Unitil Energy Systems electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 39,656 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. At 23.33¢ per kilowatt-hour it is one of the cheaper places to buy electricity in New Hampshire, 14.6% under the statewide average of 27.33¢.

Its customers use very little electricity by national standards, 615 kilowatt-hours a month against 871 nationally. Dense housing, a mild climate or heating that runs on gas rather than electricity all push consumption down, and any of them can leave a household with a modest bill despite a high rate.

A shareholder-owned company whose rates are set by the state regulator, including an approved return on the capital it has invested. That matters because a bill is not only the cost of generating electricity: it also carries the cost of the network, and who owns that network changes how it is paid for.

In 2024 the average Unitil Energy Systems customer went 593 minutes without electricity across 1.73 interruptions. The median across the 941 utilities that report this is 185 minutes.

That is far worse than typical, and figures at this level almost always reflect a major storm season rather than everyday performance. A single hurricane or ice storm can dominate the annual number.

Unitil Energy Systems offers time-of-use pricing to residential customers. 50 households were enrolled, about 0.1% of its residential base.

These plans are opt-in almost everywhere. They reward households that can move laundry, dishwashing, water heating or electric vehicle charging out of the late-afternoon peak, and they cost more than the standard rate for households that cannot. How to tell which group you are in.

2,365 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 18.81 megawatts. That works out to 59.6 installations per thousand customers, against a median of 8 across the utilities reporting it.

Adoption here is exceptionally high. That usually means some combination of a high retail rate worth displacing, strong sunshine and favourable export rules, and it tends to bring its own regulatory argument about who covers the fixed cost of the network. What exports are actually worth.