News Stories

The New Hampshire PUC approved a settlement agreement between New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, Inc. (NHEC) and the New Hampshire Department of Energy (DOE) for implementation of a purchase of receivables (POR) program.  Note that his order is issued on a nisi basis, affording notice and opportunity for hearing to the parties in the underlying adjudicative proceeding and other interested persons.  Parties are afforded an opportunity to object to the order by March 29, 2024. Barring a supplemental order in response to any such pleadings, the order shall be effective April 18, 2024.

As described more specifically below, under the settlement, every community aggregation program (CPA) and competitive electric power supplier (CEPS) that elects to use consolidated billing for its customers will be required to participate in NHEC’s POR program.  Note that under the proposed POR program will not be offered for member accounts billed separately by a CPA or CEPS.

From the Summary Of The Settlement Agreement:
{***}. As described in the Settlement Agreement, every CPA and competitive electric power supplier (CEPS) that elects to use consolidated billing for its customers will be required to participate in NHEC’s POR program. The proposed POR program will not be offered for member accounts billed separately by a CPA or CEPS.

Under the POR program, NHEC will make a single monthly payment to the CPA or CEPS during the last week of the calendar month for all members billed on their behalf during the prior calendar month. Monthly payments will be reduced by a discount percentage rate (DPR). The DPR will be comprised of an uncollectible percentage (UP) component and an administrative cost percentage (ACP) component. 

The UP component will be based on actual write-off data for residential and non-residential accounts, less non-capital-credit recoveries, divided by the corresponding billed amounts for all bill components (including charges for energy service provided by NHEC as well as energy service provided by a CPA or CEPS), for the most recent two-year period, which will be determined as of the NHEC’s fall write-off. NHEC has proposed using actual write-off data for the previous 24-month period as an alternative to including a prior period reconciliation in the calculation of the DPR.

The ACP component will reflect costs specific to the implementation of the POR program, amortized over a five-year period. NHEC estimates the costs associated with the proposal to be $400,000, which includes both Electronic Data Interface (EDI) DE 23-001 – 4 – module software changes and all estimated incremental costs necessary to implement the POR program, which include staff time, as well as legal and other associated costs. The ACP will be the same for both residential and non-residential accounts. 

Finally, the proposed POR program contains features unique to NHEC’s status as a non-profit rural electric cooperative, including noting that any positive distribution margins are allocated to members as capital credits that are first applied to past due balances, including balances previously written off. {***}

Monthly payments under POR will be reduced by a discount percentage rate (DPR). A unique DPR will apply for residential vs. non-residential members due to the differences in uncollectible write-off percentages.

The DPR will be comprised of an uncollectible percentage (UP) component and an administrative cost percentage (ACP) component.

The UP component will be based on actual write-off data for residential and non-residential accounts, less non-capital-credit recoveries, divided by the corresponding billed amounts for all bill components (including charges for energy service provided by NHEC as well as energy service provided by a CPA or CEPS), for the most recent two-year period, which will be determined as of the NHEC’s fall write-off. NHEC will use actual write-off data for the previous 24-month period as an alternative to including a prior period reconciliation in the calculation of the DPR.

The ACP component will reflect costs specific to the implementation of the POR program, amortized over a five-year period. NHEC estimates the costs associated with the proposal to be $400,000, which includes both Electronic Data Interface (EDI) module software changes and all estimated incremental costs necessary to implement the POR program, which include staff time, as well as legal and other associated costs.

The ACP will be the same for both residential and non-residential accounts.

The settlement listed “anticipated initial DPRs” under the adopted methodology using then-current (Sept. 2023) data and estimates, but the listed DPRs were expressly provided for illustrative purposes only and are not effective.

Illustrative DPRs

             Residential     Non-Residential

UP              0.098%            0.016%
ACP            5.326%            5.326%
Total DPR   5.424%            5.342% 

Order Approving Settlement Agreement  (03/18/2024)
DE 23-001  (01/09/2023) (New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, Inc. Petition for Extension of Deadline to File Purchase of Receivables Program).