Public Service of New Hampshire is now Eversource Energy

Public Service of New Hampshire customers will notice something different about their bills this month: Printed on the envelope alongside the PSNH logo will be a new logo for Eversource Energy.

That’s because as of yesterday, Public Service of New Hampshire is no more. The state’s largest utility is now going by the name Eversource Energy, along with its parent company Northeast Utilities and all of that company’s subsidiaries in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

“It really brings attention to the fact that we are one company, with one mission, aimed at customer service,” said company spokesman Martin Murray.

The change marks the unification of six brands – Connecticut Light and Power Co., NSTAR Electric, NSTAR Gas, PSNH, Western Massachusetts Electric Co. and Yankee Gas Services Co. – under the single moniker Eversource Energy. The company’s website eversource.com will now be the portal for all of its 3.6 million customers across Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Eversource will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ES, as opposed to NU for Northeast Utilities. That change will likely be effective Feb. 19.

“From a practical standpoint, it doesn’t make sense for subsidiaries of one company to have six distinct names and brands,” Murray said.

PSNH launched in 1926, as a consolidation of smaller New Hampshire electric companies owned by Middle West Utilities. The company was purchased by Northeast Utilities in 1989, after it filed for Chapter 11 restructuring driven by financial issues surrounding the delayed opening of the Seabrook nuclear power station.

The Eversource name change will not greatly impact day-to-day operations for the New Hampshire utility that has more than 500,000 customers across the state, Murray said. The most visible change will be the new logos, which will soon adorn all of the company’s utility trucks and replace the PSNH sign at the company’s Manchester office. The company launched a television and radio advertising campaign yesterday to inform customers about the switch from PSNH to Eversource.

The name change won’t affect several ongoing cases before state utility regulators, including one that aims to determine whether it’s in ratepayers’ best interest for PSNH to sell off its electric power generation fleet.

The company recently began settlement negotiations with lawmakers over a $422 million mercury scrubber it installed at Merrimack Station in Bow. It filed a one-page update with the Public Utilities Commission yesterday, saying the confidential discussions are under way and a state team is “conducting outreach to all parties to explore and understand priorities of all participants in the two dockets.”

“The change in the brand will not in any way change the flavor of any conversation we are having on any issues,” Murray said.



(Allie Morris can be reached at 369-3307 or at amorris@cmonitor.com.)