Fuzzy math and New Hampshire exceptionalism

If you’re not familiar with New England, two important things to know are A) electricity is expensive there and B) New Hampshire is a little different.

And while all of the states in the region have taken steps to reduce emissions, New Hampshire’s efforts have been more modest, in keeping with the state’s long-standing ethos of limited government.

Gov. Chris Sununu sought to capitalize on that distinction last week in a news release, which included the chart below, appearing to show dramatic rate increases in neighboring states with New Hampshire rates staying flat:

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“While other states have let politics drive policy, New Hampshire has always put the ratepayer’s bottom line first,” the governor declared, “…and because of it, residential customers across New Hampshire have benefitted.”

Sununu’s administration made a similar claim in the state’s 2022 energy plan, blaming neighboring states for spiking electricity prices, which were mostly due to global natural gas shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But back to that chart. What exactly does “cost increase compared to NH” mean? What is this chart actually measuring?

On Friday, Boston Globe reporters Steven Porter and Amanda Gokee took a closer look at Sununu’s math, and found it to be misleading in three critical ways:

It uses a weird calculation: The governor’s release takes the monetary amount of the rate increases for different states and then calculates the percentage differences between those numbers. That means even though New Hampshire’s rates have gone up 28% since 2017, it appears as zero in the chart, because the difference between a number and itself is 0%. And Rhode Island’s 63% increase becomes 127%. The differences are real, but the chart exaggerates them.

It cherry-picks the start and end points: The governor’s analysis compares January 2017 to February 2024, disregarding fluctuations in between. The 2022-23 gas shortage we mentioned a little bit ago? New Hampshire had the highest rates in the region for nearly six months during that time. For the most part, New Hampshire’s rates have been slightly below the regional average, according to EIA data cited by the Globe.

It leaves out an important state: Vermont, New Hampshire’s neighbor to the west, has had lower rates than New Hampshire for most of the period since 2017, despite relatively aggressive clean energy requirements. “If energy and climate goals were driving this trend, why is Vermont so affordable?” asked Sam Evans-Brown, director of Clean Energy New Hampshire, in the Globe article.

While it’s true that New Hampshire’s rates are lower than other states at the moment, the price spikes of 2022 suggest there is a more nuanced conversation to be had about the role of clean energy policy in shaping what customers pay.

“Comparing two points in time in this way just invites spurious conclusions,” Evans-Brown said.

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