New Hampshire Data Center Construction in 2026: The Bow Proposal, the Moratorium Push and What It Means for Siting

New Hampshire has not adopted a dedicated large-load tariff for data centers. Instead, the state is moving toward restricting new data center construction: Gov. Kelly Ayotte has said she will put a multi-year moratorium into the next state budget, and Senate Republicans said on September 18, 2026 that they will pursue one as well. The concern is the effect of large new loads on electricity costs for existing ratepayers, not a cost-recovery tariff mechanism.

Figures compiled from the Edison Electric Institute's "Large Load Projects and Tariffs" (September 2026) member-company summary and public regulatory filings. Confirm current tariff terms directly with Eversource / Unitil and the relevant state public utility commission before relying on any figure for a capital decision.

Weighing New Hampshire against another state or a Canadian province with a different rate and interconnection picture entirely? Run both sides of the comparison through our licensed AI data center cost configurator — it applies each jurisdiction's actual power rate, tax treatment and large-load tariff rules to the same seven build configurations.

New Hampshire Data Center Construction: Where Projects Stand (September 2026)

Bow (former Merrimack Station), about 350 MW. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission filings show Eversource Energy agreed to run a preliminary, exploratory study on the viability of connecting a 350-megawatt project to the grid, at the request of Granite Shore Power, owner of Merrimack Station in Bow. Merrimack was New England's last operating coal plant until it closed in 2025. A load that size would make it a hyperscale data center, but this is an early-stage interconnection study, not an approved project.

East Concord. A second capital-region site, a vacant lot in East Concord, has also been reported as under discussion.

Nottingham (Route 4). In May 2026, Seacoast entrepreneur Thomas Moulton brought a data center concept for the Nottingham Business Park on Route 4 to the town planning board for a conceptual consultation. The meeting had to be moved to the local school after the proposal drew statewide opposition over power and water use.

The policy response. In September 2026 Gov. Kelly Ayotte said she opposes the Bow project and will include a likely multi-year moratorium in HB 2, the state budget bill, which would not take effect before July 2027 unless imposed sooner by executive order. On September 18, Senate President Sharon Carson said the Senate will also pursue moratorium legislation in the session that opens in January 2027. The idea is not unanimous: Rep. Michael Vose, chair of the House science, technology and energy committee, has argued for an alternative to a moratorium.

Why so little has been built. New Hampshire has only about 10 small-scale data centers. Lawmakers and operators point to high electricity costs, expensive land, limited transmission capacity, and the absence of a state sales tax, which means New Hampshire cannot offer the sales-tax exemptions other states use to attract data center construction.

Sources: New Hampshire Bulletin, Sept. 1, 2026; NHPR, Sept. 2, 2026; Concord Monitor, Sept. 18, 2026; NHPR, May 26, 2026; The Dartmouth, March 2026. Status as of September 25, 2026.

While New Hampshire debates a moratorium, operators elsewhere are already running — take a look inside our crypto data center in British Columbia for what an operating facility actually involves.

Model This State on Your Own Site

Every figure above comes from the same power-cost and tariff dataset behind the SCR AI Build Configurator — a licensed, embeddable widget that models seven data center build configurations against all nine Canadian provinces and all 50 US states plus DC, returning capital expenditure by line item, energy cost, revenue by commercial structure, EBITDA and payback.

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