The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative has announced plans for layoffs.

The company sites the downturn in the economy and energy efficiency efforts of its customers as part of the reason for the decision.

As New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports, it’s not the only utility struggling to balance energy conservation and lack of sales with profit.

The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative says it wants to layoff ten to twenty of its two-hundred employees.

Whether that happens is undecided right now.

The union that represents half of the utility's workforce has asked a federal court to block the move.

Co-op Spokesman Seth Wheeler says the downturn in the economy has squeezed the company’s revenues.

3:48 “A co-op is a really good reflection of the local economy, we only do as well as our service territory does and when we see housing starts drop like they have, we don’t see the same number of businesses moving in, at the same time we see businesses closing.”

The CO-OP, which serves 80 thousand customers, has averaged one-thousand new members a year.

That’s been the case for more than a decade.

But last year, the number dropped to only 650.

And now, it’s on track to gain fewer than 200 new members.

:57 “about 30-percent of our service territory are seasonal homes or second homes for people, and I think a lot of people may be skipping that trip to New Hampshire or they are not visiting their second home as much and using less electricity as a result.

But the New Hampshire Electric Co-op isn’t the only utility with fewer sales.

Public Service of New Hampshire is experiencing something similar, though not as severely.

Spokesman Martin Murray.

:53 In crunching the numbers we believe 09 is going to be a reduction in sales compared to last year, in the range of two to three percent.

While the economy may be the biggest reason for the loss of sales, energy efficiency is also hurting utilities.

Co-op spokesman Seth Wheeler says current customers are using less electricity.

The Co-op had offered its own conservation program, in addition to what’s required by the state.

Co-op customers could receive 15-hundred dollars for installing a solar hot water system, and up to 35-hundred dollars for solar systems and wind turbines.

But that will change.

4:41 unfortunately that’s one of those programs that we’re going to have to defer or delay or decrease funding for, we really like the idea of what we were doing and I think people responded to it well.

It’s a bit of a contradiction: how can utilities remain profitable if they ask customers to conserve the very thing utilities sell, electricity?

Because the Co-op is not regulated, it could charge its customers more.

But Wheeler says the Co-op has already raised its member fee.

8:06 “We didn’t feel it would be appropriate to raise that amount to the full amount that it cost for us to provide service it would just be too much money.”

Some utilities believe the answer to the problem may be to completely separate a utility’s profit from the selling of electricity.

It’s called decoupling and would allow utilities to charge a fixed rate.

But some regulators worry that it could hurt consumers.

And others wonder what it would do to conservation efforts.

PSNH has asked the Public Utilities Commission to raise the fixed rate it charges customers while decreasing the per kilowatt hour charge.

Its request is still pending.

For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.