Town hall in Huntington. (file photo)
HUNTINGTON – The Huntington Board of Selectmen met with Mark Cappadona and Denise Allard of Colonial Power on Wednesday to continue the process of joining 60 other communities in a municipal aggregation, a process which was approved at the Annual Town Meeting in June.
According to the Colonial Power Group website (colonialpowergroup.com), municipal aggregation allows local government to combine the purchasing power of its residents, to provide them with an alternative electricity supply. Before enrolling in a municipal aggregation, the utility company chooses the supplier and consumers pay their rate, which is called “basic service.” With the program, the utility no longer chooses the supplier, and consumers are no longer subject to basic service rates. Local government can set its own energy related goals such as long-term rates or green options.
The town or city in the aggregation uses a competitive bid process to select the supplier, and the consumer is charged that negotiated rate instead. The Colonial Power Group, Inc. is an independent energy consulting company that has been chosen by this municipal aggregation as the consultant/broker for the supplier services.
Other communities in this aggregation include Dalton, Hatfield, Lenox, West Springfield and Williamsburg.
Cappadano said the next step for Huntington is to participate in a call with the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) to review the plan, then submit it for DOER approval, followed by a public hearing in Boston. After that, there will be a review by the Department of Public Utilities (DPU). He said the whole process will take six to eight months.
Down the road, eligible consumers will receive notification of enrollment, followed by an Opt-Out period.
“Just to make sure, there are no fees later,” asked Edward Renauld, chairman of the Huntington Selectmen, before the vote to approve the contract.
Cappadano responded that there is no town money at all for the municipal aggregation. He said Colonial Power’s fee is .001, so for a $10 charge, the bill would be $10.01. He also said there is a catch, in that once a town starts to take competitive supply; the state doesn’t want them to go back.
The Selectmen also met with the Cable Advisory Board at Wednesday’s meeting, attended via telephone by town attorney William Hewig, III of KP Law to continue discussions on the town’s contract with Comcast. The negotiations with the company have been ongoing since 2014.
The sticking points have been negotiating ways to connect the last 17 customers to broadband, who are not covered under the Massachusetts Broadband Institute’s (MBI) 96% connectivity agreement.
Hewig said one new development that occurred this spring was an opinion by MBI that public funds may be used to connect private residences to broadband, because they consider it to be beneficial to the overall economic development of an entire community. Hewig said because of that opinion, Comcast is willing to change the language to allow the town to spend cable money for construction of broadband to private residences.
Chris Saner of the Cable Advisory Board asked Hewig to continue to negotiate with the company on the buildout to the remaining homes, to get the town to 100%.
