Opening Remarks by Henry Herndon at LES 2025

Henry Herndon opens the 2025 Local Energy Solutions Conference in Manchester, NH. Photo courtesy of Rooted in Light Media.

CPCNH AGM Henry Herndon opened the 2025 Local Energy Solutions (LES) Conference with a powerful reflection on New Hampshire’s evolving energy landscape. Speaking to a packed audience of community leaders, policymakers, and energy innovators, Herndon framed the past two years as a time of transformational change—where local communities have stepped forward to lead a new era of democratic energy governance.

His full remarks are shared below:

Good morning. It is an honor to give opening remarks at Local Energy Solutions here in the 18th year. Having worked with many of you to organize this conference in years past, joining you today feels like coming home.

This morning, I want to talk about the recent transformation of New Hampshire’s energy market – the democratic restructuring that has taken place over just the past two years.

Three years ago, Community Power did not exist in New Hampshire. Today, cities and towns across our state, your cities and towns, own new democratic power agencies that supply electricity to more than 200,000 customers, roughly a quarter of electric customers in the state. This is a paradigm shift – technically, financially, and politically.

• Technically, the knowledge, expertise, and the ability to participate directly in energy markets now resides in our local communities.

• Financially, hundreds of millions of dollars in electricity revenues – and the choice about how to invest net revenues – are now under local control.

• And politically, towns and cities have a stronger voice than ever in shaping state energy policy.

This is a second major restructuring of the state energy market. The first, in the 1990s, opened regional wholesale power markets to competition. Today, Community Power is doing the same by bringing competition and innovation to the retail side of the market. Already, CPCNH is contracting to develop one of New Hampshire’s largest community solar projects – the 5-megwatt Poverty Plains array in Warner – and that is very much just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how this market will enable local energy investments.

Our Community Power market is young, but the foundation has been laid. These agencies are here to stay. As they grow – and as partnerships with distribution utilities, industry, and policymakers mature – our communities deepen their capacity to remove barriers, improve policy frameworks, foster innovation, develop local energy projects and programs, and deliver more value to the communities they serve. The untapped energy value in New Hampshire lies in the local market — in empowering customers, managing load, and integrating clean, distributed resources.

It is exciting to be at the beginning of this new paradigm shift. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you over the coming years as we continue to grow and evolve our local energy market.

Thank you — and welcome to Local Energy Solutions 2025.