Manchester Electricity Costs Are Going Up — Here's Why

The numbers

Eversource NH customers in New Hampshire currently pay around $0.240/kWh on average. At the historical escalation rate of about 4.0% a year, that rate compounds quickly if it holds:

Projection based on New Hampshire's historical rate escalation of 4.0%/yr, compounded annually. Not a guarantee — actual future rates depend on regulatory decisions.

That's a 119% increase over 20 years if the trend continues — meaning the same household usage that costs $240 today per 1,000 kWh would cost roughly $526 at that point.

What's actually driving the increase

New Hampshire buys much of its power through the New England regional grid (ISO-NE), and rising regional capacity and transmission costs get passed straight through to Eversource NH and Liberty Utilities customers. New Hampshire has no state income or sales tax, but its electric rates are consistently among the highest in the country.

How residents are fighting back

You can't vote down a rate case yourself, but you can reduce how much of your bill is exposed to it. New Hampshire's SB 540 now allows a permit-free, no-utility-approval plug-in solar system up to 1200W — already in effect. Most plug-in systems this size don't qualify for net metering, so the strategy that actually works is maximizing self-consumption — using the power as you generate it, rather than exporting it back to the grid at a rate that keeps rising anyway.

Bottom line

Manchester rates are going up, and the drivers behind it — regional power-grid capacity costs — aren't going away soon. Every kWh you generate yourself is a kWh permanently insulated from the next rate case.