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Hampshire Council of Governments Files for Opt-Out Aggregation in Massachusetts
July 6, 2011
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The Hampshire Council of Governments has petitioned the Massachusetts DPU to form a municipal opt-out electric aggregation plan covering 22 cities and towns in National Grid and Western Massachusetts Electric Company.
The opt-out aggregation will include residential and small commercial customers. The Hampshire Council of Governments' application before the DPU did not specifically delineate the rate classes included, but in other municipal aggregations, the small commercial cutoff has followed the basic service small customer grouping.
Customers currently served by competitive suppliers will not be included in the aggregation.
Initially, the Hampshire Council of Governments will bid out the supply to competitive suppliers, but eventually plans to serve the load itself through participation in the ISO New England wholesale electricity markets.
Eventually, the Hampshire Council of Governments plans to offer a rate reflective of wholesale market prices, similar to its current real-time billing plan offered to customers under an opt-in basis under its Hampshire Power unit. The Hampshire Council of Governments also plans to offer fixed and renewable alternatives to aggregation customers.
The aggregation is expected to cover about 32,000 customers across the 22 municipalities. The average estimated monthly load in the aggregation is 25.6 million kWh.
The Hampshire Council of Governments, through its Hampshire Power unit, currently supplies electricity to 100 municipal and business customers, including 55 town governments and 24 school, water, and fire districts, one state agency (Fish & Wildlife), and several non-profits and businesses.
Hampshire Power is advised by Energy New England, which is owned by the municipal light plants in Braintree, Concord, Hingham, Taunton, and Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative.
The Hampshire Council of Governments' aggregation plan is designed to take into account the potential for several municipalities to create municipal light plants under the WiredWest initiative, which is primarily focused on expanding broadband telecommunications service through the use of the municipal light plant designation available under law. It is not expected that the WiredWest towns will seek to supply electricity to customers, and the Hampshire Council of Governments would act as the energy purchaser for any towns which create a municipal light plant for broadband purposes, essentially providing the same service as it does under the opt-out aggregation.
Participating towns in the Hampshire Council of Governments' opt-out aggregation plan include Belchertown, Buckland, Chesterfield, Cummington, Deerfield, Gill, Goshen, Granby, Hadley, Hatfield, Huntington, Leverett, Middlefield, Montague, Northfield, Pelham, Plainfield, Rowe, Southampton, Westhampton, and Williamsburg, as well as the City of Easthampton.
With the exception of Belchertown, Goshen, Granby, Rowe, and Williamsburg, which are in National Grid, all towns are in WMECO.
Current opt-out aggregations in Massachusetts include the Cape Light Compact and the City of Marlborough. The Town of Lunenburg also has a pending aggregation plan before the DPU.
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