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.
New Hampshire
Police: Man stabbed during domestic dispute in Nashua, NH
NASHUA, N.H. — A Nashua woman was arrested after police say she stabbed her husband multiple times during a domestic dispute over trash inside their Kinsley Street apartment.
Keilin Hernandez, 25, was arrested on three counts of second‑degree assault with a deadly weapon, a Class B felony, after officers responded to a June 17 911 call that a man had been stabbed in the arm and hand, according to the Nashua Police Department.
The victim was treated at a local hospital for injuries that were not life‑threatening.
According to a complaint filed in court by police, the dispute began after the man told officers he found a cardboard box filled with trash inside a bedroom closet and confronted Hernandez about it. Hernandez gave a different account, saying the argument started over taking garbage out and escalated when the two began pushing each other.
The complaint states that the man told police that Hernandez scratched him during the struggle and later stabbed him in the left shoulder and “in the areas between his fingers” on his left hand with a kitchen knife as he tried to walk away with her phone, saying he intended to “ground” her by taking it.
Immediately after the incident, he said he left the apartment bleeding while Hernandez went to a downstairs neighbor’s unit with their 5‑year‑old son.
According to the complaint, he admitted to pushing his wife, but told police he pushed her “by the head,” not the neck, and denied choking her. He said he held Hernandez against the wall for less than five seconds.
Hernandez told police she acted after she was pushed against a wall and grabbed by the neck and chest. The complaint states that she said she scratched her husband to break free and attempted to call police. She alleged she grabbed the knife only after he twisted her arm to make her drop her phone and then followed her into the kitchen and “began to come at her.”
“Keilin stated she struck (her husband) with the knife to show him the pain he caused her from twisting her arm and grabbing her neck,” police said in the complaint.
Hernandez did not have any marks on her, according to police.
Police later searched the apartment with the couple’s consent and found a knife on the kitchen counter that matched the man’s description. Blood droplets were located throughout the residence.
Hernandez was arraigned in the 9th Circuit Nashua District Court on June 18 and no plea was entered on the three assault charges. She was ordered held without bail after a judge found probable cause that releasing her would endanger the community, according to court documents.
She is scheduled to return to court at 9 a.m. June 24.
In a press release about the incident, police asked anyone with information to contact the Nashua Crime Line at 603‑589‑1665.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
New Hampshire
National Guard Helicopter Rescues 80-Year-Old Canadian Hiker From New Hampshire Peak
An 80-year-old Canadian hiker required a military helicopter rescue from Franconia Ridge Wednesday afternoon after suffering chest pains near the summit of Mount Lincoln in New Hampshire.
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department received a call at 4pm on June 24th, 2026, reporting that Andre Bissonnette, 80, of Orford Township, Quebec, was experiencing a medical emergency while hiking the ridge with his son Vincent Bissonnette, 45, of Drummondville, Quebec.
The two had ascended via the Falling Waters Trail when Andre began experiencing chest pains while traversing the ridge near Mount Lincoln. Vincent called 911 and a New Hampshire Fish and Game Conservation Officer spoke with the hikers by phone, confirming Andre was unable to continue under his own power.
After determining that rescuers were still hours away and a ground carry-out would take several hours more, officials contacted the New Hampshire Army National Guard to coordinate a helicopter hoist.
A flight crew departed Concord and reached Mount Lincoln just before 6pm. Crew members lowered a medic to the hikers and hoisted both men into the helicopter. By 6:05pm, the aircraft was en route to Littleton Regional Hospital for further treatment.
New Hampshire Fish and Game reminds hikers that mountain weather can change rapidly and extreme conditions can develop without warning. Hikers are encouraged to check the Higher Summits Forecast at MountWashington.org before heading out and to carry the ten essentials: map, compass, warm clothing, extra food and water, headlamp, fire starter, first aid kit, whistle, rain and wind jacket and pants, and a knife. Additional preparedness information is available at HikeSafe.com.
Related
New Hampshire
New Hampshire has highest share of adults who identify as atheists
One-third of Americans support Christian nationalism, report shows
A new report finds about three in 10 Americans back or sympathize with Christian nationalism, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
New Hampshire has the highest share of adults who identify as atheists in the U.S., at about 11%, according to a Pew Research Center study.
Nearly half of adults in the Granite State (48%) identify as religiously unaffiliated, a group that includes atheists, agnostics, and people who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.”
In the U.S. overall, 5% of adults identify as atheists, meaning New Hampshire’s share is more than twice the national average. About 29% of U.S. adults identify as religiously unaffiliated.
However, regionally, the West has the highest share of adults who identify as atheists among the four major U.S. regions – Northeast, Midwest, South, and West – according to the data.
The Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study (RLS) regarding Americans’ beliefs was conducted in English and Spanish from July 17, 2023, to March 4, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 36,908 U.S. adults.
What is atheism? 10 US states with the highest percentage of atheists
Atheism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods.” However, people may interpret and describe the term in different ways.
Here are the 10 U.S. states with the highest shares of adults who identify as atheists, according to data from the Pew Research Center:
- New Hampshire – 11% of residents
- Washington – 9% of residents
- Colorado – 8% of residents
- Massachusetts – 8% of residents
- Montana – 8% of residents
- Oregon – 8% of residents
- Vermont – 8% of residents
- California – 6% of residents
- Idaho – 6% of residents
- Maryland – 6% of residents
New Hampshire religious composition
About 45% of adults in New Hampshire identify as Christian, 5% identify with other religions, and 48% as religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center.
Breaking it down even further, 20% identify as Catholic, 13% as Mainline Protestant, 10% as Evangelical Protestant, 1% as Historically Black Protestant, 1% as Latter-day Saint (Mormon), 1% as Orthodox Christian, and less than 1% as Jehovah’s Witnesses or other Christian groups.
Roughly 1% identify as Jewish, less than 1% as Muslim, less than 1% as Buddhist, less than 1% as Hindu, less than 1% as Native American religions, and less than 1% as other world religions. About 1% identify with Unitarian and other liberal faiths, and 1% with New Age beliefs.
Among all adults in New Hampshire, 11% of all adults in New Hampshire identify as atheists, 1% as agnostics, and 29% with “nothing in particular.”
About 3% of respondents did not answer the question, the survey said. Additionally, the margin of error for the 2023-24 figures among adults in New Hampshire is plus or minus 8.0 percentage points.
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