New Hampshire
New Hampshire’s Energy Landscape in 2025 – Concord Monitor
The biggest national news in 2025 often involved energy — how to make it, who gets to use it, who is going to need it. New Hampshire has sidestepped most of those questions so far but still saw plenty of energy news.
Goodbye, coal
The closing of the Merrimack Station power plant in Bow sounds like New Hampshire’s biggest energy news of the year and got a lot of national coverage along the lines of “New England shuts down coal!” but to be honest, it didn’t make much difference. The plant had been winding down for years, having run for fewer than 30 days in 2024, and would almost certainly have shut in a year or so because it lost what is known as capacity funding.
The more interesting question is what will replace it. Granite Shore Power President Jim Andrews has long touted plans to turn Merrimack Station, as well as the long-closed Schiller site in Portsmouth, into 21st century power plants using batteries and solar power, with perhaps some offshore wind assembly on the shores of the Piscataqua River.
But Donald Trump was elected and promptly began to trash wind and solar power, yanking subsidies and throwing up regulatory roadblocks. Granite Shore now says it is looking at all possibilities.
Both sites have excellent connections to the power grid, which makes them very valuable.
We need more electricity
New Hampshire, like New England in general, have not been swamped with proposals to build massive, power-hungry data centers for bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence. Those proposals have led to forecasts that national demand for electricity will spike by a quarter or more within a few years.
ISO-New England, the group that runs the six-state power grid, projects an 11% increase in electricity demand over the next decade, largely driven by the electrification of heating and transportation. That’s a lot, especially after years of stagnant demand, but it’s not panic-inducing.
Sidestepping regulation
New Hampshire is set to become the first state to allow energy providers to skip most utility regulation if they don’t connect to the grid. Supporters say it adds much-needed flexibility to the hidebound energy industry while critics call it a sop to very large energy users, such as data centers. It’s not clear how much it will be used, but it’s an interesting experiment, at least.
Community solar OK, wind not so much
The Republican-controlled legislature isn’t quite as anti-solar power as President Trump but it shows a lack of enthusiasm for renewable energy. They passed a bill loosening stormwater runoff rules for solar arrays but tightened the Renewable Energy Fund and as the year ended, they were looking to make severe changes to the Renewable Energy Portfolio.
On the other hand, there’s community solar. Thanks to a series of bills over the past few years, arrays up to 5 megawatts can share production with multiple customers, making big projects that opened or are being built in Exeter, Bedford, Derry, Warner and now Concord financially feasible. It seems likely that 2026 will set a record for the most solar added to the grid in New Hampshire. If the legislature would let private companies be community-solar customers, we’d do even better.
As for wind power, legislators echoed Trump’d hatred of the industry. Gov. Ayotte agreed to shorten the name of the Office of Offshore Wind Industry Development and Energy Innovation to simply the Office of Energy Innovation as part of removing virtually all support for wind power on land or in the sea. Not that we gave much support to begin with.
Ironically, this month saw New England receive a record amount of power from wind turbines — more than 1,600 megawatts at one point — as the Vineyard Wind offshore farm finally got up to speed.
What about natural gas? Nuclear? Heating oil?
As has been the case for many years, natural gas was the fuel to supply about half of New England’s electricity in 2025 and heating to about one-fifth of New Hampshire’s homes.
Many politicians are making noises about building more pipelines to bring in more natural gas from New York or Pennsylvania; Gov. Ayotte expressed support for bringing the proposed Constitution Pipeline, which was killed in 2020, back to life. Many argue that such work would be prohibitively expensive and make the region even more dependent on a single type of fuel.
Natural gas has traditionally been very cheap compared to other types of fuel but its price is increasingly affected by global patterns because of an increase in exports.
A separate question is whether the push to electrify the region’s heating can cut into our use of heating oil. Northern New England is by far the national leader in using that dirty fuel for heating; switching to electric heat pumps is almost always cheaper and definitely cleaner. New Hampshire is one of five states in the New England Heat Pump Accelerator, which looks to spend $450 million from Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to encourage more heat pumps.
The federal government has activated the New Hampshire National Guard’s 157th Air Refueling Wing in connection with the war with Iran.
“I’ve had a briefing myself, a classified briefing, but it’s really important on the messaging on this that we really coordinate with the Pentagon,” Gov. Kelly Ayotte told reporters during a press briefing following Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting.
Ayotte said she was unable to share additional details about the nature of the New Hampshire National Guard’s activity related to the conflict, including how many guard members have been activated or what role they are playing.
“We’re going to respect what messaging comes out of the Pentagon just to make sure that our men and women in uniform are fully protected and that we aren’t providing any information that could be used in a way that would be harmful to them,” Ayotte said.
In a statement Thursday, Ayotte said the unit had been deployed in late February to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility in support of the operation.
Earlier this week, Pentagon officials confirmed that members of the Vermont National Guard were involved in attacks against Iran over the weekend, though our news partners at Vermont Public were not able to confirm additional details on the nature of the operation.
During the briefing with local reporters, Ayotte also stressed her support for servicemembers and those close to them.
“I have such respect for our men and women in uniform,” Ayotte said. “As you know, I come from a military family, and they have our full support, and we appreciate them and their families, and obviously anyone who is serving right now, and my thoughts and prayers go out to those who have lost someone that they love.”
By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – While Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte has said she opposes increasing highway toll rates across the state, the Senate voted Thursday to increase rates for out-of-state license plate holders.
It now goes to the House for consideration.
This would be a $1 increase for those who have out of state plates going through the tolls at Hooksett, Hampton and Bedford for out-of-state plates, a 75 cent hike for those taking Hampton’s Exit 2 and on the Spaulding turnpike at Rochester, and a 50 cent hike for those taking the exit off I-93 to Hooksett.
An analysis in the bill shows that this would increase toll revenue by $53.3 million in fiscal year 2027 and go up each year to generate $81.4 million a year in 2036.
Senate Bill 627 passed on a voice vote with two Republicans, Senators Regina Birdsell of Hampstead and William Gannon of Sandown opposing.
Senator Mark E. McConkey, R-Freedom, moved to take the bill off the table and offered an amendment.
He said the last time there was a systemwide increase to the turnpike toll was 19 years ago.
“I am sure we could all agree the cost of operations…has continued to escalate when revenue is not rising with it,” and he noted that with an enterprise fund, the state can only spend what it takes in.
The state has just completed a 10-year highway plan and there was a $400 million shortfall in projects that could not be paid for under the current income.
McConkey said the measure would not increase tolls for New Hampshire drivers with a state license plate.
“Why don’t we ask our neighbors,” to pay a toll increase. “We are getting the best of all worlds,” by passing the bill, he said, including “protecting our residents” and having resources for improvements to the turnpike system.
Sen. Gannon, R-Sandown, asked McConkey if there are any studies on impacts near the border on businesses.
If implemented, McConkey said the state will be the 27th lowest in per mile cost still. McConkey said the bill would also increase from seven to 14 days the amount of time for those with NH license plates to pay for a toll adding there are other states that also have different rates for out-of-state users.
The Hampton toll cost would go from $2 to $3, while Hooksett and Bedford would rise from $1 to $2 for out-of-state plates.
New Hampshire currently has the lowest rate per mile among states with tolls roads.
The governor said she does not support a toll increase.
“We are not going to put a burden on drivers for a toll increase,” Ayotte said. “Families are struggling.”
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