Most New Hampshire residents are likely to see their electric bills go up from 7.11 cents a kilowatt hour to 9.54 cents starting in January. The average PSNH customer could be paying somewhere between $6 and $8 more per month come January 1st making PSNH bills around 25 percent higher than their competitors.
PSNH Spokesman Mike Skelton says environmental obligations increase the cost of electricity, but one has hit PSNH particularly hard.
Skelton: The biggest portion of that 1.44 cents per kilowatt hour is the scrubber.
A $422 million dollar scrubber installed on PSNH’s 50 year old coal-fired Merrimack station, is estimated to capture 98 percent of mercury emitted from that plant.
Skelton notes that natural gas prices have risen with the heating season, driving up costs.
In six months PSNH can file to have its rate adjusted again, up or down, if market conditions change.
PSNH is the state’s largest utility with 400,000 residential customers.
