Community Electricity Program to start in seven Rhode Island municipalities
(WJAR) — A new electricity supplier is coming to thousands of Rhode Islanders in just a few weeks unless rate payers opt out of the new program.
Residents of Providence, Barrington, Central Falls, Narragansett, Newport, Portsmouth and South Kingstown will be automatically switched to a new electricity supplier NextEra Energy Services as part of the Community Electricity Program.
"With an electric aggregation program, it's actually letting the municipality do that hard work of vetting the suppliers and negotiating on behalf of their residents in order to bring in the lower rates," said Jamie Rhodes, an attorney for Good Energy Consulting, which helped negotiate the deal.
The program's automatic rate is approximately 9.4 cents per kilowatt hour for their summer period of May through November.
Rhode Island Energy's proposed summer rate is currently about 10.4 cents per kilowatt hour pending approval by the Public Utility Commission.
"The biggest piece is that if nothing is done by consumer, they're going to see a savings on their bill," Rhodes said. "The other big benefit is that electricity supplies cleaner is uses less fossil fuel supplies and uses more renewable energy."
Rhodes said the program only works if residents have to opt out rather than opt in.
"That's what allows us to be competitive, if it was just an opt in program, the lower rates never would have been able to materialize," he said.
Residents have the ability to opt out of the new program at any time.
There is no guarantee NextEra Energy’s winter rates will be lower than Rhode Island Energy.
"If after six months, their price is no longer competitive, everyone can leave the program," Rhodes said.
He said the program has been successful on Cape Cod.
"We know a program structured like this working with the same supplier has been able to deliver a year and a half savings to those communities," Rhodes said.
Many of the municipalities are hosting information session on the change:
- Barrington: March 23 from 7 p.m.- 8:30 p.m. at Barrington Middle School or via zoom.
- Portsmouth: March 23 at 6 p.m. in person and via zoom.
- Providence: March 27 at 6pm via zoom.
- South Kingstown's previous meeting can be viewed here.
- Newport: March 28 6 p.m. at Innovate Newport.
- Narragansett: March 29 at 6 p.m. at the Narragansett Community Center.