Law to restore NHSaves funding is a hit with contractors - Concord Monitor

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  GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff » Buy this Image

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  GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff » Buy this Image

A small company on the border of Concord and Loudon was host Thursday to the official resurrection of the state’s energy efficiency drive and the owner couldn’t be happier.

“This gets everything up and going again,” said Bill Newell of Newell & Crathern, a 25-person firm that installs insulation and energy-efficiency upgrades throughout much of the state.

Gov. Chris Sununu was at the firm Thursday to officially sign HB 549, a bill that returns funding for the NHSaves program through what’s known as the system benefits charge paid by ratepayers of the state’s four electricity utilities. The Public Utilities Commission slashed that payment in a surprise ruling late last year, saying it was unfair to some ratepayers.

“The PUC decision was going to cut the funding in half, which would have gutted all the work that the contractors, utilities and everyone else has done,” said Newell. “It stopped training, people stopped buying new equipment, everything would have stopped.”

The PUC ruling generated an outcry from businesses, activists, the state consumer advocate and even the utilities, which had supported the project. In turn that produced sweeping agreement to undo it.

“It was unanimous, wasn’t it?” said Newell of the legislative response. “Everybody was on board.”

That unanimity prodded the PUC into backing down. In an order earlier this month, it restored funding for NHSaves to 2020-21 levels. The new law should cement that decision.

NHSaves uses the money it collects from bills to cover up to 75% of energy efficiency upgrades for homes that get fuel assistance, helping them use less fuel or electricity to stay warm in winter or cool in summer.

Newell said this has many benefits, even indirectly helping the current labor crunch.

“A lot of what we do is in workforce housing. Somebody is starting out, they’re going to buy a house that probably hasn’t been worked on in a long time, that’s what they can afford … Then they move in, find out it has no insulation, huge energy bills! We can go in, cut that energy bill, they can afford to stay in the house, afford to stay in New Hampshire,” he said. “We hear that time and time again.”

Newell & Crathern started in 1999 and since 2009 has been in Loudon doing nothing but energy efficiency work, with energy audits, window and insulation installations, and the like. It performs six home jobs on the average day, Newell said.

source: https://www.concordmonitor.com/energy-efficiency-45251243

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