New Hampshire spent $230,000 asking whether it could quit the New England power grid. The answer that came back in July was no — and the most interesting reason has nothing to do with New Hampshire.

Developments dated July 10 – August 21, 2026.

New Hampshire: the exit study says stay

Under a 2025 law, the New Hampshire Department of Energy hired the Boston consultancy London Economics International to study withdrawing from ISO New England, the regional grid operator. The Executive Council approved the $230,000 contract in February; the final report landed July 15.

It concluded that leaving would raise total costs for New Hampshire ratepayers by roughly $148 million, about 14 percent — before counting the harder-to-estimate costs of actually separating, like legal fees, standing up a local wholesale market, and any exit fees ISO-NE might charge.

The finding worth sitting with, though, is physical rather than financial. A complete disconnection isn’t feasible, because islanding New Hampshire would also island Maine. Maine reaches the rest of New England through transmission lines that run down through New Hampshire. One state cannot unplug without unplugging its neighbor — a useful reminder that “state energy policy” in northern New England is a shared circuit, not three separate ones.

The report’s alternative is to push for more autonomy through reforms inside ISO-NE. That is the same conclusion Maine reached in 2008 and Connecticut in 2020 when they asked the same question. New Hampshire, as the Concord Monitor put it, now gets to argue about the terms of a relationship it isn’t leaving.

New Hampshire: rates up, renewable fund down

Two other New Hampshire items landed in this window, and they point the same direction.

Default energy service rates rose on August 1. Eversource’s supply rate went to about 14 cents per kilowatt-hour, up roughly a quarter; Liberty and Unitil rose too. Consumer Advocate Don Kreis attributed the jump to hard winters, natural-gas prices tied to global instability, and a purchasing change that now sends utilities to ISO-NE’s daily spot market for half their supply. Eversource was also recovering a $38 million shortfall from underestimating spot-market costs — worth about one cent of the roughly three-cent supply increase.

Meanwhile SB 599 was signed July 10, becoming Chapter 317 effective immediately. It restores a sweep of the state’s Renewable Energy Fund that a drafting collision had briefly undone, sending fund money first to Department of Energy administrative costs up to $1 million, with the remainder going to thermal and electrical renewable initiatives — and explicitly not to individual residential solar.

Maine: the northern wind award is late

Maine is procuring at least 1,200 MW of renewable generation in Aroostook County plus the transmission needed to carry it to the New England grid. Bidding wrapped up in June. The award has not arrived.

The path there was less linear than it looks. In April the PUC voted to reopen the bid window and issue an amended RFP rather than make an award on the February bids, widening the combinations of projects it could accept; the May and June deadlines were the amended ones.

The PUC’s own RFP page still shows no award. The amended schedule contemplated awards “beginning as early as June 2026.” It is now late August. The page notes that staff coordinate with the other participating states before the Commission’s final deliberation, which is a plausible reason for a slow clock — but the award is, on the Commission’s own timeline, overdue.

Maine: offshore wind’s workforce, after the leases went away

Canary Media reported in August on the people left behind as the US offshore wind industry contracts — training pipelines built for an industry that is no longer hiring.

The proximate cause reached the Gulf of Maine in June. A federal settlement with Invenergy terminated four offshore wind leases — in the New York Bight, off central California, and in the Gulf of Maine — reimbursing the company up to $765 million, which it will redirect to gas-fired and geothermal generation. All four were still in BOEM’s preliminary period, with no construction plan filed.

Vermont: the veto stands

Vermont’s Legislature did not attempt to override Gov. Scott’s June 17 veto of H.710, the renewable-siting bill. It adjourned sine die on May 29 — before the veto — and concluded without setting a date to reconvene. Absent a special session, the veto stands and H.710 is dead for this biennium.

Separately, the PUC’s biennial net-metering update took effect August 1 under an order issued in Case 26-0291-INV, with Green Mountain Power’s revised tariff applying to bills rendered on or after that date.

Worth watching next month

  • Maine — awards on the 1,200 MW procurement, now overdue. Docket 2026-00033.
  • New Hampshire — whether “reform from within ISO-NE” becomes an actual filing or a 2027 bill.
  • New Hampshire — PUC rulemaking on plug-in solar ahead of SB 540’s January 1, 2027 effective date.
  • Vermont — the real-world bill impact of the August 1 net-metering change.