Bow's Tax Bill Was Built Around a Power Plant. What Now That Merrimack Station Is Closed?

If you're comparing towns around Concord, the property tax rate on a listing sheet is often the first number that makes Bow look appealing. Bow's 2025 rate was $20.05 per $1,000 of assessed value, set on October 24, 2025. Concord's 2025 rate was $29.11. A gap of more than $9 per thousand looks decisive. Once you adjust for how each town assesses property, it shrinks to under $3. The history behind Bow's rate also runs through a coal plant on the Merrimack River that stopped running in September 2025 and is now the subject of a town-wide debate.

The listing rate and the real rate are two different numbers

New Hampshire towns don't all assess property at full market value. Each year the NH Department of Revenue Administration measures how a town's assessments compare with actual sale prices. It publishes that as an equalization ratio, along with a full-value tax rate that puts every town on the same footing.

Here is how Bow compares with its neighbors on 2025 DRA figures:

Sources: 2025 municipal tax rates, 2025 equalization ratios, and the 2025 full-value rate survey, all from the NH DRA.

Concord's 61.5% ratio means its 2025 assessments sat well below what homes were selling for. That pushes the rate on the bill up without raising what a typical owner pays relative to market value by the same amount. On full-value rates, Bow and Concord are $2.76 apart instead of $9.06. Dunbarton and Bow are almost even, and Hooksett comes in below both.

As a rough illustration only, a home with a $500,000 market value works out to about $7,930 a year at Bow's 2025 full-value rate and about $9,310 at Concord's. What you actually pay depends on the assessed value of the specific property, not on these averages. The mortgage calculator is a better place to test a real address once you have its assessment.

In June 2024, the Town of Bow's assessing release described a town-wide 2024 revaluation meant to bring values to 100% of market as of April 1, 2024. The previous full revaluation had been in 2019. By 2025, the DRA ratio for Bow had already slipped to 84.2%. In other words, sale prices were running ahead of assessments.

A rate that grew out of one very large taxpayer

The reason Bow's rate deserves a closer look is where the town's revenue used to come from. The Concord Monitor reported in September 2026 that Merrimack Station once generated roughly 70% of Bow's property tax revenue, back when Eversource owned it through Public Service of New Hampshire. When one property pays most of the bill, everyone else's rate depends on that property's value. The Monitor reported that the value began declining over the years.

Part of that decline played out in court. Bow had assessed the plant at $159 million for 2012 and 2013. The case went to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which affirmed a tax abatement in a January 11, 2018 decision. The value the courts found was about $66 million, less than half of the town's figure.

A 2019 settlement covered the years that followed. According to Concord Monitor coverage from July 2019, Bow agreed to a $10 million settlement with Eversource over excess tax payments for 2014 through 2018. Of that, $4.25 million was due in the settlement year and the remaining $5.75 million was to come through reduced tax collections of about $1.5 million a year from 2020 to 2023. For scale, the same article put Bow's 2018 property tax levy at $13.9 million and called the planned $1.55 million annual reduction an 11% loss in that revenue. The Monitor's 2026 reporting says the payments were completed in 2024.

So the 2025 rate is the first one set in years without any of that refund money coming out. That makes it a cleaner baseline than earlier years. It's also the first rate set after the plant closed.

Where Bow's utility value sits today

Utility property in New Hampshire is valued separately under RSA 83-F, and the DRA publishes certified values by town. In the 2025 report, these values reflect 100% market value as of April 1. The Bow entries are:

• Eversource Energy: $75,197,085
• CRP NH Garvin Falls LLC: $12,713,994
• Unitil Energy Systems: $11,780,663
• GSP Merrimack LLC: $7,328,863
• Liberty Utilities, EnergyNorth Natural Gas: $4,239,860
• Pennichuck East Utility: $646,377
• Abenaki Water Company: $421,487

That adds up to $112,328,330. Eversource Energy is by far the largest entry, at about two-thirds of the total. No other line comes close to the $159 million the town once assessed on Merrimack Station alone.

Townwide, the DRA's 2025 rate table lists Bow's valuation at $1,809,985,785 without utilities and $1,994,105,469 with them, and a total tax commitment of $39,429,280. Compare that with the $13.9 million levy in 2018. The town now depends mostly on homes, land and businesses, with utilities as a supporting share.

Why the site is back in the conversation

Merrimack Station was originally scheduled to close by 2028. In March 2024, NHPR reported that Granite Shore planned to turn the Bow site into a "renewable energy park" with about 100 megawatts of solar plus battery storage. The plant last ran in September 2025, and the Monitor reported in September 2026 that the solar farm never came to fruition.

The site's next use has turned into a town question. These are the events so far:

1. April 2026. Granite Shore Power filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to open discussions with Eversource about connecting a 350-megawatt project to the grid. The filing did not name the type of project or its location.
2. September 1, 2026. NHPR reported that a Bow official confirmed high-level talks with a company about a data center.
3. Late September 2026. The Selectboard held an hour-long public comment session. According to NHPR, chair Kip McDaniel said the town had received no application and no communication from Granite Shore. He also said any formal proposal would go to the Planning Board.
4. Early November 2026. A new group, Protect New Hampshire from Data Centers, delivered a petition to the Planning Board. InDepthNH reported that 826 registered Bow voters signed it. No developer had filed a formal application, according to NHPR's November 6 report.
5. December 3, 2026. The Planning Board holds a public hearing on a proposed zoning amendment. The Union Leader reported that the draft would bar data center applications and permits in Bow for one year from adoption. The pause would allow time to study land-use, environmental, infrastructure and fiscal impacts and to write zoning rules. Board members said a citizen-petitioned warrant article can't create a moratorium by itself, so the board agreed to propose its own ordinance. Town attorneys were still reviewing the language.
6. March 2027. Voters could decide the ordinance at the town election. InDepthNH reported that a draft would need to be ready by the first week of January to make that ballot.

The Monitor framed the tax side plainly: with rates around $20 per $1,000, the town has found relief hard to come by, which makes any large new revenue source appealing. Residents have raised environmental, noise and health concerns at the same meetings. Whatever the outcome, it will be decided at public meetings that buyers can follow in real time.

A few common questions

Is Bow's 2025 rate the one I'll pay? The 2025 rate of $20.05 was set on October 24, 2025. Each year's rate is set separately, and your bill is that rate multiplied by the assessed value of the specific property. Check the most recent rate and the property's own assessment before you lock in a budget.

Why does Concord's equalized rate drop so much more than Bow's? Concord's 2025 equalization ratio was 61.5%, so its assessments sat further below market prices than Bow's 84.2%. The lower a town's ratio, the more its bill rate overstates the tax as a share of market value.

Has anyone applied to build a data center in Bow? As of NHPR's November 6, 2026 report, no developer had filed a formal Planning Board application. The next public step is the December 3 hearing.

Where can I learn more about Bow beyond taxes? The Bow neighborhood page and the Bow homebuyer guide cover the town itself. For a wider look at carrying costs, see the true cost of owning a home in 2026.

This post is general information, not tax, legal or financial advice. Please confirm the numbers for your own situation with the town assessor or a qualified professional.

If you're weighing Bow against Concord, Dunbarton or Hooksett, I'm happy to sit down with the assessments and the DRA figures for the specific homes you're considering, so you can compare actual carrying costs. You can reach me through Angela D Keef. Let's Connect.