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Date: 12/6/2022
BELCHERTOWN – The aggregation plan for Belchertown Community Energy Choice was made available for public review and comments on Oct. 25 and a public hearing took place at the Nov. 28 Select Board meeting.
The Belchertown Community Energy Choice is a program in development by the Town’s Energy and Sustainability Committee to provide residents and businesses more electricity supply options and more renewable energy.
The goals of the plan will seek to provide long-term and predictable rates for electricity.
Good Energy was approved to partner with the town to help with authorizing a municipal aggregation draft.
Good Energy member Patrick Roche said savings compared to National Grid’s Basic Service rates cannot be guaranteed because future National Grid Basic Service rates are unknown.
The program will include standard and optional products that include more renewable energy.
The program offers different options for electricity supply so that everyone in Belchertown can find an option that fits their budget and climate goals.
There will be three options that residents can choose from: The Belchertown Basic, The Belchertown Standard and the Belchertown 100.
The state requires a certain percentage of renewable energy to be used for electricity.
The basic option will meet the minimum state renewable energy requirements of 51 percent.
The standard and default option plans to include 10 percent more renewable electricity and the Belchertown 100 plans to include additional renewable energy to total 100 percent renewable energy.
Roche added that the Community Energy Choice does not replace National Grid as electric utility.
National Grid will continue to deliver electricity, repair outages and manage all billing.
The program offers alternatives for the supply portion in your bill.
Select Board member Ed Boscher said that most residents would be automatically enrolled into the program.
Select Board Chair Jim Barry and Roche said you can opt out before or during your enrollment with no penalty.
Barry and Roche added that the town would do a lot of educational promotion for this program to make sure each resident is aware of what they are being enrolled in and how they can opt out.
Every customer that is eligible for automatic enrollment will receive a letter in the mail with program details and provide ways to opt out by mail, phone or online form.
The board unanimously approved the Municipal Aggregation Plan.
The plan will now be sent to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) for approval.
Barry said that DPU is backed up with their requests but once they hopefully approve it, then the town can go out for bid and get prices from people trying to sell electricity.
After that the board can decided to approve those prices or wait a few months to wait for the market to change.
Barry thinks the town is a year or more away from implementing this program based all the pieces that must fall in place.