Surprisingly (to me, anyway) New Hampshire used slightly more electricity than normal during the pandemic lockdown (April through June), with increased residential use from us work-at-homers compensating for shut factories and hotels.
That’s according to a study by CommercialCafe.com, which you can see here. They crunched Energy Information Administration (EIA) state-level and sector-specific data on electricity sales Their figures for New Hampshire are:
| Sector | New Hampshire | U.S. |
| Overall | +1% y-o-y | -4% y-o-y |
| Commercial | -10% y-o-y | -11% y-o-y |
| Industrial | -7% y-o-y | -9% y-o-y |
| Residential | +16% y-o-y | +8% y-o-y |
By contrast, electricity use in Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine were all down about 3% compared to the same period in 2019.
I’m not sure why New Hampshire is so different from its neighbors. You would think that Vermont, for example, would be even more tilted toward residential usage than New Hampshire and thus see even more of an increase in usage. I assume it’s a function of the hordes of engineers who live in southern N.H. but work in Massachusetts. They all stayed home, running all their computers 24/7 for remote work.
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