New Hampshire

Regional Roundup Ranking

New Hampshire’s electric and natural gas companies offer energy efficiency programs to residential and commercial customers, coordinated on a statewide basis as the “Core Programs.” But without any binding utility savings goals, New Hampshire continues to lag the region in its per capita investments in efficiency, being the only state in the Northeast without some type of policy to capture all cost-effective energy efficiency. Through the hard work and collaborative efforts of the state, utilities, and interested parties, that is about to change.  

Following the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) release of an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS) straw proposal in February 2015, the PUC opened docket IR 15-137 to investigate regulatory implementation of an energy efficiency resource standard and hosted a series of stakeholder sessions to gather input on topics such as targets, funding, and rate design. As 2015 drew to a close, PUC Staff, utilities, and efficiency advocates filed their long-awaited EERS proposals. In August 2016, the NH Public Utility Commission issued an order establishing the EERS. The order funds sacings at 1.3 percent of retail sales by 2020. 
 
The 2017 Statewide Energy Efficiency Plan was released in December 2016. During the implementation of this plan, the utilities will simultaneously submit the first three-year plan under the EERS for 2018-2020.
 

New Hampshire also became the latest state in the region to explore grid modernization, with the PUC’s Investigation into Grid Modernization (IR 15-296), as required by a legislative directive to implement goals of the state’s 10-year energy strategy. Given the full plate of the PUC and other stakeholders, work on this docket has been put on hold until work on the EERS concludes.

 

Complementary Policies 

New Hampshire’s building energy codes reference 2009 IECC for residential and commercial buildings.

Policy & Program Information

State Offices

Office of Energy and Planning
Public Utilities Commission

Program Administrators

Eversource
Liberty Utilities
New Hampshire Electric Coop
Unitil

Additional Resources

Independent Study of Energy Policy Issues
New Hampshire and the Clean Power Plan
State Documents and Key Info- New Hampshire 
U.S. Department of Energy
SEE Action

 

New Hampshire at a Glance

Direct Jobs in Energy Efficiency 6,833
Electric Program Expenditures $25.8 million
Gas Program Expenditures $7.1 million
Per Capita Expenditures $24.79
Electric Savings 73,499 MWh 
Electric Savings as Percent of Retail Sales 0.67%
Gas Savings 2.1 million therms 
Gas Savings as Percent of Retail Sales 0.70%
2015 program year data as reported to ISO-New England for its 2015 Energy Efficiency Forecast and to the NEEP EM&V Forum for the Regional Energy Efficiency Database (REED) and E2's Energy Efficiency Jobs in America report. Savings are expressed in net annual terms.

 

Business Leaders Reference

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