Massachusetts House Set to Vote on Energy Bill, Cutting Mass Save by $1B

Massachusetts lawmakers are set to make a dramatic change to combat skyrocketing energy bills in the state. Proposed legislation on Beacon Hill seeks to cut approximately $1 billion in charges for energy efficiency programs financed through utility bills.

According to the Globe, this isn’t the first time that money spent on the Mass Save program has contributed to substantial consumer savings — and not only for those taking advantage of the program’s incentives for appliances and insulation. A report by the Acadia Center, an environmental organization, found that for every dollar spent on Mass Save, residents earn approximately $2.69 back in benefits.

To read the full article from Hot 96.9 Boston, click here.

Mass. House passes major energy affordability bill, cutting Mass Save

Boston – With thousands of residents still in the dark after a massive blizzard, the Massachusetts House voted Thursday to advance a bill to address the high utility bills that are taking a deeper cut of personal budgets across the state.

While “there’s a lot to like in this bill,” director of state program implementation at the Acadia Center, Kyle Murray, said, “The cuts to Mass Save are this big beacon that is really, really distressing to see.” The cut would “devastate” Mass Save and have “significant spillover” into other parts of the program outside of the administration and marketing, he added. “There is not a billion dollars in those departments that’s going to be there in the last year of the program,” Murray said.

“People have focused on the costs quite a bit, but not on the benefits. From 2016 to 2024, without Mass Save, on purely electric and gas supply and infrastructure costs, we would have had to pay $16 billion, if Mass Save didn’t exist,” Murray continued. “We spent $8 billion on Mass Save during that period. That’s a benefit that’s on every ratepayer.”

To read the full article from the New Bedford Light, click here.

Massachusetts energy bill would make big cuts to energy efficiency

To read the full article from Canary Media, click here.

Massachusetts State House passes “comprehensive” energy affordability bill

The Massachusetts State House of Representatives has voted 128-27 in favor of Bill H.5151, a piece of legislation designed to address rising utility costs across the state.

Also known as “An Act Relative to Energy Affordability, Clean Power, and Economic Competitiveness,” the newly-passed bill has a total of 40 cosponsors throughout the House. Passed Feb. 26, the bill was given an emergency preamble to help speed it along through the process and outlines a path forward for the state’s energy crisis, including solar and storage solutions.

Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation and Massachusetts program for New England-based climate nonprofit the Acadia Center, says the bill is a promising advancement for the state. Still, there is more work to be done.

“Energy affordability and clean energy are not at odds – fundamentally, the same solutions needed to address underlying drivers of energy costs are those that will make the grid cleaner, more flexible, and more efficient,” Murray says. “The House has advanced a promising updated package of policy reforms that better recognizes this reality, but more work must be done to rectify the major remaining red-flag and remove arbitrary and counterproductive cuts to energy efficiency, which should remain the anchor of the Commonwealth’s energy affordability strategy.

“Failing to do so will make this package a net-loser for families, who will be left paying dearly for more expensive conventional fuel and infrastructure.”

To read the full article from Solar Builder Magazine, click here.

Massachusetts House advances climate bill with $1 billion cut to energy efficiency program

Massachusetts climate bill H 5151, which passed in the House 128-27, has conservation and renewable energy groups saying it doesn’t go far enough to boost affordability or quell use of fossil fuels.

Acadia Center, an organization with a mission to advance clean energy solutions, also released a statement about what it calls “devastating, billion-dollar cuts to the Commonwealth’s energy efficiency program, Mass Save.” It also disputes the claim that the cuts will come from marketing, advertising and program administration costs, stating that the planned spend during its three-year planning cycle is less than $150 million.

Value of savings (in billions) of the Mass Save program. Source: Acadia Center

“What this $1 billion reduction would therefore mean is deep cuts to energy efficiency incentives and slashed customer access, effectively shutting down many parts of the program and harming one of our best tools to deliver affordable energy bills and achieve our climate goals,” the Acadia Center said in a statement.

To read the full article from PV Magazine, click here.

House passes landmark energy bill with deep cuts to Mass Save, sending it to Senate

House Democrats have passed a major energy bill that aims to cut rising utility costs that have inflamed an affordability crisis in the state but would also pull back on the clean energy transition.

Lawmakers, who were plunged into months of debate that exposed divisions within the Democratic supermajority, ultimately advanced on Thursday a $1 billion cut to an energy efficiency program known as Mass Save, which is funded by ratepayers through a charge on utility bills. The measure cleared the House by a 128-27 vote in a marathon session that stretched past 10 p.m.

“This cut would utterly devastate and probably break the program,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts state director at the environmental group Acadia Center. “The effect that this would have is [to] basically grind the program to a halt. It would devastate the work streams that are happening.”

To read the full article from Commonwealth Beacon, click here.

Mass. House advances bill aimed at tackling energy affordability

With thousands of residents still in the dark after a massive blizzard, the Massachusetts House voted Thursday to advance a bill to address the high utility bills across the state.

The House bill (H 5151) seeks to cut roughly $1 billion from the Mass Save program’s marketing and administrative budgets, return 70% of alternative compliance payments (ACPs) to ratepayers through mid-2029, expand clean energy procurement authority, ease political barriers to nuclear development by repealing a voter law that placed restrictions on it, and delay an offshore wind contracting deadline by two years to 2029.

Environmental activists have argued this week that the House’s cut to Mass Save would “devastate” the state’s energy efficiency program and grind it to a halt.

“Energy affordability and clean energy are not at odds – fundamentally, the same solutions needed to address underlying drivers of energy costs are those that will make the grid cleaner, more flexible, and more efficient,” Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the Acadia Center, said. “The House has advanced a promising updated package of policy reforms that better recognizes this reality, but more work must be done to rectify the major remaining red-flag and remove arbitrary and counterproductive cuts to energy efficiency, which should remain the anchor of the Commonwealth’s energy affordability strategy. Failing to do so will make this package a net-loser for families, who will be left paying dearly for more expensive conventional fuel and infrastructure.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

With so many storm outages, why don’t we put more power lines underground in Mass.?

In the aftermath of a historic blizzard that left more than 300,000 Massachusetts homes and businesses without electricity, you might be wondering why more power lines aren’t put underground.

After all, burying these wires would protect them from the heavy winds, ice and snow-laden branches that frequently cause outages, right?

At a time when Massachusetts residents and lawmakers are concerned about rising energy costs, it’s hard to imagine giving utilities the green light to put thousands of miles of power lines underground, said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the Acadia Center.

“If you actually look at your bills, a major driver of those costs is delivery side of things,” he said. “That’s infrastructure. That’s poles and wires. And so undergrounding would just serve to drive that delivery portion even higher.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

Acadia Center Applauds Massachusetts House Lawmakers for Robust and Improved Energy Affordability Legislation, But Reinforces Grave Concerns about Devastating Proposed Cuts to Energy Efficiency Under Mass Save

Acadia Center Press Release HWM Energy Affordability Bill

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MEDIA CONTACTS:
Kyle Murray, Director, State Program Implementation
kmurray@acadiacenter.org, 617-742-0054 ext.106

Jamie Dickerson, Senior Director, Climate and Clean Energy Programs
jdickerson@acadiacenter.org, 401-276-0600 x102

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BOSTON — On February 24, 2026, the House Committee on Ways and Means released legislation now being voted on today that would enact a series of common-sense and practical reforms to help deliver energy affordability and clean energy to the Commonwealth. Acadia Center applauds the work that the Committee has done and appreciates its willingness to incorporate feedback from stakeholders since the prior version of the bill released last fall. Unfortunately, the legislation undermines its own aims in part by proposing devastating, billion-dollar cuts to the Commonwealth’s energy efficiency program, Mass Save. Policymakers in the House, Senate, and Executive Branch must come together to reject and replace these draconian cuts with a set of solutions and reforms that keeps Mass Save on a sound, stable, and sustainable trajectory to deliver energy and bill savings to customers well into the future. With the energy efficiency cuts removed or substantially modified, the legislative package promises to help the Commonwealth take meaningful action on energy affordability and a cleaner, more dynamic grid.

“Energy affordability and clean energy are not at odds – fundamentally, the same solutions needed to address underlying drivers of energy costs are those that will make the grid cleaner, more flexible, and more efficient,” said Kyle Murray, Director of State Program Implementation and Massachusetts Program Director. “The House has advanced a promising updated package of policy reforms that better recognizes this reality, but more work must be done to rectify the major remaining red-flag and remove arbitrary and counterproductive cuts to energy efficiency, which should remain the anchor of the Commonwealth’s energy affordability strategy. Failing to do so will make this package a net-loser for families, who will be left paying dearly for more expensive conventional fuel and infrastructure.”

Defending the Merits of Mass Save and Energy Efficiency

It is vital that the House and Senate work together to deliver a revised package that removes the proposed $1 billion cut to the Commonwealth’s nation-leading Mass Save energy efficiency programs. Yes, Mass Save can and should be improved and strengthened in a number of key ways. But, an arbitrary and hugely significant budget cut in the middle of a three-year planning cycle is not a sound and practical way to go about realizing any such improvements for customers and ratepayers. If the cuts were to go forward as proposed, the whole program would essentially grind to a halt, leading to massive job losses and threatening the program’s ongoing operation even in future programming cycles.

The track-record of success and impact for Mass Save is clear, and the program must be safeguarded:

• Energy Efficiency is Affordable and Cost-Effective: Massachusetts by statute has a responsibility to invest in all cost-effective energy efficiency. Cutting an arbitrary $1 billion in program funding runs counter to that responsibility and will result in customers paying for more expensive (less cost-effective) conventional sources of energy and infrastructure. Were the legislature to advance an additional $1B in cuts to Mass Save, on top of the $500M in previous program cuts, it would result in a devastating estimated loss of $4.5B in total benefits and savings for ratepayers. The Commonwealth has strong cost-effectiveness guardrails in place already, ensuring that even if/as program budgets grow, ratepayers can be confident that their energy bills will be lower, not higher, as a result of cost-effective efficiency investments.
• Mass Save Delivers A Strong Payback on Investment: Under the current three-year plan, Mass Save is poised to drive $12.1 billion in lifetime benefits in the form of direct bill savings, avoided fuel and infrastructure costs, price suppression effects in the wholesale market, jobs created, and beyond. This translates to a resoundingly positive return on investment for the Commonwealth, earning $2.91 in benefits for the economy for every $1 in program budget spent. Mass Save’s portfolio will mean more than 8 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity and 167 trillion British thermal units (TBtu) of fuels that ratepayers will not have to pay for in the coming years.
• Shining a Light on Enormous Costs Avoided: While they don’t clearly show up as savings on customer bills, energy efficiency investments under Mass Save have prevented customers from having to pay many billions of dollars in more expensive fuel and infrastructure costs. Without the energy efficiency programs in place, the Commonwealth’s electric demand would be around 27.7% higher, resulting in billions of additional costs for supply and infrastructure. Specifically, Mass Save investments made between 2016 and 2024 meant that ratepayers avoided paying around $16.1 billion in electric and gas supply and infrastructure costs alone. The investment in efficiency during this period was around $8.4 billion.

• EE Doesn’t Need T&D: Unlike power and gas that customers purchase from traditional sources, energy efficiency occurs at the point of demand, resulting in MWh and MMBtu saved that do not need to be delivered via transmission and distribution (T&D), whose infrastructure costs – poles, wires, and pipes – have been increasing dramatically in recent years. A typical Massachusetts residential electric customer pays on the order of $0.15 per kWh on transmission and distribution right now. Every kWh generated by a traditional power plant must flow through T&D to get to end-use customers, therefore incurring/requiring those substantial delivery costs. Energy efficiency, by contrast, is relatively much cheaper than conventional fuel and infrastructure payments, with recent analysis finding a median cost of only $21 per MWh nationally. While Massachusetts has somewhat higher program costs due to two decades of prior investment in the lowest-hanging savings, Mass Save is still acquiring savings at a cost competitive with electric supply rates, before factoring in delivery costs that traditional supply must incur and which energy efficiency avoids.
• Million-Dollar-per-Hour Savings: Mass Save is the anchor of the region’s strong energy efficiency portfolio, which has been bearing fruit for the regional grid during periods of severe weather stress. At 1pm on January 25, the grid hit a seasonal peak of 20,157 MW. That and the following day, day-ahead market prices exceeded $520/MWh around 6pm in the evening. Based on the region’s latest capacity auction, energy efficiency was passively reducing demand by 2,081 MW at this time. With a $520/MWh cost at the January 26 peak, energy efficiency was generating over $1.08 million in wholesale market savings during that hour alone. When factoring in efficiency’s contributions, almost half the capacity keeping New England’s lights on was zero- to low-emissions, even on the peak of this winter’s most difficult day.

• The Savings Numbers Don’t Add Up: The legislation states that the mid-term modification to the budget of Mass Save shall focus on marketing, advertising, and administrative budgets. However, there simply is not anywhere near $1 billion going to those areas. For the entire 2025-2027 plan term, the planned spend on marketing and advertising amounts to $195,156,662. For program planning and administration, it is $245,851,611. This totals $441,008,273, well-short of the purported $1,000,000,000. However, it is important to note that, given the timing of this legislation, the impacts from will largely be felt in the final year of the current plan, 2027. The total planned spend on marketing, advertising, and program administration during this period is just $148,063,135. The vast majority of spending for the program during this period would go toward incentives for ratepayers. What this $1 billion reduction would therefore mean is deep cuts to energy efficiency incentives and slashed customer access, effectively shutting down many parts of the program and harming one of our best tools to deliver affordable energy bills and achieve our climate goals.

Other Bright-Spots Abound

Besides the energy efficiency cuts outlined above and a few more minor provisions of concern (listed further below), the legislative package does contain a number of important, valuable, and – in some cases – cutting-edge policies that stand to meaningfully advance the Commonwealth’s agenda for energy affordability and clean energy.

• Renewable Energy and Energy Storage
  • Expanded clean energy procurement authority
  • Statewide energy storage incentive program
  • Offshore wind pre-development
  • Adding Virtual Power Plants (VPP) to Electric Sector Modernization Plans (ESMP), via load management and VPP plan
• Expediting Permitting, Siting, and Interconnection
  • Surplus interconnection and flexible interconnection programs
  • Smart solar permitting platform
  • Balcony solar
  • Transmission lines on state highway Rights-of-Way (ROW)
  • Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) interconnection
• Thermal energy networks (TEN) and buildings
  • TEN labor standards
  • Authorizes gas companies to develop geothermal for single customers
  • Just transition plans
• Bill Transparency, Cost Scrutiny, and Consumer Protections
  • Competitive electric supply reforms
  • Asset condition project permitting at DPU for large local transmission upgrades
  • Utility management audits
  • Low- and Moderate-Income (LMI) discount rates
  • Customer bill assessment dashboard
  • Solar consumer protections
  • Basic service procurement terms
  • Default budget billing for residential gas customers

Other provisions of concern or with key outstanding questions include:

• Net metering – arbitrary reduction in compensation for certain projects, with no opportunity for locational or temporal value/compensation
• Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) contracts – onsite use or technical infeasibility should be a requirement before use of gas distribution pipes
• Mass Save Program Review by Office of Inspector General (OIG) – potentially redundant and unnecessary given recency of Auditor’s report
• Mass Save income eligibility review – returns more red tape that will add friction for moderate income participants

Once more, Acadia Center applauds the House for legislation that would deliver many innovative energy affordability ideas to the Commonwealth. The organization looks forward to working with the House and Senate to remove the proposed cuts to Mass Save and support delivering cost-effective energy efficiency to ratepayers.

Utility savings bill generating energy on eve of House vote

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, Feb. 25, 2026…..House Speaker Ron Mariano has not completely given up hope on the state’s 2030 emissions reduction goals, as his chamber prepares to take up a bill that is generating mixed public opinions and leaves those targets untouched.