Energy Service is the default generation name, and the Department publishes a reset cycle
If you never enroll with a competitive energy supplier, your distribution utility sells you Energy Service—the default generation product. The New Hampshire Department of Energy’s choosing-supplier page tells customers to write down the kilowatt-hour price for energy supply on the current bill and to remember that utility energy-supply prices change every six months. That cycle language is why this hub refuses to print a frozen cents figure. Open the current Energy Service row for your utility on the date you actually shop.
Energy Service is generation, not delivery. Poles, wires, transformers, and outage restoration stay with Eversource, Liberty, Unitil, or NHEC no matter who bills the supply line. The Department repeats that you will continue to call the electric utility for outages and emergencies after a supplier switch. Treat that sentence as operating procedure for overnight laundry staff, not as fine print.
Because Energy Service resets on a published cycle, a CEP contract that looked tidy in April can face a different default benchmark in October. Calendar the reset, archive the Energy Service disclosure you used, and date-stamp supplier quotes. Comparing a January supplier email to a July Energy Service row is how owners invent a “savings” story that the invoices will not support.
Variable supplier products can move in between those six-month Energy Service posts. Fixed supplier products can sit still while Energy Service moves. Neither structure is automatically cheaper. The Department’s own shopping advice asks whether you want the same fixed price, whether you will track an end date, and whether you understand cancellation fees. Those are the questions that belong on a laundry procurement sheet.
Multi-store owners should not assume every New Hampshire meter shares one Energy Service number. Eversource Energy Service, Liberty Energy Service, Unitil Energy Service, and NHEC default supply are different rows on the Department tool. A Manchester Eversource quote is the wrong benchmark for a Liberty town laundry even when both stores sit in ISO New England.
shop.aspx is the comparison tool; the PUC homepage is not a commercial rate card
New Hampshire split energy functions between the Public Utilities Commission and the Department of Energy. The Commission remains the utility regulator. The Department hosts consumer shopping pages, supplier registration lists, and the interactive shop.aspx comparison. Bookmarking puc.nh.gov and stopping there is how owners miss the Small Commercial and Large Commercial and Industrial filters that actually display competitive products next to Energy Service.
The shop tool asks you to choose an account type first, then a distribution utility. Those two clicks change which registered offers appear. A residential comparison page will not describe a 24/7 coin laundry. A large C&I page may list products that a small-commercial meter cannot enroll. Start from the rate schedule and customer class on the utility bill, then pick the matching shop filter.
Department text states that registration is not an endorsement. A name on the commercial-and-industrial electric supplier list means the company registered to offer service to listed utilities—not that it has a live product for your demand, and not that every registrant serves Eversource, Liberty, Unitil, and NHEC equally. The list itself shows registrants that serve only a subset of those utilities or that are not offering new service.
After you identify a product on shop.aspx, the Department still tells you to contact the supplier for terms and conditions, then let the supplier enroll you with the local utility. The portal is a comparison surface, not an enrollment engine that bypasses contract language. Read cancellation, variable-price basis, extra monthly charges, and whether you will receive one consolidated bill or two.
Keep the shop.aspx URL in the store energy folder next to the PUC docket site. Use the Department tool for product comparison and the Commission site for utility tariff and docket context. Collapsing those roles into “the PUC website” is the administrative error this hub exists to prevent.
Eversource, Liberty, Unitil, and NHEC are four Energy Service comparison rows
Eversource New Hampshire is the legacy Public Service Company of New Hampshire delivery footprint and covers much of the state’s population, including Manchester’s urban core. Liberty Utilities serves other electric territories. Unitil Energy Systems covers additional pockets, including seacoast-area load distinct from Eversource. The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative is a member-owned utility that still appears as a selectable distribution company on the Department shop tool.
You cannot shop Energy Service across those four names as if they were one default rate. Select the utility printed on the bill. A supplier registered only for Eversource will not enroll an NHEC meter just because both appear on a statewide list. Conversely, some registrants list all four utilities and still may not have a small-commercial product posted this week. The shop filter is the live check.
Border confusion is a New Hampshire specialty. Massachusetts Basic Service, Maine Standard Offer, and Vermont regulated tariffs are different legal products. A store a few miles from the Massachusetts line still shops New Hampshire Energy Service if the bill says Eversource NH, Liberty, Unitil, or NHEC. Do not paste an Energize CT or Energy Switch MA screenshot into a Nashua or Keene folder.
NHEC participation on shop.aspx does not make the cooperative identical to an investor-owned utility for every contract clause. Confirm membership, billing, and any cooperative-specific supply rules with NHEC before you assume a competitive product that works on Eversource will enroll cleanly. The Department tool is the starting comparison, not the end of cooperative due diligence.
Portfolio operators should build a four-column map: store address, delivery utility, Energy Service row date, and shop filter used (small commercial versus large C&I). That map prevents a Liberty town acquisition from inheriting an Eversource Energy Service file leftover from the Manchester store.
Small-commercial versus large C&I filters change which registered products you see
The Department shop page offers Residential, Small Commercial, and Large Commercial and Industrial account types. Laundry owners routinely open the residential tab because it loads first. That tab is the wrong comparison for a commercial meter. If your utility bill shows a general-service or commercial rate schedule, use the small-commercial filter unless your demand and tariff language put you in the large C&I bucket.
Large C&I products can include structures, credit terms, and bandwidth that a neighborhood laundry will never be offered. Small-commercial products can include monthly fees or short teaser windows that look harmless until you apply them to 24/7 kWh. The shop columns typically disclose pricing type, term, monthly charge, and cancellation language. Read every column. A low energy-supply figure next to a cancellation fee and a short term is not a simple substitute for Energy Service.
The Department asks you to decide your risk tolerance before you enroll: same fixed price versus months that differ, willingness to track an end date, interest in renewable options. Coin-laundry cash flow is lumpy around holidays and campus calendars. A variable product that requires you to watch wholesale movements every month is an operating-process decision, not a slogan.
If no small-commercial product appears for your utility on a given day, that is information. It does not authorize you to enroll as residential, and it does not mean Energy Service is “unavailable.” Stay on Energy Service or request a written commercial quote from a registrant that lists your utility on the C&I supplier page. Do not invent a portal rate that is not posted.
Re-open shop.aspx when Energy Service resets and again 45 days before a competitive contract ends. Department guidance notes that suppliers must notify you no less than 45 days before the end of a contract and that customers who forget the end date can pay more than Energy Service or another product. Put that notice window on the same calendar as washer-lease payments.
Liberty and Unitil C&I gas marketers are a limited program, not household choice
The Department of Energy states that commercial and industrial natural-gas customers of Liberty and Unitil may buy gas supply from a third-party supplier while the utility continues transportation to the burner tip. It also states that residential customers still purchase bundled gas commodity and delivery from the local gas utility. A laundry dryer meter is a commercial question only if the LDC account is commercial and the store is on Liberty or Unitil gas.
New Hampshire has two regulated gas distribution utilities: Liberty Utilities (EnergyNorth) and Unitil’s Northern Utilities. Electric Eversource territory does not automatically include a gas marketer program. Many Eversource electric laundries have a different gas LDC—or propane, or no gas dryers at all. Map the gas company from the gas bill, not from the electric logo.
Third-party gas prices and terms are not set by the State. Utility transportation service remains Commission-regulated. That is the same supply-versus-delivery split you already use on the electric bill, applied to therms. Switching a gas marketer does not transfer leak response or odor calls away from Liberty or Unitil. Call the gas utility for a leak, just as you call the electric utility for a dark store.
The Department’s C&I gas supplier list is short relative to the electric registrant list, and the Department itself cites the limited number of gas marketers as a reason choice stays commercial-only. Do not assume a dual-fuel “one supplier” pitch can enroll both your Eversource Energy Service meter and your Liberty gas meter under one New Hampshire contract form. Ask for two confirmations or stay bundled on gas.
If you do shop gas, keep the electric Energy Service comparison and the gas transportation comparison in separate workbooks. Winter dryer therms and winter ISO-NE electric exposure can rise in the same weeks without sharing a procurement rule. A single “winter hedge” email that mixes both fuels without naming Energy Service and the gas LDC is not a New Hampshire-compliant file.
Consolidated versus dual bills after you leave Energy Service
The Department explains that you may receive one consolidated bill from the utility for delivery plus energy, or two bills—one from the utility for delivery and one from the competitive supplier for energy. Ask which structure you are signing. A dual-bill product that looks cheaper on shop.aspx can still create bookkeeping cost for a cash laundry that already reconciles card processors and coin collections.
Consolidated billing does not mean the utility sold you generation. It means the utility is printing the supplier’s generation charges next to regulated delivery charges. Continue to split those groups when you review monthly results. If staff only look at the total due, a delivery-rider increase will be blamed on the supplier or an Energy Service reset will be blamed on the wires company.
Enrollment is initiated with the supplier, who then contacts the local electric utility. Switching does not require you to call the utility to “drop” Energy Service as if it were a cable package, but you should still watch the first bill for the effective meter-read date. Partial months can blend Energy Service and supplier days. That blend is expected; it is not a reason to invent a first-month savings percentage.
If you return to Energy Service later, confirm the utility’s rules and timing rather than assuming an immediate default-price switch on the day you cancel. Competitive contracts can include termination fees. Department shopping advice tells you to read those fees before you enroll. A laundry that sells in month ten of a twelve-month product needs that clause in the diligence folder.
Archive PDF captures of the shop.aspx row, the Energy Service disclosure, and the signed terms. New Hampshire’s comparison surface changes as registrants update products. A verbal “it was on the state website” will not help you reconstruct why you left Energy Service six months later.
Ice-storm restoration stays with the delivery utility after you leave Energy Service
Department choosing-supplier pages repeat the outage rule in more than one section: regardless of who you buy electricity from, you continue to call your electric utility for outages, emergency services, and questions about your service. That utility is Eversource, Liberty, Unitil, or NHEC—the company whose trucks already know your feeder. The competitive supplier does not become the restoration entity when Energy Service comes off the bill.
Post the delivery-utility outage line at the attendant station. New Hampshire winter storms and wet-snow events take down lines on a schedule that has nothing to do with your contract end date. A supplier switch completed in November does not change how the utility sequences repairs on your circuit in January.
Emergency gas odor calls follow the gas LDC, not the electric supplier and not a gas marketer. If the store has both an electric competitive supplier and a gas marketer, you now have four phone numbers that matter: electric utility outage, gas utility leak, electric supplier billing, gas supplier billing. Write all four. Do not hand attendants a single “energy company” speed-dial.
After an outage, estimated reads and restored-load spikes can distort a single month. Split delivery and supply before you conclude that leaving Energy Service failed. The wires company billed what the tariff requires; the supplier billed what the contract requires. Those are different reconciliations.
When you train a new manager, walk the last invoice and circle Energy Service or the supplier name on the generation block, then circle the utility name on the delivery block. That ten-minute drill prevents the next ice storm from becoming a billing argument with the wrong company while the store is still dark.
