In 2025, the New Hampshire Legislature and Governor Ayotte enacted a series of bills charting a new course for State energy policy. Among those bills, House Bill 504 revised the State energy policy by laying out a number of general goals, including “removing regulatory barriers to innovation” while “fostering a range of technology types, including reliable, on-demand, diverse, and firm energy resources” as well as balancing “economic costs with the level of review necessary to ensure protection of the state’s various interests.” Correspondingly, House Bill 189 amended the State’s 10-year energy strategy to include a focus on nuclear energy by substituting for the definition of renewable energy a broader category with minimal or no greenhouse gas emissions, namely, clean energy.
With respect to wind resources, House Bill 682 eliminated the office of offshore wind industry development, tracking similar actions at the federal level that have paused offshore wind development. Salem Representative Joseph Sweeney characterized the bill as a “necessary step in refocusing New Hampshire’s energy strategy on practical, cost-effective solutions that benefit our residents and protect our natural resources.” Governor Ayotte has indicated that offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine is “too expensive, a risk to our commercial fishing industry, and not the right fit” for New Hampshire, though she also indicated support for expanding certain options for natural gas and nuclear energy.
House Bill 672, meanwhile, focused on particular end users of electricity in the form of data centers and crypto-mining, which require large amounts of low-cost, reliable electricity to power numerous banks of sophisticated computers. To promote the location of such industries in New Hampshire, House Bill 672 created the concept of an “off-grid electricity provider” that will be exempt from public utility regulation so long as the provider is not connected to any existing transmission or distribution system, regardless of whether the energy source is nuclear, natural gas, or solar and batteries. Such providers will remain subject to traditional siting regulation.
In order to determine whether New Hampshire ratepayers are paying for the public policy initiatives of other New England states, including environmental policies, House Bill 690 directs the New Hampshire Department of Energy to investigate New Hampshire’s separation from the New England Independent System Operator, which operates the regional electric transmission grid and manages wholesale energy markets. The Department of Energy must issue a report by July 15, 2026, that, among other things, investigates various legal issues, potential economic costs and benefits, as well as alternative regulatory structures that could better assure reliable, affordable electricity.
At a recent energy roundtable, Representative Michael Vose, Chair of the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee, identified the leading reason for high electric prices in New Hampshire as the lack of sufficient access to natural gas. New Hampshire has the eighth highest residential rates in the country but is lower than the rest of New England, except for Vermont, which imports significant hydropower from Quebec. Rep. Vose attributes New Hampshire’s relatively lower rates to limiting the expansion of green energy policies. Along those lines, House Bill 224, which was retained in committee, was proposed to redirect certain renewable energy funds to rebates to ratepayers. Instead, approximately $15 million that would have gone to municipal governments for solar and other local energy projects was redirected to the general fund.
On August 4, 2025, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin met with New Hampshire officials to discuss the supply of natural gas to the Northeast, emphasizing the need to remove hurdles to critical infrastructure expansion. Mr. Zeldin pointed to the blocking of the Williams Companies’ Constitution Pipeline in New York, which would have opened access to natural gas from the Marcellus shale fields in Pennsylvania. Governor Ayotte expressed support for construction of the Constitution Pipeline in New York but reiterated her opposition to revival of Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct project, which would have involved building new pipeline in New Hampshire.
Senator Kevin Avard, Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in an opinion piece on August 12, 2025, pointed to the approval of large recent electric utility rate increases by the Public Utilities Commission and indicated that he is working on legislation for the 2026 session to modernize New Hampshire’s energy laws. Among other things, he concludes that competition from deregulation in 1996 never materialized, that New Hampshire relies too heavily on the regional market, and that it pays a premium for power from other states. He suggests exploring all available sources but emphasizes new nuclear technology that he describes as safer, smaller, more efficient, and which can be built faster without the large footprint of traditional nuclear plants. Senator Avard believes that “giving our utilities the ability to enter into long-term contracts with in-state power generators” will create more price stability.