In NH you must pay a DELIVERY charge to your utility which IS REGULATED. On my December 2022 Eversource bill I paid a flat $13.81 customer charge, plus 8.952¢/kWh in Delivery fees. If you don't do anything, you will also pay the default SUPPLY rate for your utility. Eversource solicits wholesale electricity supply bids for a six month period, those bids determine Eversource's default rate. Eversource is not supposed to make any money on SUPPLY, only on DELIVERY. You also have the option of contracting with a third party for your SUPPLY. Regardless of who SUPPLIES your power, your utility still delivers your power, reads your meter, and with most suppliers bills you for both the DELIVERY and SUPPLY used.
IMHO the best time of year to sign up for a third party supply contract is shortly after your utility has announced their next default rate. In the case of Eversource the current default rate went into effect on February 1st, 2023. The next rate will become public knowledge in July, and go into effect on August 1st.
When I researched available rates in the middle of January, see: Shop
The default Utility Rates (shown at top of page after select Residential and specify the Utility) where:
Eversource then current rate 22.566¢, future Feb 1 - Aug 1, 2023 rate 20.221¢
Liberty then current rate 22.228¢, future rate not shown.
NH Electric Co-op then current rate 16.983¢, future rate 13.783¢
Unitil current rate 25.925¢ through July 2023
Whether signing up for a third party supply contract now makes sense depends heavily on the RATE and TERM of the contract. My utility is Eversource. I know that Eversource's rate will be 20.221¢ for the six months starting February 1, 2023. Two weeks ago I signed up for a 10 month plan at 16.79 cents which will take affect at my next meter read. That is mathematically certain to save me 3.431¢/kWh until August 1st compared to doing nothing.
I could have signed with a different company offering a 14.99¢ rate for five months to new customers. However, I didn't like their flat $100 termination fee, or the very high variable rate they were charging compared to other suppliers. At the end of your fixed rate term, you are generally automatically changed to the supplier's variable rate, until you pick a new contract, and then wait a few days for bureaucracy, and then wait for your meter to be read. Some suppliers appear to offer variable rates close to their fixed rate, so spending time on their variable rate is not a problem. However, other suppliers appear to make most of their money from customers who take a lost leader, and then never get around to selecting a replacement plan.
So yes @tga, Eversource's default rate for the August 2023 - January 2024 time period might drop massively. The third party supply contracts offered might drop even sooner. On the other hand world and NH energy prices are very uncertain right now. Will the world slip into recession? How much gas will Russia sell? What inflation will we see over the next months? Will any major New England power stations unexpectedly go offline? IMHO it is certainly possible that instead of going down, NH residential rates could go up, or stay about the same.
In the case of my contract, if Eversource's default rate drops massively for August-January, I can pay a $10 per month remaining early termination fee and switch. In theory I could also switch to someone else even sooner, but I know I won't follow the energy market that closely.
I just wish I was served by the NH Electric Co-op which seems to have much better rates. They are also the only utility in NH that I know of offering EV related rebates, as was previously mentioned in Buying from New Hampshire Unfortunately, the costs of selling my house and moving would totally swamp my savings on electricity.
