In this chapter:
I. "
Commission
" means the public utilities commission.
I-a. "
Default service
" means electricity supply that is available to retail customers who are otherwise without an electricity supplier and are ineligible for transition service and is provided by electric distribution utilities under RSA 374-F:3, V or as an alterative, by municipal or county aggregators under RSA 53-E.
I-b. "
Department
" means the department of energy.
II. "
Electricity suppliers
" means suppliers of electricity generation services and includes actual electricity generators and brokers, aggregators, and pools that arrange for the supply of electricity generation to meet retail customer demand, which may be municipal or county entities.
III. "
FERC
" means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
IV. "
Stranded costs
" means costs, liabilities, and investments, such as uneconomic assets, that electric utilities would reasonably expect to recover if the existing regulatory structure with retail rates for the bundled provision of electric service continued and that will not be recovered as a result of restructured industry regulation that allows retail choice of electricity suppliers, unless a specific mechanism for such cost recovery is provided. Stranded costs may only include costs of:
(a) Existing commitments or obligations incurred prior to the effective date of this chapter;
(b) Renegotiated commitments approved by the commission;
(c) New mandated commitments approved by the commission, including any specific expenditures authorized for stranded cost recovery pursuant to any commission-approved plan to implement electric utility restructuring in the territory previously serviced by Connecticut Valley Electric Company, Inc.;
(d) Costs approved for recovery by the commission in connection with the divestiture or retirement of Public Service Company of New Hampshire generation assets pursuant to RSA 369-B:3-a; and
(e) All costs incurred as a result of fulfilling employee protection obligations pursuant to RSA 369-B:3-b.
V. "
Transition service
" means electricity supply that is available to existing retail customers prior to each customer’s first choice of a competitive electricity supplier and to others, as deemed appropriate by the commission.
Source. 1996, 129:2. 1998, 191:3, 4. 2003, 56:2, eff. July 20, 2003. 2014, 310:4, eff. Sept. 30, 2014. 2019, 316:17, eff. Oct. 1, 2019. 2021, 91:280, eff. July 1, 2021.