter, there was enough natural gas to go around for both heating and generation. Daily prices did not spike, which was quite different from previous years. The figure below shows the extraordinarily tight correlation between natural gas prices and electricity prices in NE – when natural gas prices spike so do electricity prices.

Source: ISO-NE

Wholesale prices for electricity are presently of the order of 2 c/kWh. This is great, but what are the implications for us as retail electricity customers? Well, less positive than we would like. In NH this past winter, retail electricity prices were in the region of 18c/kWh, almost 9 times the wholesale rate, as shown in the figure below.

Source: EIA

It is important to appreciate that wholesale electricity prices are a small component of what we, as rate payers, shell out for electricity. Baked into the retail rates are a host of charges: there are charges to pay for the transmission and distribution networks; there are long-term contracts that the utilities have entered to purchase electricity (most likely at higher than 2 c/kWh); there are overheads, salaries for the utility company employees, etc.; and, in the case of Eversource, there is the cost of operating their generating facilities – which produce electricity for a whole lot more than 2 c/kWh. On top of this is the profit that the regulated utilities are allowed to earn on their investment in infrastructure. It is a long list of costs and additional charges that gets us all the way from 2 to 18 c/kWh and well worth a closer look in a future blog. It turns out that the utilities from which we buy our electricity end up buying a relatively small portion of their electricity from the wholesale market – a lot of their supply is from long-term contracts that they signed up for years ago. Of course, when wholesale prices are low we don’t like this but, when prices spike up to 45 c/kWh, as they did in the winter of 2013/14, we are quite grateful that our electricity suppliers have locked into lower cost long-term contracts.

Despite last year’s mild winter weather, if this upcoming winter were to be a very cold one, we should expect to see spikes in both natural gas prices and wholesale electricity rates that will impact what we pay for electricity. ISO-NE has taken some important steps in New England to mitigate these spikes through their winter reliability program and by increasing storage of liquefied natural gas, but we have not taken any steps to significantly increase natural gas supply. If we have a very cold winter again, we will see price spikes and then we will go through another round of handwringing and planning for increasing natural gas supply. The truth of the matter is that we do not have a long-term view about our energy supply here in New England. Plans to increase natural gas supply have been scuttled due to opposition or our desire to have the pipeline companies take all the risk. These are both good reasons for not increasing supply, but we must bear in mind that most existing energy infrastructure in the US has been built with some government intervention via regulated monopolies. Ultimately, every one of those infrastructure investments impacted somebody somewhere. If we do not want to invest in energy efficiency, we as energy consumers will end up paying in one of two ways: we will pay for infrastructure investments through costs and direct impacts on our property, our environment, and way of life, or we will suffer the consequences of not investing in infrastructure and creating unreliable supply conditions. Ultimately, it is our choice.

I like to take a look at what the futures markets are predicting for NE electricity prices and, even though futures markets are about looking forward, I also like to look back at their prices from the previous year and see how things have changed, especially with the warm winter we had. The figure below is a comparison of the future prices from last year with those at present. It is clear that there has been some change in the market’s view of upcoming electricity prices. As usual, we are seeing a market forecast of winter price spikes, but, compared with last year, the spikes are smaller and the base-line prices are also lower. This chart also gives one a sense of the challenges the utility companies face as they look to lock in sufficient electricity to supply us over the coming years. Do they secure long-term higher-priced electricity contracts, do they subject us to the whims of the short-term markets and maybe prices won’t spike again like last winter, or do they mitigate potential price spikes by buying insurance through futures contracts. These are important and challenging decisions that the utilities make under regulatory supervision because ultimately it is NH ratepayers that end up paying for whatever choice they make. What would you do?

Source: CME

As we consider the consequences of choices, I am going to wrap up this data-heavy post with an updated chart for default electricity rates for the four NH regulated electricity utilities. (Remember that default rates only reflect the retail costs of electricity and do not include the distribution costs.) These rates, shown below, are a direct reflection of the choices the utilities have made, under regulatory mandates, regarding the sourcing of electricity. Presently, PSNH default rates are substantially higher than those of Liberty, Unitil, and the NH Electric Cooperative. The rates for PSNH presently reflect the high costs associated with operating their own generation facilities, including the coal-fired Merrimack power plant. Even though there have been times that the rates for the other utilities have been higher than those for PSNH (due to wholesale market price spikes), their default rates have generally been lower. Now that the divestiture of the PSNH generating assets has finally started, it will be interesting to follow how PSNH’s rates in the future will compare with those of the other NH utilities.

Source: NH PUC

That wraps it up for this post. It is good to be back teaching in NH and learning about statewide energy matters. Feel free to email me to suggest topics for future blogs and, in the meantime, remember to turn off the lights when you leave the room.

Mike Mooiman

Franklin Pierce University

mooimanm@franklinpierce.edu

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*Back Home A great upbeat singalong tune by Andy Grammar. 

Next Year* - New Hampshire Electricity Price Update

While we are all enjoying the fine summer weather, I thought it would be useful to take a look back at electricity rates for this past winter and to think about what the coming winter might hold for us. Before we get into this topic, however, I need to note that this will be my last blog on New Hampshire energy issues for the next year. I am heading off to Botswana, Southern Africa, as a Fulbright scholar, where I will be studying energy matters in Botswana, with a particular focus on the solar energy field and storage technologies. As you can imagine, the energy issues in a developing country are quite different. Here in NH, we are all used to reliable, inexpensive electricity whereas, in Africa, two-thirds of the population do not even have access to electricity, it can be very expensive, and, when available, it is often not reliable. In NH, we sometimes seem intent on blocking the development of any energy projects, whereas in Africa energy infrastructure development is welcomed, encouraged, and supported. The energy field and the associated issues will be quite different and I am looking forward to learning more. While down in Southern Africa, I will be firing up a new blog, titled Energy in Botswana, so if you are interested in following my energy explorations in this part of the world, drop me an email and I will put you on a notification list. But back to NH energy matters…

In my last blog on electricity rates in NH, Gonna Take You Higher, I noted the following:

• Wholesale prices (and thus retail prices) for electricity during the 2013/2014 winter increased due to natural gas pipeline constraints.
• The three deregulated utilities—NH Electric Co-op, Unitil, and Liberty Utilities— substantially increased in their winter default service rates, with price increases ranging from 60 to 75%.
• PSNH rates only increased by 4% and they ended up with the lowest rates in the state.
• The increases were due to the fact that Unitil and Liberty Utilities were compelled to lock in electricity prices from the short-term 2014/2015 futures market for electricity where prices had skyrocketed due to the high prices of the 2013/2014 wholesale market.
• I made the recommendation that the utilities should not be restricted to purchasing their future electricity supply to just six months out and that they be allowed to adopt a portfolio approach of both long- and short-term electricity supply agreements to mitigate the effects of short-term price spikes.

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what actually happened over the winter and what has happened since then.

As shown in the figure below, wholesale electricity prices did spike over the winter but nowhere near the frequency, duration, or magnitude of the previous winter. Peak prices were even lower than those of the 2012/2013 winter.

Data Source: EIA

Compared with the previous two winters, prices increases this year were moderate and actual wholesale rates were lower than the futures prices at the start of the season. In October 2014, futures prices for the winter peak in January and February were ~18 c/kWh (see Gonna Take You Higher).  In January and February 2015, although the wholesale market prices peaked at ~12 c/kWh for January and 20 c/kWh for February, the daily averages for those months were a lot lower—at 8.7 and 13.7 c/kWh, respectively.

This means that when  the electrical utilities bought electricity on the futures market, it is likely they overpaid relative to actual day-ahead wholesale prices. However, this the essence of hedging (or locking in) the price of a commodity ahead of the time you actually need it:  if actual prices turn out to be lower, you end up overpaying, but, if prices end up higher, you are very pleased. Hedging is just like paying for insurance – you pay a premium to protect yourself: it is not about getting the lowest possible price; rather, it is about reducing risk and avoiding exposure to excessive price increases.

After those very large winter increases, the summer default rates plummeted and the three deregulated utilities ended up with rates lower than that of PSNH, which again had the highest rates in the state. The figure below gives an historical record of the default rates for the four NH electrical utilities.

Data Source: Courtesy of NH PUC

Futures prices for electricity for the upcoming winter are currently pretty low compared with those of years past (see the figure below).  The futures markets indicate prices of the order of 12 c/kWh for the Jan/Feb 2016 winter peak, with further decreases expected in the following winters. These lower futures prices are most likely a reflection of the changes that we are seeing in the New England electricity market. The local electricity supply coordinator, ISO-NE, has worked hard to mitigate the extent and duration of the winter spikes by implementing a winter reliability program in which owners of oil-based generating facilities and liquefied natural gas storage operations are paid to store fuel. This ensures a reliable and predicable backup supply of alternative fuels to generate electricity should there be bottlenecks in the natural gas supply from pipelines. 

Data Source: CME

My predictions for electricity rates for the next few years are that we will continue to see short-term winter spikes due to natural gas pipeline congestion during high demand periods but that these spikes will moderate over time as ISO-NE expands and improves its winter reliability program, as some the natural gas pipeline projects get implemented, and as more Canadian hydro power makes its way down to New England.

Since the deregulation of electricity supply in NH, customers are no longer compelled to purchase their electricity from their default provider. Given the big fluctuations in default energy rates and the availability of competitive suppliers, I thought it would be interesting to look at how customers have responded – are they flocking to competitive suppliers or are they staying with their default utility? I took a look at the customer migration numbers for PSNH – the largest NH utility. The chart below shows data for the past three years. The data in orange show that, from about July 2012, the number of residential customers purchasing their electricity from competitive suppliers started to accelerate, and this trend really kicked in in the first quarter of 2013 when there was big movement of customers to competitive suppliers. The numbers reached a peak at the end of 2013, when approximately 28% of PSNH residential electricity customers were supplied by other companies. Since then, there has been a slow decrease and, presently, some 20% of the electricity supply to residences comes from competitive suppliers. The data in blue, which is for all PSNH customers (including small and large commercial and industrial enterprises), show that, in October 2013, almost 60% of all electricity distributed by PSNH came from competitive supplies. The numbers have fluctuated since then but, this past winter, this number fell below 40%, corresponding to a big migration back to PSNH due to their lower default rates. There is now a slow movement away from PSNH again, as lower summer rates begin to appear attractive to the commercial and industrial enterprises. 

Data Source: NH PUC

Some months ago I wrote about a website called shopenergyplans.com, which allows you to compare electricity costs from competitive suppliers in your service area. At that time, shopenergyplan.com was only presenting information for suppliers who agreed to have their rates posted. Shopenergyplans.com has advanced since then and now provides details for a larger number of competitive suppliers. In my last blog on this topic, I noted that rates for only three competitive suppliers were listed for the Manchester service area. Yesterday, I noted that are now seven different suppliers listed, with 40 different plans, ranging from 1 to 36 months, and including various renewable energy sources. A few weeks ago, shopenergyplans.com notified me of two electricity supply plans from competitive suppliers offering lower rates in the PSNH service area. This website is a good place to start if you are considering looking for a competitive supplier but I caution you to do your research and make sure that you understand the contract terms – remember that there can be costs for switching and the competitive suppliers can shunt you back to the service utility in your area at their discretion.

As I noted at the start, this will be my last blog until I return next year.* If you are interested in following my energy adventures down in Botswana, please drop me a note at my email address below. In the meantime, thank you for your interest in my work. Keep in touch, let me know what is happening in NH while I am away, and remember to turn off the lights when you leave the room.

Mike Mooiman

Franklin Pierce University

mooimanm@franklinpierce.edu

Click on this link to receive email notifications for Energy in New Hampshire updates

(*Next Year - A very appropriate song by the Foo Fighters featuring the ubiquitous Dave Grohl. Great video too. Enjoy Next Year.)