Barrington’s electricity aggregation program is less than a year old, but already the contract signed with the provider is going to be amended. 

On Monday night, members of the Barrington Town Council voted 3-1 to amend the contract, allowing for rate changes to take place every six months or 12 months. The initial agreement called for 12-month rates.

Jamie Rhodes is a consultant with Good Energy, which is the company the town hired to implement the energy aggregation program. He told members of the Council that the change would provide more flexibility to the energy provider, NextEra, in obtaining competitive pricing.

Rhodes later explained that if the provider stayed with the 12-month rate changes, energy customers could game the system — they could stay in the energy aggregation program during the winter months when the rates were lower than the competitor, RI Energy, and then drop out of the program in the summer months when the competition offers lower rates. Six-month rate changes would allow the program to be more competitive with RI Energy’s rates during the summer months, Rhodes said.

Council member Rob Humm said he has been supportive of the energy aggregation program, which allows about a half-dozen Rhode Island communities to work cooperatively to purchase their energy and increase the amount of renewable energy used. But Humm was confused why Good Energy was returning to the town so soon after signing the initial deal — he wanted to know why they did not anticipate this issue. 

Rhodes said he had earlier cautioned people that there was the potential to move to a six-month rate. Rhodes said the energy provider wants the community aggregation program to survive, but if people were to drop out of the program because competitors’ rates were lower during the summer months than it might effect the success of the program. 

Barrington resident Janine Wolf said Barrington did not owe the company anything — she said the town had entered into a contract and should stick with it and then consider the change when the agreement expires. 

Rhodes later explained that the longer the program exists, the greater the benefits to the people enrolled in it. He said the shift to allowing either a six-month rate or a 12-month rate would help keep people in the program.

Eventually, Council President Carl Kustell made a motion to allow for the amendment but called for Rhodes to return in a few months and detail the impact of the shorter rate periods for customers. The vote passed, 3-1, with Braxton Cloutier voting against it and Humm abstaining. 

In the program

The energy aggregation program includes Barrington, Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, Narragansett, Central Falls and South Kingstown. On Monday night, Rhodes said some of those communities had already agreed to the requested contract amendment. The energy aggregation program allows customers to join and drop out as many times as they would like to.