A few years ago, the country seemed on the cusp of a major energy transition as Biden-era legislation made massive investments in clean energy and other climate programs.
Today, more than a year into the second Trump administration, many of those policies have been reversed.
New England is projected to need a lot more power in the coming years as home heating systems are electrified and electric vehicles become more widespread. But the recent reversals in federal policy—and continued resistance in Concord to expanding support for renewables—have raised the question of where NH and the rest of the region should look for that extra energy.
New Hampshire Republicans, including Gov. Kelly Ayotte, have called for an “all of the above” energy strategy that prioritizes affordability, with natural gas and nuclear playing a large role.
That strategy, however, does not include the offshore wind industry. A bill signed by Gov. Ayotte that went into effect last September “walked back” efforts to create workforce training and to develop ports serving the offshore industry, says Nick Krakoff, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation’s Concord office. The bill also shortened the name of the Office of Offshore Wind Energy Development and Energy Innovation to the Office of Energy Innovation.
Democrats and clean-energy advocates, meanwhile, say renewables like wind and solar, paired with battery storage, are still NH’s best bet for making energy cheaper and reducing climate-warming emissions.
Nick Krakoff, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation’s Concord office, says the shifts in federal policy will slow but not stop the transition to clean energy in NH.
“Projects that are seeking to get on the grid, they’re almost all renewables and battery storage,” he says. “I think that medium-term, long-term outlook continues to be good for renewable energy in the state and in the region. I think in the short term, yeah, those federal rollbacks are certainly going to hurt the industry.”
A ‘Dramatic Pullback’
President Donald Trump’s signature legislation—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed last summer—rolled back several Biden-era energy and climate initiatives. Tax credits that allowed homeowners to recoup part of the cost of installing solar panels were terminated at the end of last year. Tax credits for larger wind and solar projects will also disappear soon, with developers required to start construction by July of this year to claim the incentives. The bill also defunded federal climate programs like Solar for All, which was set to send $43 million to NH for solar arrays in low-income communities.
President Trump has also sought to block offshore wind projects, including issuing stop-work orders to two nearly completed wind farms off the coast of New England. Judges later allowed construction to continue.
“I think it’s fair to say that we have seen a frozen market on large-scale clean energy development in New England,” says Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association.
While some projects faced delays, cost run-ups, and other challenges before the current administration, Dolan says the shift in federal policies has had a major impact. “With the dramatic pullback on a lot of those clean energy policies, it’s creating more and more uncertainty, and the way that markets generally reflect uncertainty is increased prices,” he says. “And that, hitting at the very moment in which we are seeing a refocus around energy affordability, is just creating a pullback overall.”
Smaller community solar projects—arrays of up to about 5 megawatts that serve multiple residential or institutional customers such as those built by towns and cities—have also been impacted by the upcoming phaseout of solar tax credits, says Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of the advocacy group Clean Energy NH. “Immediately following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, there was a huge drop off in the number of projects” in the pipeline, he says.
Between July and September of last year, the number of pending projects between roughly 100 kilowatts and 5 megawatts in Eversource’s queue—the vast majority of which are solar—dropped from 122 to 87, a decrease in total capacity from close to 450 megawatts to around 300.
“These technologies pay for themselves,” Evans-Brown says. “So, will we see less solar in New Hampshire as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? Yes. Will this be the end of the solar industry in New Hampshire? No. I think we’ll continue to see modest growth.”
Justin Paynter, the NH sales manager for Maine-based solar company ReVision Energy, says last year’s expiration of the residential tax credit makes the math harder for homeowners who want to install solar panels on their roof. He’s already seeing an impact on demand.
“It certainly makes the payback period longer for a project like solar on your home, and it also is just a bigger upfront cost for people,” he says. “So, it’s a little bit of a different decision.”
Contrasting Visions
New England’s annual electricity consumption is projected to rise 11% by 2034, according to regional grid operator ISO New England. Dolan says further development of offshore wind had been expected to add a lot of that needed capacity. But the challenges now facing clean energy projects have led to more uncertainty about how the region will meet its growing energy needs.
“It is not to say that solar and wind aren’t going to see growth and aren’t going to be part of this,” he says. “I think unquestionably, they will be. The question is scale and speed, and do we need to be looking elsewhere to match the expected energy demand growth?”
At the New Hampshire Statehouse, the two parties have different answers to that question. New Hampshire has generally been much less aggressive than its neighbors in pushing for clean energy, with lower renewable-energy quotas for utilities, no mandatory carbon-emission-reduction targets, and tighter limits on net metering, which allows solar panel users to sell excess power back onto the grid. Last year, state lawmakers shrunk a fund that supports the development of renewable energy projects and cut programs related to offshore wind.
State Rep. Michael Vose, an Epping Republican who chairs the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee, believes such policies have kept energy prices in NH lower than some surrounding states. “We focus on the affordability and the reliability of energy, rather than on some kind of decarbonization or emissions-reduction strategy for energy deployment,” he says. “We understand that real people have to pay for this energy.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte echoed that in her State of the State speech in February, blaming the rest of New England for “pushing up regional rates with their net zero religion.” Ayotte called for nuclear to be a centerpiece of the state’s energy strategy in the future and directed state energy officials “to foster the next generation of nuclear power generation here in New Hampshire.”
That’s something Vose supports as well, saying the state should encourage the development and deployment of new nuclear technologies like modular reactors, which have smaller footprints than the traditional nuclear plants that currently supply about 25% of the region’s electricity.
“I think the future of energy technology in our country, particularly carbon-emission-free electricity generation, is either nuclear fission or nuclear fusion,” he says. “While those technologies are right now very expensive, if we invest wisely, we use government resources wisely to invest in those technologies, the cost will come down.”
Legislation passed last year, for example, exempts off-grid electricity providers from certain utility regulations. Vose says in the future, that could allow a data center or manufacturing plant to be powered by its own small nuclear reactor.
In the meantime, Vose says more natural gas pipeline capacity is needed, especially during periods of peak winter demand when New England relies on costlier and dirtier oil-fired generators.
“I think that natural gas is the bridge between where we are today and the nuclear future that we will enjoy in the future,” Vose says.
But some Democrats and clean-energy advocates say the emphasis on nuclear misses more obvious solutions. While not opposed to exploring the potential of advanced nuclear technologies, they say existing alternatives like wind, solar and battery storage are much cheaper and faster to deploy.
“I’m supportive of the ideas about, you know, can we look at nuclear and so forth, but they take a long time to develop,” says state Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat. “And there’s no industry interest whatsoever in developing new natural gas generation, let alone the fact that we can’t get it here. There’s no pipeline capacity.”
Natural gas, which accounted for about 55% of New England’s power generation last year, is also subject to price volatility, contributing to spikes in customers’ utility bills, Watters says. Comparatively, only 25% of NH’s power comes from natural gas.
In the long term, Watters expects New England to be powered by more solar and wind, in addition to things like modular nuclear reactors. “After the Trump administration, I imagine the Gulf of Maine will get another look,” he says. “It’s one of the most viable resources for offshore wind in the world. But in the meantime, there’s heavy investment in offshore wind up in Nova Scotia, and there are plans for transmission to get that power down here.”
Down But Not Out
New Hampshire lawmakers are considering a raft of bills on energy policy this year, including measures that would restructure the state’s renewable portfolio standard and end a decades-old property-tax exemption for the solar-energy systems added to homes.
But advocates like Evans-Brown also see opportunities for incremental progress on clean energy. A bill sponsored by Vose would allow utility customers that pair solar with battery storage to participate in net metering. Evans-Brown says NH should do more to encourage energy storage, but the state has been slow to adopt rules that would do so.
Another issue, Evans-Brown says, is that net metering is currently set to expire in 2040, creating uncertainty for solar developers building systems that will last 20 or more years. Bipartisan groups of state senators have proposed bills that would address that issue.
Evans-Brown says he’s “bullish” on battery projects in general, which can store power produced by wind and solar to be released at times of peak demand, replacing “dispatchable” fossil fuels like gas. He says NH should do more to encourage energy storage, but the state has been slow to adopt rules that would allow that. (The NH Department of Energy did not respond to an interview request.)
“We’re seeing batteries are coming down in the exact same way that solar did, and the battery technology just keeps getting better,” Evans-Brown says.
Krakoff, with the Conservation Law Foundation, says communities around NH are taking action. The city of Concord, for example, is building two 5-megawatt solar arrays to provide power to the municipal government and other institutions.
“You’re seeing a number of towns and cities around the state investing in renewable energy projects, both for the clean energy attributes, but also for the affordability aspects,” he says.
Ultimately, he and other proponents argue, solar and other clean energy technologies will continue to take root in NH regardless of decisions in Concord and Washington, because the economic case keeps getting better.
Some point to last summer, when solar and batteries helped New England meet peak demand on the hottest days and likely saved customers millions, according to an analysis by the Acadia Center, a nonprofit that advocates for clean energy solutions.
Paynter with ReVision Energy says that despite the loss of tax credits slowing demand, some homeowners will continue to find that solar makes financial sense, especially as electric rates go up and more heating systems and vehicles are plugged into the grid.
“The fastest, cheapest deployment of energy truly is going to be solar, probably followed by wind energy,” he says. “And from a homeowner perspective, there’s going to be more and more advantages as those rates go up.”