Growing the Grid
PSNH Powers New Hampshire

In its early years, PSNH's business was not limited to electricity. It was also in the gas, electric railway, and steam businesses. But the use of electricity gained rapidly on gas and in 1945 the company's gas business was sold. PSNH's steam sales business, which had always been small, was divested in 1949. As for the railway (and, later, bus) businesses, increasing use of automobiles forced their eventual abandonment in 1954.

To create demand, PSNH created the Home Service Department in 1929 to help customers select and use gas and electric appliances. These efforts proved effective. In 1928, the average residential customer used 296 kWh of electricity annually. By 1931, this had gone up 45 percent to 429 kWh. PSNH also emphasized rural electrification. Construction of rural lines increased steadily, from 23.3 miles in 1927 to 99.5 miles in 1931. That continued through the Great Depression and World War II.

Appliance demonstrations like this one in front of PSNH's first headquarters informed the public about the many uses of electricity, and helped create business for the newly formed electric company.

The quality of home comfort and efficiency on farms improved dramatically as labor-saving electricity came to the countryside. The milk pail and stool were replaced by electrically powered machinery, removing the one-cow-at-a-time limit of hand milking.

By 1945, the average residential electrical usage in New Hampshire was 1,012 kWh, with annual total sales of 477,828,000 kWh - more than two-and-a-half-times that of 1932. People were buying electric stoves, refrigerators, irons, water heaters, and other appliances. Most farms - about 83 percent - were electrified. The average kWh cost moved steadily downward between 1932 and 1945, from 7.48 cents to 4.45 cents.

Storms, depression, and war did not stop PSNH from acquiring other companies. The post-war period of economic growth was one in which PSNH played a role by attracting new industry to the state. Sale of industrial power in 1966 was three-and-one-third times what it had been in 1948. But domestic use of electricity surpassed even that, rising from 100,900,000 kWh to 676,100,000 kWh. Such growth called for more generating capacity, so, in 1948, the company built the Schiller Plant in Portsmouth. At the same, the J. Brodie Smith hydroelectric plant was constructed on the Androscoggin River, bringing the company's total number of hydro plants to 32, with a combined rated capacity of 77,500 kW. This was virtually matched by six fuel-burning plants with a capacity of 76,250 kW.

Although many of PSNH's hydro plants have been closed over the years due to the unreliability of river flow, nine plants are still in operation, providing 70 megawatts of power.

Because river flow was unreliable, PSNH turned increasingly to fossil-fueled power plants. By 1973, 41 hydro plants, which at one time or another had been on the PSNH lines, had been retired. In their stead came the large and efficient steam plants, such as the Merrimack Station's units at Bow.