When Gov. Chris Sununu was first sworn in as governor in January 2017, New Hampshire residents paid 18.42 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. After seven years in office (February 2024), the rate was 23.76 cents per kwh. That 29 percent increase in costs to taxpayers was less than every New England state except Vermont.
The math is simple. During Sununu’s administration, rates increased more in Maine (70 percent), Massachusetts (83 percent), Connecticut (94 percent) and Rhode Island (127 percent) than in the Granite State, according to data from the Administration. Information (EIA) “Monthly Electrical Energy Report”.
A Sununu press release touting the latest good economic news from the Granite State apparently set off the liberal Boston newspaper. He has written not one but two articles attempting to refute what they call Sununu’s “funny math” regarding residential electricity rates.
“The New Hampshire Department of Energy cherry-picked data and then conflated it to argue that the state is better off than others in New England,” The Globe wrote.
Interestingly, the article included a graph generated by his own staff that confirmed Sununu’s calculations: Rates during Sununu’s administration rose more slowly than in the rest of the region (excluding Vermont).
Even stranger is The Globe’s claim that the good news is “an artifact of a carefully selected time period.” The time period is the length of time Sununu has been in office.
The Globe focused heavily on the fact that Vermont is not included in Sununu’s data, noting that “Vermont’s electricity rates have increased more slowly and remain lower than New Hampshire’s rates.”
New Hampshire Department of Energy Deputy Commissioner Christopher J. Ellms Jr. acknowledged the omission. But as The Globe itself noted, Vermont has a “vertically integrated” system unique to the region.
“It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison,” Ellms said, a view confirmed by consumer advocate Donald M. Kreis in The Globe’s own report.
“Vermont’s electric companies remain vertically integrated monopolies, while in New Hampshire customers can buy electricity from competitive suppliers or from community energy aggregation programs,” Kreis told the newspaper.
So why is The Globe working so hard to undermine math?
“The reason you see people rejecting the presentation of that information is because there is a narrative that they want to make sure is cemented in people’s minds that, in all cases, clean energy is more reliable and cheaper than Another resources”. he said. “Frankly, if you look at the data, it’s just not true.
“New Hampshire has made the decision that consumers should be given more importance than decarbonization. Our point is simply that public policy decisions have a cost associated with them,” Ellms added.
And the prognosis for taxpayers in The Globe’s backyard is even worse. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) has pledged to purchase more offshore wind energy, just as rates in the industry are skyrocketing. According to a Commonwealth Beacon report, New York just signed an offshore wind contract at $150.15 per megawatt hour, double the price of the contract Massachusetts signed with the same supplier ($76.73) a year ago.
The Vineyard One project, which Massachusetts is counting on to meet its zero-emissions goals, has a guaranteed price of $89 per megawatt hour, and industry experts expect that rate to rise as inflation and financing costs rise. . “Three other wind farm deals in Massachusetts were negotiated and approved at less than $80 per megawatt hour, but all three were terminated when interest rates and inflation soared,” the Commonwealth Beacon reports.
“While other states have let politics drive policy, New Hampshire has always put taxpayers’ bottom lines first,” Sununu said in a statement. “We’ve let markets, not governments, drive innovation,” Sununu added.
Meanwhile, The Globe has not yet reported on New Hampshire Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cinde Warmington’s “Clean Energy Economy Plan,” released last month. Councilor Warmington, who is facing former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig for her party’s gubernatorial nomination, proposes getting the Granite State to net-zero emissions by 2040. That’s a decade before the emissions target date Massachusetts zero by 2050.
For a state where more than 60 percent of homes rely on oil and propane tanks for heat, Warmington’s plan is extremely aggressive, to say the least. And it’s a very different approach than New Hampshire’s current energy policy.
Ellms credited Sununu’s focus on residential taxpayers as the reason behind the “positive results relative to other states.”
“The data clearly supports that,” he said.
As for the fault-finding mission aimed at Sununu, Elms said The Globe’s “focus on how the information is presented appears designed to distract from the success that the information highlights.”
“Frankly, the data presented in the article reinforced the point that New Hampshire is trending toward lower rate increases than our peers.”
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