The Valley News has an article (here it is) about the arrival of community power in NH, which lets towns/cities buy power on the wholesale market and sell it to residents. While the non-profit Coalition of New Hampshire has gotten most of the attention, there are for-profit firms looking to get in on the action.

The ever-quotable Don Kreis, New Hampshire’s consumer advocate, doesn’t quite say to beware but comes close:

“I think in the energy space it’s important to ask yourself the question ‘who do you trust?’ Is it a utility? A competitive unregulated supplier…? Or is it going to be your community power aggregation program? I guess what I would respectfully suggest to consumers is that of those three possibilities, only one is obliged to act in your best interest, which is the community power program,” Kreis said. “It wouldn’t shock me if it turned out that (…) competitive energy suppliers are offering loss-leader rates to residential customers or small customers as a way of thwarting competition from community power programs,”