BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — The town board is mulling passage of a law to start its own community choice aggregation program which will allow the municipality to contract with an outside company which would negotiate on behalf of town residents to purchase lower cost electricity.

The town has been discussing the issue on and off for the last year.

Last fall the board directed attorney Kevin Murphy of the Wladis Law Firm of Syracuse, who handled legal aspects of the town’s solar installation code provisions and storage battery code section, to draft a local law which would create a CCA program as defined by state law.

The state authorized CCA programs in late 2014 and the first was implemented in the state in 2015. Like other states, New York allowed the programs as an engine to spark renewable energy demand. However, CCA programs (run by municipalities or independent companies) can either negotiate for lower cost energy for its members, or give them more control over the source of the energy, either renewable or traditional.

For consumers, perhaps the main benefit is that negotiations can “secure a rate that is more stable over time,” Murphy told the board at their meeting Jan. 11.

“Those things are not guaranteed but that's the purpose behind the law and what the intent is,” the attorney said.

Under the draft law offered by Murphy, electricity customers in the town will automatically be enrolled in the town’s CCA program, requiring them to opt out if they don’t want to participate.

While CCAs are often billed as community solar programs, Murphy pointed out the to board that a CCA does not set up a community-owned renewable energy generation facility like a solar farm or municipally owned hydro power facility. Instead, customers represented in the CCA buy a credit for the electricity that a solar farm puts into the grid which is then sold to the community under a process called “distributed energy resources.”

If the town opts to adopt the local law allowing for a CCA, it does not automatically obligate Potsdam to start a community choice aggregation program, but instead gives it the ability to set one up if they choose. Murphy’s draft law would also allow the town to work cooperatively with other municipalities who also have CCA to form an even bigger buyers club for cheap or renewable electricity.

A CCA program in Potsdam would allow either the town to negotiate with energy producers for electricity rates, or more likely, hire an independent firm to serve as a middleman to handle the negotiations and design the structure of the program. The firm Joule Community Power of Bedford Hills, which has been working with the town and village of Canton on a CCA setup, has been courting the town since last year to develop a CCA program for Potsdam. Alexia Lamb from Joule was on hand at the Jan. 11 meeting to answer questions the board may have had regarding CCA.

“What kind of savings, what magnitude of savings can one hope for with this type of negotiation,” asked Town Councilwoman Monique Tirion.

Lamb could not give a specific dollar value of savings for Joule clients, but said that with the recent industry price hikes for electricity, these clients were often locked in at a previous lower rate under 24 and 36 month contracts, protecting them from price flux.

Town Supervisor Ann Carvill said the board would discuss community choice aggregation again at their February meeting and set a public hearing to get comments from residents on the issue before passing the law.

For more about Joule Community Power, visit https://www.joulecommunitypower.com/ .