Merrimack Station data center inquiry (Bow)

Updates, newest first

1. Sept. 29, 2026 At the Sept. 29 select board meeting, according to The Dartmouth, the chair said Bow still had neither heard from Granite Shore Power nor received an application. (The Dartmouth, Oct. 2, 2026)
2. Sept. 22, 2026 Residents spoke almost entirely against a data center during an hour of public comment at a Bow select board meeting, after a protest organized by 350NH's No Coal No Gas campaign; the chair said the town had no application or contact from Granite Shore Power and that any application would go to the planning board. (New Hampshire Public Radio (via Vermont Public), Sept. 23, 2026; The Dartmouth, Oct. 2, 2026)
3. Sept. 2, 2026 Gov. Ayotte said she opposes a hyperscale data center in Bow, saying New Hampshire does not have the energy for it, and said she would put a moratorium in her next budget. (New Hampshire Public Radio, Sept. 2, 2026; InDepthNH.org, Sept. 2, 2026)
4. Sept. 1, 2026 A Bow official told the Concord Monitor a company had held high-level talks about bringing a data center to town; the select board chair would neither confirm nor deny it. (New Hampshire Public Radio (from the Concord Monitor), Sept. 1, 2026)
5. Aug. 31, 2026 Consumer Advocate Donald Kreis wrote on X that, at a meeting with his office and the state Department of Energy, an Eversource executive mentioned a developer weighing a Bow data center of "up to 200 MW." (New Hampshire Bulletin (via The Boston Globe), Sept. 2, 2026; The Dartmouth, Oct. 2, 2026)
6. April 2026 Eversource and Granite Shore Power filed a viability assessment agreement at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission covering grid connection of a 350 MW project of unstated type. (New Hampshire Public Radio (from the Concord Monitor), Sept. 1, 2026; New Hampshire Bulletin (via The Boston Globe), Sept. 2, 2026)
7. Sept. 2025 New England's last operating coal plant, Merrimack Station, went offline in September 2025; Granite Shore Power had said it would reuse the land for solar and battery storage. (InDepthNH.org, Sept. 2, 2026; New Hampshire Bulletin (via The Boston Globe), Sept. 2, 2026)

Conflicts and open questions

• Site acreage differs by source: 343 acres (Concord Monitor), 345 acres (InDepthNH) and about 400 acres (New Hampshire Bulletin) for Granite Shore Power's land; this is the owner's holding, not a project footprint.
• The site is inferred, not filed: the Concord Monitor says the FERC document names neither the project type nor its location and calls Merrimack Station the most likely site; the Bulletin notes Granite Shore Power's Bow address is the plant; InDepthNH describes the study as an interconnection at Merrimack Station. The FERC docket number was not found in the sources reviewed.
• Neither the 350 MW grid-study figure nor the relayed 200 MW figure is a confirmed data center load, so no power figure is stored.
• Granite Shore Power did not respond to reporters' requests for comment in the sources reviewed; no end user or developer other than the site owner has been named.