MANCHESTER, NH – Last week, a protest occurred in which activists objected to rising utility rates from Eversource, which went up on August 1st and are scheduled to be adjusted in February – either up or down. Participants there believed Eversource and Gov. Chris Sununu were conspiring – or, at the very least, not getting in either person’s way – to keep electricity bills high in New Hampshire
The truth is…a bit more complex than that. Eversource identifies itself as an electric delivery company. Eversource, like other electric companies, will receive market price information for the energy it supplies from energy providers. Nor are they alone in setting prices for energy. New Hampshire’s energy comes from a variety of sources.
According to Independent System Operator (ISO) New England, power distribution in the region is as follows: 47% natural gas, 28% nuclear, 12% renewables, 8% net imports, 6% percent hydro, and less than 1% classified as coming from other sources. Natural gas, a large component of the state’s energy portfolio, sees a supply reduction during winter months. Longer supply lines for delivery can make it more difficult to deliver the gas as well.
The nuclear power plant in Seabrook is owned by a company called NextEra Energy Resources. If Eversource wishes to distribute power generated from the facility, they must purchase it first. Then they must pass along what they purchased to their customers. This is also true for other types of energy generated by other companies. Eversource, not NextEra, are responsible for poles going down, transformers going out, and other problems that may arise along the supply chain.
Concerns about green energy at the protest were directed at Eversource, though the company hasn’t yet broken ground on their own green-energy facilities. Since the protest, WMUR reported that Unitil, another energy provider, began investment on its own solar energy facility, which is projected to power 1,200 New Hampshire homes. The facility will be located in Kingston.
Eversource representatives claim their own lack of green energy has to do with policy choices made at the state level. Bills such as HB-1644, designed for the purpose of investigating the benefits of green energy in the state, was tabled a little over two months after its introduction.
This year, the state received $43 million in federal grants as part of a $7 billion Solar For All program. As of this writing, the New Hampshire Department of Energy’s website claimed the government was “waiting on final EPA guidance on this program.” The last update to the site was on July 5. How the grant money will be spent, if it is indeed spent at all and not simply returned, is unclear.
The state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio (RPS), established by law in 2007, provides information regarding what kind of renewable energy is being developed in the state. While certain amounts of energy are required to be generated by renewable energy from sources such as wind energy, methane gas, energy from oceanic movement, biomass, thermal energy, and solar power, some haven’t increased in years. Class II, a requirement for solar energy, has sat at 0.70% since 2020.
New Hampshire regulators from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) met this month to reconsider the rules regarding net-metering: a process whereby people who have solar panels on their homes are compensated according to the energy they feed back into the power grid. In 2021, Governor Sununu signed a bill allowing homeowners to generate 5 megawatts of their own power, instead of the previously approved limit of 1 megawatt. As of February 2024, Eversource had around 20,000 customers participating in net metering. The United States census reports 653,069 homes in New Hampshire as of July 2023.
“The mix of clean and renewable energy included in that supply is defined by regulatory and statutory requirements and not determined by Eversource,” William Hinkle, Eversource’s Media Relations Manager said. “The company only charges customers what it pays generators for producing the power and there is no markup. As a reminder, with the deregulation of the utility industry in New Hampshire, utilities like Eversource do not generate power or produce energy supply.”
Eversource, according to Hinkle, does not have any direct control over the price of the energy supply; they are simply the first company people encounter when their electric bill goes up. Rates are set and approved by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission.
Hinkle also cited inflationary concerns as reasons behind why electric rates went up. Distribution rates, which change infrequently, are driven by separate factors other than supply conversion rates, which change twice a year. Eversource cites $765 million of investment over the last five years to New Hamsphire’s electricity distribution system as the primary reason for increased costs. Part of that investment came from an increase in extreme, deleterious storms over the past eight years. Investments are planned to continue due to, in part, aging infrastructure and increasing demand due to population growth.
A report by USA Today claims New Hampshire has the senventh-most expensive residential electricity rates in the country, or the 43rd least affordable. New Hampshire is one of 17 states with a fully deregulated electricity market. Deregulated states tend to be subject to price fluctuation, while regulated states, comprising America’s 33 other states in the union, sees a single company responsible for ownership, production, and transmission of energy. Prices in regulated markets tend to fluctuate less frequently.
“We filed a request with the PUC in June to update distribution rates, which we had not done in New Hampshire since 2019,” Hinkle said. “This request is necessary to cover past investments – including expenses associated with power restoration efforts following more frequent and unpredictable extreme weather, vegetation management, and upgrades to improve system reliability for all customers – and it will enable future investments that will continue to make the electric system more resilient to the changing climate and further enable the integration of customer solar, among other benefits.
“Since our last distribution rate review in 2019, costs to build and maintain the electric system have increased significantly with supply chain challenges exacerbating the rising cost of materials. For example, on average, the cost of a utility pole has increased nearly 30%, the cost of a transformer has increased about 130%, and the cost for a spool of distribution wire has increased nearly 50% since 2019. We are in the early stages of a comprehensive, year-long rate review process with the PUC that provides transparency and the opportunity for public input. The first phase of that process resulted in a total increase of fewer than $7 per month this August for the average residential customer.”