CEO: Data Centers Have ‘No Value’ to Eversource Customers
Eversource Energy Chairman, President and CEO Joe Nolan feels good about the big picture for New England when it comes to the supply and cost of energy.
And if data centers stay out of the picture, all the better.
Speaking on May 7 after Eversource reported its first-quarter results, Nolan outlined the capacity additions coming soon to areas under the umbrella of the ISO New England regional transmission organization:
- Avangrid’s New England Clean Energy Connect project, a 145-mile-high voltage transmission line, early this year connected 1,200 megawatts of hydropower from Quebec to the region
- Revolution Wind, Orsted’s 704 MW farm offshore Rhode Island, delivered its first power in March and will get to full operations this year
- Workers on the Vineyard Wind complex off the coast of Massachusetts in March installed the last of the project’s 62 wind turbines and energy delivery is ramping up
“That’s having a significant impact on pricing in the region,” Nolan said, who also cited improvements to an Enbridge natural gas pipeline and Eversource’s plans for a clean-energy hub near Boston as positive contributors to New England’s energy-supply situation. “So I feel very encouraged.”
The flip side? While their electric utility peers in several parts of the country are courting handfuls of massive data centers to grow their rate bases and promising lower rates to other customers as a result, Eversource’s leaders are leaving such projects off its wish list.
“I’m really not interested in the data centers coming here,” Nolan said. “It’s of no value to our residential customers—actually any customer. It’s only going to drive up the price of energy.”
Nolan made his comments after Eversource reported first-quarter earnings of about $609 million on operating revenues of $4.5 billion, numbers that were up from $551 million and $4.1 billion, respectively, in the first three months of 2025.
This year’s figures include $43.9 million after-tax charge to account for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s March decision to lower the allowed return on equity for owners of New England transmission assets. Eversource and other entities have taken action to reverse that decision, which was based on old data. Nolan and CFO John Moreira said they expect a new rate to be put in place later this year.
Shares of Eversource (Ticker: ES) closed trading May 12 at $68.73. They are down slightly over the past six months, though, and the company’s market capitalization is now roughly $26 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications T&D World, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner and Oil & Gas Journal. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.