Roughly 7,000 electricity customers who switched from PSNH months ago are involuntarily back with that utility after the suspension of alternative provider Power New England, and there’s disagreement about whose fault it is.
Customers who bought power from PNE through Resident Power, an “aggregator” that gathers customers for suppliers such as PNE, received an email Thursday telling them that the previously announced transfer to FairPoint Energy “has not gone through.” They have been switched back to being customers of Public Service of New Hampshire, at higher rates.
The email said the transfer failed because “PSNH declined to make the switch. PSNH stated that although they had the ability to do the automatic transfer, they lacked the ‘resources’ to effect the transfer in the time provided.”
In a statement Friday, PSNH spokesman Michael Skelton disputed this description and pointed the finger at Power New England.
“PSNH was in the process of transferring customers from PNE to FairPoint in accordance with normal market rules when PNE made a business decision to walk away from its customers,” he wrote in an email. “This was not our business deal, but we were left to clean up the mess.”
The issue is likely to be taken up by the state Public Utilities Commission, because Resident Power has asked for a judgment concerning the status of these customers. Among the questions is the process for transferring their accounts without running afoul of rules against “slamming,” or switching customers without consent.
The situation has left some confused and annoyed customers.
“I was irritated, very irritated,” Mark Levesque, of Hudson, owner of Studio Mark Emile Photography in Nashua, said about the announcement.
He said he was saving about $25 a month on the power bill of his home and business since switching to PNE, via Resident Power, last year.![]()
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