New Hampshire

Energy/Power is the dominant stress point: lawmakers and towns keep returning to grid capacity, electric rates, and the risk of utility cost-shifts to residents. NHPR Water/Geology is the second stressor: local opponents in Canterbury framed data centers around water-supply impacts and clean-water availability. NHPR

None identified. NHPR’s 2026 coverage says the issue is more salient in local zoning and legislative politics than in named federal or statewide campaigns in New Hampshire as of May 2026. NHPR

A statewide one-year moratorium was proposed in House Bill 1265, sponsored by Rep. Peter Schmidt (D-Dover), but it was killed in the House after a 3/11/2026 vote and did not become law. InDepthNH Citizens Count. On the local side, Canterbury voters were asked on March 10, 2026, whether to amend zoning to explicitly forbid data centers, a notable municipal ban effort even though no Canterbury project was identified. NHPR

The main ratepayer/cost-shift bill visible in May 2026 is Senate Bill 439. As amended in the House Municipal and County Government Committee, it would prevent towns from regulating data centers more restrictively than other allowed uses in the same district and make them a by-right use in commercial or industrial zones; the original version also required proof of sufficient grid capacity from the utility. The committee voted 11-9 along party lines to recommend passage, and the bill was headed to the House floor. NHPR Separately, NHPR reported a 2025 state-law pathway for off-grid energy providers that could serve data centers or crypto mining without becoming public utilities, which is relevant to cost-shift concerns because it attempts to bypass the public grid and PUC regulation. Acadia Center

A Canterbury zoning question to ban data centers was on the March 10, 2026 town ballot, but no state-level November 2026 data-center ballot measure in New Hampshire was identified as of May 2026. NHPR Ballotpedia

1) Canterbury, NH — local zoning ban effort; no specific project identified; status: contested at the ordinance level, not tied to a named proposal. NHPR 2) Manchester-area small data center cluster — not a single contested project, but Manchester is one of the few existing hubs and is part of the broader backdrop for statewide concern. NHPR 3) No other prominent New Hampshire data center project with clear 2025-2026 public controversy was identified in the sources reviewed.

Canterbury planning and zoning activists/board members; local town meeting voters in Canterbury; Rep. Peter Schmidt (D-Dover) and Rep. Wendy Thomas (D-Merrimack) as legislative opponents of expansion; Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire as the main organized business-side opponent of the moratorium. InDepthNH NHPR

None identified at the state political-surface layer as of May 2026. Talent and workforce dynamics in New Hampshire surface primarily at the sub-state and labor-market level — county and municipal proceedings on named projects, regional building trades council positions, and utility commission workforce testimony — which are out of scope for the tracker's state-political-surface read. Request a full RAIL briefing for sub-state and labor-market analysis.

Minimal to emerging. NHPR reported that as of March 2026 New Hampshire had 10 data centers statewide—five in Manchester and one each in Keene, Lebanon, Littleton, Laconia, and Portsmouth—placing it among the states with the fewest data centers nationally. NHPR

“As of March, 2026, the Granite State was home to 10 such centers” and ranked as “the state with the third fewest data centers in the country,” according to NHPR citing Data Center Map. NHPR

NHPR — Bill would forbid NH towns from enacting regulations specific to data centers, NHPR — Canterbury voters to consider banning data centers, InDepthNH — Lawmakers Want to Ban Data Center Construction for a Year, Citizens Count — HB 1265 (2026), Acadia Center — New state law could power cryptomining, data centers in New Hampshire, Ballotpedia — Data center-related ballot measures, 2026