 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Utility |
| Founded | 1926-1992 |
Area served | |
| Products | transmission, distribution and generation |
Public Service of New Hampshire, commonly known as PSNH, was the largest public utility in the U.S. state of New Hampshire for decades. Founded in 1926, it sold natural gas and electricity, and for a time ran electric street-railway services and, later, bus service. [1] The company was bought in 1992 and became part of what is now Eversource Energy. [2] [3]
Large-scale electricity production came to New Hampshire in 1882 when the New England Weston Electric Light Company of Boston built a generating station in Manchester, on the property of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. In 1885 the Manchester Electric Light Company bought the Weston property in the city and in 1901 merged with the Manchester Traction, Light and Power Company - so named because electric trolley cars, the "traction" portion of the name, were a major customer of electricity producers. PSNH records indicate that at least 39 small electric companies that were in business before 1900 were combined over the years. PSNH was incorporated in 1926 as a consolidation of five existing independent electric companies in New Hampshire.
In 1935 the Public Utility Holding Company Act was passed, setting the stage for PSNH to become a regulated utility. In 1946 the company went public. [4]
Among the power plants that the company built are Schiller Generation Station, three coal-fired units in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which when opened in 1950 was the country's first fully integrated binary cycle plant, and the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire, which began operating in 1990. Cost and deadline overruns in the construction of Seabrook Station caused PSNH to declare bankruptcy in 1998, the first investor-owned utility to go bankrupt since the Great Depression. That led to its sale to what was then Northeast Utilities, since renamed Eversource Energy.
In 2018 Eversource sold all the former PSNH power plants, including a number of hydropower dams and gas-fired power plants, to a group of investors known as Granite Shore Power LLC, as the final step in electricity deregulation. [5]
Portland General Electric (PGE) is a Fortune 1000 public utility based in Portland, Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties - 44% of the inhabitants of Oregon. Founded in 1888 as the Willamette Falls Electric Company, the company has been an independent company for most of its existence, though was briefly owned by the Houston-based Enron Corporation from 1997 until 2006 when Enron divested itself of PGE during its bankruptcy.
NSTAR was a utility company that provided retail electricity and natural gas to 1.4 million customers in eastern and central Massachusetts, including the Boston urban area. NSTAR became a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities in April 2012. In February 2015, Northeast Utilities and all of its operating companies became one large company known as Eversource Energy.
Eversource Energy is a publicly traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity, natural gas service and water service to approximately 4 million customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Emera Incorporated is a publicly traded Canadian multinational energy holding company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Created in 1998 during the privatization of Nova Scotia Power, a provincial Crown corporation, Emera now invests in regulated electricity generation as well as transmission and distribution across North America and the Caribbean.
The Quebec – New England Transmission is a long-distance high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line between Radisson, Quebec and Sandy Pond in Ayer, Massachusetts. As of 2012, it remains one of only two Multi-terminal HVDC systems in the world and is "the only multi-terminal bipole HVDC system in the world where three stations are interconnected and operate under a common master control system".
The Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, more commonly known as Seabrook Station, is a nuclear power plant located in Seabrook, New Hampshire, United States, approximately 40 miles (64 km) north of Boston and 10 miles (16 km) south of Portsmouth. It has operated since 1990. With its 1,244-megawatt electrical output, Seabrook Unit 1 is the largest individual electrical generating unit on the New England power grid. It is the second largest nuclear plant in New England after the two-unit Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut.
Aquila, Inc. was an electricity and natural gas distribution network headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri in the United States. The company also owned and operated power generation assets. It previously operated under the name UtiliCorp United, Inc. The company at one time ranked #33 on the Fortune 500 list.
DTE Energy is a Detroit-based diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services in the United States and Canada. Its operating units include an electric utility serving 2.2 million customers and a natural gas utility serving 1.3 million customers in Michigan.
SCANA Corporation was a regulated electric and natural gas public utility. The company was based in Cayce, South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia, South Carolina. Following the Nukegate scandal, the company's stock fell and the company was in disrepair. In January 2019, SCANA was acquired by Dominion Energy. The corporate name SCANA was not an acronym, but was taken from the letters in South Carolina.
WEC Energy Group is an American company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that provides electricity and natural gas to 4.4 million customers across four states.
Kentucky Utilities (KU) is based in Lexington, Kentucky, and provides electricity to 77 counties in Kentucky. KU also serves five counties in Virginia under the name Old Dominion Power. It is owned by LG&E and KU Energy, LLC, which, in turn, is owned by PPL Corporation.
Alliant Energy is a public utility holding company headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin providing power in Iowa and Wisconsin.
Evergy is an American investor-owned utility (IOU) with publicly traded stock that has its headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, and in Kansas City, Missouri. The company was formed from a merger of Westar Energy of Topeka and Great Plains Energy of Kansas City, Missouri, parent company of Kansas City Power & Light. Evergy is the largest electric company in Kansas, serving more than 1.6 million residential, commercial and industrial customers in the eastern half of the state. Evergy has a generating capacity of 16,000 megawatt electricity from its over 40 power plants in Kansas and Missouri. Evergy service territory covers 28,130 square miles (72,900 km2) in east Kansas and west Missouri. Evergy owns more than 13,700 miles (22,000 km) of transmission lines and about 52,000 miles of distribution lines.
El Paso Electric is a Texas-based public utility company, engaging in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in west Texas and southern New Mexico. Its energy sources consist of nuclear fuel, natural gas, purchased power, solar and wind turbines. The company owns six electrical generating facilities with a net dependable generating capability of approximately 2,010 megawatts. It serves approximately 437,000 residential, commercial, industrial, public authority, and wholesale customers.
Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. is a Canadian renewable energy and regulated utility conglomerate with assets across North America. Algonquin actively invests in hydroelectric, wind and solar power facilities, and utility businesses, through its three operating subsidiaries: Bermuda Electric Light Company, Liberty Power and Liberty Utilities.
The United Illuminating Company (UI) is a regional electric distribution company based in Orange, Connecticut. Established in 1899, UI is engaged in the purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity and related services to 325,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in 17 towns and cities in the greater New Haven and Bridgeport areas. It is a subsidiary of Avangrid.
Unitil Corporation is an interstate electricity and natural gas utility company that serves the areas in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. Its earliest predecessor company, the Portland Gas Light Company, was founded in Maine in 1849. The current company was set up in 1984 and is based in New Hampshire. With a market cap of 686.51M it provides electric services to about 102,400 customers and natural gas to over 75,900 customers. The service territory of Unitil includes business districts and recreational centers as well as commercial and industrial business, such as electronic component manufacturers and education institutes. The company has an enterprise value of $766.54 million. The non-utility business is operated through the company's subsidiary, U-source, which is a national energy brokering and consulting company.