NASHUA – Names will change on some natural gas and electric bills, but otherwise Nashua area customers shouldn’t notice anything now that Liberty Utilities has completed its purchase of National Grid’s operations in New Hampshire.

The $285 million deal was completed Tuesday. Liberty Utilities, which owns water, wastewater and electric systems in the West and Midwest, is a subsidiary of Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. of Canada.

National Grid had 87,000 natural gas customers in 30 communities, including the Nashua area and the Merrimack River Valley into the Lakes Region. It also operates natural gas systems in Berlin.

Its electric subsidiary, Granite State Electric, provided power to 43,000 electric distribution customers, including Salem, Windham and Pelham, and also in a number of towns around Lebanon.

This is the third corporate name change for local natural gas customers since 2000. That was when the region’s longtime service provider, EnergyNorth, was sold to Keyspan. In 2006, KeySpan was sold to National Grid, a global company based in Britain.

Vic Del Vecchio, president of Liberty Utilities East, said the company would add 60 operations jobs in the state, as well as bringing into New Hampshire some jobs currently performed in other parts of National Grid’s network.

Del Vecchio said Liberty will open “walk-in centers” in Nashua, Salem, Manchester and other locations for service.

Prices, which are regulated by the state, will not change.

“It will be business as usual,” he said.

State and federal regulatory approvals needed to complete the transaction were granted in May, despite some concern from Public Utilities Staff about Liberty’s experience with power production.

The company mostly runs water utilities in the U.S.

Algonquin Power owns eight relatively small hydropower dams in New Hampshire, including the one in Mine Falls Park in Nashua. It sells the power to local utilities.

The sale was originally announced in December 2010.

National Grid said it wanted to sell after getting rejected for a price increase by state regulators. Despite that, Del Vecchio said Liberty Utilities thought state regulation “has been balanced and will continue to be balanced.”

The natural gas industry is booming, spurred by record-low prices caused by an increase in supply, itself the result of the increased ability to drill gas out of shale formations in the eastern U.S. Prices have fallen almost by half since 2005, and most analysts see no increase in sight.

Many natural gas utilities have reported success in converting customers who have heated their homes with electricity, oil or other fuels.

Del Vecchio said Liberty had similar hopes, and also hoped to expand its customer base by connecting more people to existing distribution lines.

In “more long-term” projections, he said, the company would look at expanding distribution lines.

“The demand for gas is tremendous,” he said.

New Hampshire will make up about 50 percent of Liberty’s operations.

Liberty has natural gas operations facilities in Nashua, Manchester and Tilton, and electric operations facilities in Salem and Lebanon.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com. Follow Brooks’ blog on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).