A bill that passed the New Hampshire Senate earlier this year proposes something that might sound familiar: funneling millions from the Renewable Energy Fund, designed to finance investment in green projects statewide, into the general fund.
That was one of the many provisions of last year’s biennial budget trailer bill, House Bill 2, which was signed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte in June 2025. The budget called for a surplus of approximately $15 million, plus millions in annual revenue, to be transferred from the Renewable Energy Fund to the general fund in 2026 and 2027, leaving $1 million for programs and a similar amount for administrative costs. It also removed residential solar projects from the list of projects the fund could finance.
However, when another bill from last year’s session, House Bill 682, took effect on Sept. 30, those changes were inadvertently undone, leaving the Renewable Energy Fund in limbo. Now, another bill, Senate Bill 599, seeks to restore the Renewable Energy Fund sweep as outlined in last year’s budget.
SB 599’s prime sponsor, Loudon Republican Sen. Howard Pearl, said the bill would restore the intentions of the Legislature as passed in last year’s budget.
But Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy New Hampshire, said he was disappointed by what he saw as a lack of transparency from the Department of Energy and legislators regarding the evolving status of the Renewable Energy Fund and related bills. Those who oppose the weakening of the fund in this biennium, he said, missed a chance to oppose the move in the Senate because of the confusion.
“Instead of government transparency, we had some government obfuscation,” he said.
Bill timing complicated Renewable Energy Fund status HB 682, the legislation that complicated the sweep, was sponsored by Strafford Republican Rep. Michael Harrington. The bill removed offshore wind energy from the purview of one of the departments funded by the Renewable Energy Fund, redirecting department focus away from the technology.
To do so, it amended the statute that establishes the fund, working off a pre-budget version of that language. HB 682 cleared the House and Senate before the budget was signed, but it reached Ayotte’s desk after, and ultimately took effect that fall. Thus, on Sept. 30, HB 682 undid some of the changes to the Renewable Energy Fund statute that had been included in the budget.
That included cancelling the planned transfer to the general fund of Renewable Energy Fund dollars, Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat, said at a Jan. 8 meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Flip-flopping status of Renewable Energy Fund went largely unnoticed Harrington said in an interview Wednesday that undoing the budget’s provisions had not been his intention. He said he was not aware of unintended effects of HB 682’s passage. Harrington does not believe investment in renewable energy benefits ratepayers, he said, and he supported the move in last year’s budget to sweep the Renewable Energy Fund.
Initially, the changes also escaped the notice of Renewable Energy Fund supporters, said Evans-Brown. Believing that the fund had already been swept, he did not initially consider the second bill, SB 599, significant.
Susan Richman, of the New Hampshire Network for Environment, Energy, and Climate, is the only party listed on the Senate hearing report for SB 599 as opposing the measure. On Wednesday, she said she did not know, at the time, the full context of the bill, but broadly opposed the weakening of the Renewable Energy Fund.
At that January hearing, Watters, who introduced the bill on Pearl’s behalf, noted the conflict between HB 682 and the budget. The intent of SB 599 was to correct that, he said, and to do so in alignment with the terms the Senate had pushed for during the budget process, including the conservation of the Department of Energy administrative funding contained within the Renewable Energy Fund.
“This would keep the fund intact and functioning,” said Pearl in an interview Wednesday. “Without it, the fund was going to be defunct.” Pearl said the sweeping of the Renewable Energy Fund was necessary because of the “tight budget year” in 2025.
“We need that money, and we’re spending it,” said Watters in January.
At the hearing, Megan Stone, legislative liaison for the New Hampshire Department of Energy, and Christopher Ellms, then-deputy commissioner of the department, answered questions about the intended breakdown of remaining funds between administrative and grant funding, but did not provide additional testimony on the bill. Stone is listed on the hearing report as neutral.
Evans-Brown said the quiet treatment of SB 599 had allowed the bill, and the situation it seeks to address, to fly under the radar until it passed through the Senate in February.
The passage of HB 682 also reverted the statutory duties of the department to their pre-budget state, including requiring them to invest Renewable Energy Fund dollars in energy projects.
In her email statement, Stone said the department could not do so because the funding had already been swept by the time HB 682 went into effect. That, she said, left the department without money to invest in such programs beyond what was funded with the $1 million conserved in the budget: $500,000 for a low- and moderate-income community solar program and $500,000 for a non-residential competitive grant program.
Stone said the Department of Energy had identified the conflict after HB 682 went into effect and notified the office of the Legislative Budget Assistant.
Some see SB 599 as a simple fix, others a missed opportunity “We are against this, because the REF [Renewable Energy Fund] is one of the remaining bits of state support for renewables,” said Reinmar Seidler, of the New Hampshire Network. Seidler also hadn’t known about the conflict that preceded SB 599, which he said would weaken the fund “considerably.”
When the Renewable Energy Fund was initially gutted in last year’s budget, renewable energy advocates criticized the move and laid blame on the Department of Energy, saying that sluggish management of the fund and its programs had limited its ability to deliver results while allowing the surplus to accrue in the first place. But opponents said the surplus was evidence that the program was not functioning, and questioned the role of the state in encouraging renewable energy development.
Regardless of the outcome of SB 599, the future of New Hampshire’s Renewable Energy Fund beyond this biennium remains unclear. As clean energy advocates had pushed for during last year’s budget process, the current language of SB 599 deals only with this two-year period.
Pearl said he intended SB 599 to keep the Renewable Energy Fund alive after this biennium.
“I felt it was important to make sure we preserve that for the future, as we were going forward,” he said.
However, other bills this session propose changes to the Renewable Energy Fund that would weaken or sweep it in 2028 and beyond, including by rebating its funding to individual ratepayers.
SB 599 passed the full Senate on a voice vote on Feb. 19. It will next be heard before the House Committee on Science, Technology, and Energy, though the date of that hearing is not yet available.
In wake of legislative confusion, bill takes a second pass at gutting Renewable Energy Fund
by Dan McKay
6 hours ago
By:Molly Rains-March 24, 20265:00 am
A bill that passed the New Hampshire Senate earlier this year proposes something that might sound familiar: funneling millions from the Renewable Energy Fund, designed to finance investment in green projects statewide, into the general fund.
That was one of the many provisions of last year’s biennial budget trailer bill, House Bill 2, which was signed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte in June 2025. The budget called for a surplus of approximately $15 million, plus millions in annual revenue, to be transferred from the Renewable Energy Fund to the general fund in 2026 and 2027, leaving $1 million for programs and a similar amount for administrative costs. It also removed residential solar projects from the list of projects the fund could finance.
However, when another bill from last year’s session, House Bill 682, took effect on Sept. 30, those changes were inadvertently undone, leaving the Renewable Energy Fund in limbo. Now, another bill, Senate Bill 599, seeks to restore the Renewable Energy Fund sweep as outlined in last year’s budget.
SB 599’s prime sponsor, Loudon Republican Sen. Howard Pearl, said the bill would restore the intentions of the Legislature as passed in last year’s budget.
But Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy New Hampshire, said he was disappointed by what he saw as a lack of transparency from the Department of Energy and legislators regarding the evolving status of the Renewable Energy Fund and related bills. Those who oppose the weakening of the fund in this biennium, he said, missed a chance to oppose the move in the Senate because of the confusion.
“Instead of government transparency, we had some government obfuscation,” he said.
Bill timing complicated Renewable Energy Fund status
HB 682, the legislation that complicated the sweep, was sponsored by Strafford Republican Rep. Michael Harrington. The bill removed offshore wind energy from the purview of one of the departments funded by the Renewable Energy Fund, redirecting department focus away from the technology.
To do so, it amended the statute that establishes the fund, working off a pre-budget version of that language. HB 682 cleared the House and Senate before the budget was signed, but it reached Ayotte’s desk after, and ultimately took effect that fall. Thus, on Sept. 30, HB 682 undid some of the changes to the Renewable Energy Fund statute that had been included in the budget.
That included cancelling the planned transfer to the general fund of Renewable Energy Fund dollars, Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat, said at a Jan. 8 meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Flip-flopping status of Renewable Energy Fund went largely unnoticed
Harrington said in an interview Wednesday that undoing the budget’s provisions had not been his intention. He said he was not aware of unintended effects of HB 682’s passage. Harrington does not believe investment in renewable energy benefits ratepayers, he said, and he supported the move in last year’s budget to sweep the Renewable Energy Fund.
Initially, the changes also escaped the notice of Renewable Energy Fund supporters, said Evans-Brown. Believing that the fund had already been swept, he did not initially consider the second bill, SB 599, significant.
Susan Richman, of the New Hampshire Network for Environment, Energy, and Climate, is the only party listed on the Senate hearing report for SB 599 as opposing the measure. On Wednesday, she said she did not know, at the time, the full context of the bill, but broadly opposed the weakening of the Renewable Energy Fund.
At that January hearing, Watters, who introduced the bill on Pearl’s behalf, noted the conflict between HB 682 and the budget. The intent of SB 599 was to correct that, he said, and to do so in alignment with the terms the Senate had pushed for during the budget process, including the conservation of the Department of Energy administrative funding contained within the Renewable Energy Fund.
“This would keep the fund intact and functioning,” said Pearl in an interview Wednesday. “Without it, the fund was going to be defunct.” Pearl said the sweeping of the Renewable Energy Fund was necessary because of the “tight budget year” in 2025.
“We need that money, and we’re spending it,” said Watters in January.
At the hearing, Megan Stone, legislative liaison for the New Hampshire Department of Energy, and Christopher Ellms, then-deputy commissioner of the department, answered questions about the intended breakdown of remaining funds between administrative and grant funding, but did not provide additional testimony on the bill. Stone is listed on the hearing report as neutral.
Evans-Brown said the quiet treatment of SB 599 had allowed the bill, and the situation it seeks to address, to fly under the radar until it passed through the Senate in February.
The passage of HB 682 also reverted the statutory duties of the department to their pre-budget state, including requiring them to invest Renewable Energy Fund dollars in energy projects.
In her email statement, Stone said the department could not do so because the funding had already been swept by the time HB 682 went into effect. That, she said, left the department without money to invest in such programs beyond what was funded with the $1 million conserved in the budget: $500,000 for a low- and moderate-income community solar program and $500,000 for a non-residential competitive grant program.
Stone said the Department of Energy had identified the conflict after HB 682 went into effect and notified the office of the Legislative Budget Assistant.
Some see SB 599 as a simple fix, others a missed opportunity
“We are against this, because the REF [Renewable Energy Fund] is one of the remaining bits of state support for renewables,” said Reinmar Seidler, of the New Hampshire Network. Seidler also hadn’t known about the conflict that preceded SB 599, which he said would weaken the fund “considerably.”
When the Renewable Energy Fund was initially gutted in last year’s budget, renewable energy advocates criticized the move and laid blame on the Department of Energy, saying that sluggish management of the fund and its programs had limited its ability to deliver results while allowing the surplus to accrue in the first place. But opponents said the surplus was evidence that the program was not functioning, and questioned the role of the state in encouraging renewable energy development.
Regardless of the outcome of SB 599, the future of New Hampshire’s Renewable Energy Fund beyond this biennium remains unclear. As clean energy advocates had pushed for during last year’s budget process, the current language of SB 599 deals only with this two-year period.
Pearl said he intended SB 599 to keep the Renewable Energy Fund alive after this biennium.
“I felt it was important to make sure we preserve that for the future, as we were going forward,” he said.
However, other bills this session propose changes to the Renewable Energy Fund that would weaken or sweep it in 2028 and beyond, including by rebating its funding to individual ratepayers.
SB 599 passed the full Senate on a voice vote on Feb. 19. It will next be heard before the House Committee on Science, Technology, and Energy, though the date of that hearing is not yet available.