Eversource Energy

Overview

Eversource Energy is the largest electric and gas utility in New England, serving approximately 4.4 million electric and natural gas customers across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire with about 11,000 employees. The company operates regulated electric distribution utilities in all three states and natural gas distribution in Connecticut and Massachusetts. It formerly owned Aquarion Water Company and sold that business in a $2.4 billion transaction that closed on July 1, 2026, leaving Eversource a pure electric-and-gas utility. It was formed from the 2012 merger of Northeast Utilities and NSTAR and took the Eversource name in 2015.

The company is led by Chairman, President and CEO Joe Nolan, who has been with Eversource and its predecessor Northeast Utilities since 1985, became CEO in May 2021, and added the chairmanship in 2023. Under Nolan, the company made and then exited a major bet on offshore wind development, a roughly three-year episode that produced approximately $2.5 billion in after-tax write-downs and divestiture losses and consumed significant management attention before the equity exit closed in late 2024. Eversource is now a regulated transmission-and-distribution utility, and it retains some residual offshore-wind obligations from the wind-down.

The regulatory geography differs sharply across the three states. Massachusetts has historically been supportive. New Hampshire has been contentious at times but workable. Connecticut has been the hardest, with Eversource describing the environment there as challenging and uncertain and announcing a $500 million reduction in planned Connecticut capital expenditures over five years in response to unfavorable outcomes from the state's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

Business operations

Offshore wind exit

From roughly 2016 through 2024, Eversource pursued a major offshore wind development strategy in partnership with Danish developer Ørsted. The company held 50% stakes in three large projects: South Fork Wind at 132 MW off Long Island, Revolution Wind at 704 MW off Rhode Island and Connecticut, and Sunrise Wind at 924 MW off New York. At its peak the portfolio was one of the largest offshore wind development positions held by a U.S. utility. The logic was that Eversource, as the dominant utility across the New England states where offshore wind would be built, was well placed to develop and own generating assets that would eventually serve its own distribution customers.

The strategy unraveled between 2022 and 2024 as the U.S. offshore wind industry met supply chain disruption, rapid cost inflation for steel and equipment, and rising interest rates that repriced the economics of long-term fixed-price power purchase agreements signed when costs were far lower. The decisive blow for Sunrise Wind came in October 2023, when the New York Public Service Commission rejected Eversource's and Ørsted's petition to raise the contracted offtake price to reflect higher development costs. Without that relief the project's economics were unworkable.

Eversource recorded approximately $1.95 billion in after-tax impairment charges on the offshore wind portfolio during 2023, including $331 million in Q2 and $1.62 billion in Q4. It then exited all three positions in 2024, selling its 50% stakes in South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind to Global Infrastructure Partners for approximately $745 million in adjusted gross proceeds and its 50% stake in Sunrise Wind back to Ørsted for $152 million. The divestiture added a further roughly $520 million net loss in Q3 2024, bringing total after-tax charges from the episode to roughly $2.5 billion. The full exit completed in October 2024.

The consequences run past the write-downs. The episode raised long-term debt as the company funded development spending, took management attention away from the regulated utility business, and damaged the relationship with Connecticut regulators who had expected Eversource to drive offshore wind in the state's clean energy transition. The equity exit did not sever the exposure: Eversource retains post-closing obligations, including a make-whole arrangement ensuring Global Infrastructure Partners earns a 13% pre-tax return on Revolution Wind. After the federal government issued a stop-work order on Revolution Wind in August 2025, later lifted by a judge, Eversource increased its offshore-wind liability and recorded a further after-tax charge of roughly $75 million, or $0.20 per share, in the third quarter of 2025. The exit did establish what the company is: a transmission and distribution utility rather than a generation developer, with a $26.5 billion five-year capital plan aimed entirely at regulated T&D infrastructure.

Financial performance

FY2025 revenue was approximately $13.5 billion, up about 14% from $11.9 billion in FY2024, largely on higher pass-through supply costs rather than underlying growth. GAAP net income was $1.69 billion, or $4.56 per share, up sharply from $811.7 million and $2.27 per share in FY2024, when earnings were depressed by the offshore wind impairments. Adjusted recurring earnings were $1.77 billion, or $4.76 per share, up from $4.57 in FY2024 and within the guidance range. The adjusted figures strip out offshore wind charges and divestiture gains and losses and are the basis for guidance. Eversource guided FY2026 adjusted EPS to $4.80 to $4.95 and targets 5% to 7% annual EPS growth through 2030 off the 2025 base.

Earnings improvement in the regulated businesses came from base distribution rate increases in Massachusetts and New Hampshire electric operations and higher natural gas distribution revenues, partly offset by higher depreciation, property taxes, operations and maintenance costs, and interest expense against roughly $28 billion of long-term debt. That debt load sits above the regulated utility sector median, a consequence of years of capital investment in both the T&D businesses and the now-divested offshore wind positions. The roughly $1.7 billion of net proceeds from the July 2026 Aquarion sale is earmarked to bring it down. Eversource has raised its dividend for 26 consecutive years, to an annualized $3.15 per share for 2026.

Segment earnings in FY2025 were $667.1 million for electric distribution, $360.5 million for natural gas distribution, and $776.7 million for electric transmission, the single largest contributor, earning a FERC-allowed return on a rate base of roughly $10.8 billion. Growing adjusted EPS at a mid-single-digit rate depends on rate base growth in the regulated businesses and favorable rate case outcomes, particularly in Connecticut, where the regulatory relationship has deteriorated.

Strategy & outlook

With the offshore wind exit complete, the strategy is straightforward: invest heavily in regulated electric and gas T&D infrastructure, earn allowed returns through sound rate case outcomes, and grow adjusted EPS at a mid-single-digit pace consistent with a large New England utility serving a region with modest organic load growth. The $26.5 billion five-year capital plan covering 2026 through 2030 is up about $2.3 billion from the prior plan and concentrates on grid modernization, reliability upgrades, and clean energy interconnection capacity for solar and wind connecting to the ISO-New England grid. Eversource has publicly resisted courting large data-center loads, with Nolan arguing new hyperscale demand would raise costs for existing customers, a contrarian position among large utilities.

The central execution problem is Connecticut. PURA has been slow to approve storm cost recovery and has implemented performance-based regulation mechanisms that introduce earnings risk, and Eversource management has described its decisions as unreasonable and arbitrary. The company responded by cutting planned Connecticut capital investment by $500 million over five years, which slows rate base growth in that jurisdiction. The friction has since deepened: Connecticut passed a sweeping energy-affordability law in June 2025, and in July 2026 Eversource and United Illuminating sued state officials alleging the law exceeded their authority. In May 2026 Eversource moved to file a roughly $503 million increase, about 11%, for Connecticut Light and Power, its first base electric distribution case in the state since 2018. A PURA decision is not expected until mid-2027, which makes it the test of whether the relationship can stabilize.

Key considerations

Connecticut is the primary regulatory risk. PURA's handling of storm cost recovery, performance-based regulation, and rate cases has created material uncertainty about whether Eversource can earn its allowed return in its largest electric distribution jurisdiction. Moody's has called Connecticut the least credit-supportive utility regulatory environment in the country and downgraded Connecticut Light and Power in 2024 and 2025. CL&P serves approximately 1.3 million customers and is a significant earnings contributor. Continued deterioration would curtail capital deployment into Connecticut further, reducing rate base growth and long-term earnings potential there.

The debt load is the second constraint. At roughly $28 billion of long-term debt, well above the industry median, Eversource has limited balance sheet flexibility relative to peers, and continued borrowing to fund the $26.5 billion capital plan adds to both the load and interest expense. The July 2026 Aquarion sale helps, with about $1.7 billion of proceeds directed at debt reduction, which rating agencies had flagged as the key deleveraging catalyst. On the other side, New England's energy infrastructure is aging and the region's clean energy mandates create a durable long-term investment backdrop, and Eversource's T&D positioning is unambiguous after the offshore wind exit.

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