Public Service Company of New Hampshire history

The County boards were consolidated into a State Board of Railroad Commissioners in 1844, the first such board in the nation.

March 1881 Manchester Traction, Light and Power Company name expires.

Weston Electric turned on the first electric street lights in Manchester on April 23, 1882—two weeks before the start-up of the Pearl Street Station.

PSNH records indicate that 39 of the pioneer electric companies that later became part of the company had been in the electric business before 1900 and that another 15 had been incorporated before that date.

In 1911, the New Hampshire Legislature enacted comprehensive legislation which instituted a new system for the establishment and regulation of public utilities and railroads in the state.

July 1, 1917 Nashua Light, Heat and Power Company is acquired by Manchester Traction, Light and Power Company.

1926 had been a good year for New England business, but there was gnawing economic worry about growing competition from southern textile mills.

According to the company’s 1928 annual report, many of the newly installed electrical rural lines had been made “in response to an insistent demand for a higher standard of living and increased comfort on the farm.”

Insull’s Middle West Utilities at first weathered the economic upheaval brought on by the 1929 stock-market crash and even came to the aid of the city of Chicago and of some troubled industries.

PSNH could cope with these natural disasters because in 1931 it had acquired the Jacona, a government ship converted into a floating power plant anchored at Portsmouth.

The collapse of the Insull companies occasioned a government investigation of how utility companies were financed and brought about the passing of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.

The year 1936 had been good for New England business, but there was gnawing economic worry about growing competition from southern textile mills.

By year-end 1937, due in large part to PSNH’s involvement, 40 companies had bought or leased space in the mill buildings and were employing about 4,000 workers.

By 1940 the electric-trolley activity, once a major part of PSNH operations, had become unprofitable and the company switched to operating buses.

After its founding and up to December 1943, PSNH acquired the franchises and utility properties of 25 other electric and/or gas companies in New Hampshire.

From 1945-51, the demand for power more than doubled and obliged PSNH to add new generating facilities.

1946: PSNH goes public.

1950: PSNH's Schiller station becomes the first fully integrated binary cycle plant in the country and is considered the world's most fuel-efficient plant.

The name Public Service Commission was changed in 1951 to Public Utilities Commission, its present title.

1954: PSNH sells the bus lines that grew out of its electric trolley businesses.

Maine still had an undeveloped amount of power, but a 1955 law forbade exportation of power to other states.

At year-end 1966, electricity was used to heat 19,276 homes and 1,309 establishments.

Since use of nuclear energy was already a proven technology in some parts of New England, as early as 1968 PSNH considered building an 860-megawatt atomic plant at Seabrook, but financial conditions obliged the company to shelve the plans.

PSNH also continued to produce The New Hampshire Economic Review, first published in 1970 as a compendium of statistics about the advantages available to businesses in New Hampshire.

By 1973, PSNH had retired 41 of its hydroelectric plants.

In January 1974 the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and other regulatory bodies had issued the basic permits, but interveners in the case succeeded in having the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturn these permits.

In 1978 the company had been authorized to charge customers for the carrying costs of loans to build the Seabrook plant.

In 1979, the Legislature made the commissioners full-time positions and generally amended the structure and guidelines of the Commission.

On June 26, 1985, Governor John Sununu established the Department of Transportation (DOT) to which the Commission's transportation functions were transferred.

In May 1986 PSNH asked the NHPUC for a two-step rate increase; however, the agency ruled against the request.

Connnecticut-based Northeast Utilities (NU), one of the six major bidders, announced its plan in January 1989 and PSNH endorsed it in December of the same year.

The first 5.5 percent base-rate increase went into effect January 1990.

Step two was completed June 5, 1992 and PSNH became a fully owned subsidiary of Northeast Utilities.

In 1993, PSNH received the Governor's Volunteerism Award.

In 1995 PSNH retrofitted its coal-fired Merrimack Station’s 320-megawatt Unit 2 in Bow with an emissions-cleansing Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system, thereby becoming the first power plant in the United States to use that technology.

The subsequent law, effective May 21, 1996, directed the NHPUC to develop a statewide plan for restructuring electric utilities.

In 1998 the company introduced the Grazing Power Project: more than a thousand sheep were used to reduce vegetation under power line rights-of-way.

The N.H. Deregulation Bill, supported by both the Legislature and PSNH, was signed in June 2000 by then Governor Jeanne Shaheen and sent to NHPUC for implementation.

However--because upcoming deregulation might oblige PSNH to sell some of its facilities--in April 2003 the company opted to leave the sheep in their winter home.

February 10, 2015 Eversource Energy name is registered in the State of New Hampshire by Public Service Company of New Hampshire.