Higher Gasoline Prices, Now Higher Electric Rates

Dateline: July 2, 2022

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Since January 2021, Allenstown residents and people across the country have been suffering from increasing gasoline costs and increasing inflation. Soon, the local electricity suppliers are going to add to the pain by charging higher electric rates for homes and businesses.

What You Can Do

Go to the NH Dept. of Energy web site and search for the lowest electric rates.

Homeowners, click on Residential to display the list of major electric suppliers.

For each major supplier, you can choose only the alternative suppliers listed for that major supplier. For virtually all of Allenstown, Eversource is the electric supplier.

If you select Eversource, the next page displays the current cost per kilowatt-hour (10.669¢/KWh), about a dime per KWh. What this does not show is that on August 1st, Eversource proposes to raise its rate to 22.566¢/KWh. Just like our dear disinformed President, they are blaming it on the War in Ukraine. Notice that the Future Utility Price at page top is conveniently blocked.

CBS News Boston reported this increase and also reported that Liberty Utility will increase its rate by 47% also in August.

The current best alternative to Eversource is Direct Energy, a North American energy retailer with four million customers in the U.S. and Canada. Their current best fixed rate for new customers is 13.59¢ for a 28-month contract, a heck of a lot better rate than Eversource. There are other companies listed that provide cheaper competitive fixed rates for new and existing customers. These include ENH Power, North American Power, Smart Energy, Townsquare Energy, and XOOM Energy New Hampshire.

Liberty Utility has a current rate of 11.119¢ and a future rate 22.228¢ as of Aug. 1. Two competitive suppliers are available.

NH Electric Coop has a current rate of 9.62¢ and a future rate 16.983¢ as of Aug. 1. Only one competitive supplier is available.

Unitil has a current rate of 10.117¢ and the future rate is blocked out. Guess what that means... Four competitive suppliers are available.

It might be time to demand the completion of the Keystone XL pipeline and the reopening of all those domestic oil and gas drilling operations that were shut down in January 2021.

In a June 24th interview with Fox Business host Stuart Varney, John Catsimatidis, the New York City billionaire and owner of 400 gas stations, offered a straightforward solution: "This is part of the overall problem in our country that America ... Canada and Alaska, we have 100 years' worth of oil ... open up the spigots. If we open up the spigots and flooded the market with oil, with crude oil, American crude oil, we bring the price of oil back ... Inflation goes away."