The Trump administration favors natural gas. What does that mean for CT?
Doug Burgum, the U.S. Department of Interior secretary, said the quiet part out loud.
It was a few days before Christmas, an hour or two after he had announced that five offshore wind projects under construction — including Connecticut’s Revolution Wind — was being halted “due to national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports.”
“I think what keeps us up the most [at night] is that policymakers seem to be still reaching for gas as a solution for affordability, despite how much has changed to the contrary about the affordability of gas in the last 10 years,” said Jamie Dickerson, senior director of clean energy and climate programs at Acadia Center, a regional advocacy group for clean energy and climate change solutions.
He said even though the climate concern is still there, “we still are very concerned that natural gas would actually have an upward impact on energy prices and exacerbate the current affordability dynamics in the region.”
And there are also questions about how to move forward with existing gas infrastructure. Spend the money to repair it when needed? Replace it if necessary? Even expand it?
“We’re not doing the right cost-benefit analysis to determine where the public should be putting its money,” said Noah Berman, senior policy advocate and utility innovation program manager at Acadia Center.
That’s where politics comes in.
“Connecticut is an outlier on gas consumption rates among the rest of the region,” said Acadia’s Dickerson. “If you isolate just Connecticut, the rest of New England is actually flat or declining gas consumption over the past five to 10 years.”
Acadia supports consideration of non-pipeline solutions — like promoting heat pumps, solar or geothermal energy — to avoid recommitting to natural gas when existing infrastructure has reached the end of its useful life or has safety issues.
To read the full article from CT Mirror, click here.
Acadia Center Rebuts Repeated Flawed Analyses Claiming Renewable Energy Will Drive Up Costs for New England
MEDIA CONTACT:
Kyle Murray
Director, State Program Implementation
kmurray@acadiacenter.org, 617-742-0054 ext.106
ACADIA CENTER Rebuts Repeated Flawed Analyses Claiming Renewable Energy Will Drive Up Costs for New England
**Analytical methods fail to withstand basic scrutiny, present deeply inaccurate picture of region’s energy infrastructure pathways
**Misleading analysis grossly inflates the cost of clean energy, selectively ignores fuel savings, and proposes highly unrealistic alternative scenarios
Released on January 13, a new report entitled “Alternatives to New England’s Energy Affordability Crisis” – released by The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, Maine Policy Institute, Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, Yankee Institute, and Americans for Prosperity Foundation – presents a deeply flawed analysis and distorted view of New England’s future energy outlook. The report, which was conducted by Always on Energy Research (AOER), concludes that, “…meeting these decarbonization and electrification policies would nearly cost New England electricity customers an additional $815 billion through 2050, compared to the cost of operating the current electric grid, and make the region more vulnerable to rolling blackouts.” Always on Energy Research (AOER) has current or past affiliations with groups such as the John Locke Foundation, the Heartland Institute, the Independence Institute, and the Center for the American Experiment.
AOER’s report fails to stand up to even the most basic scrutiny, which is also the case for the related “analysis” and “modeling.” It is incredibly unfortunate that this report continues to rely upon repeated, ill-informed assumptions and questionable calculations to vastly inflate the cost of the energy transition by multiple factors. The recent AOER report functionally serves as an addendum to their error-ridden 2024 AOER report titled, “The Staggering Costs of New England’s Green Energy Policies”, which Acadia Center thoroughly debunked in a 2024 press release responding to the report. The recently released report recycles many of the same inaccurate claims.
Acadia Center presents the following point-by-point rebuttal of several erroneous and misleading claims put forward by the 2026 AOER report:
Claim #1 Made by AOER Report: The report models a single “Renewables Scenario” that makes the claim that 231 GW of installed capacity[1] in New England by 2050 will be necessary if the region aims to provide the most “economically efficient mix of renewables buildout” to support electrification of the building heating and transportation sectors at scale.
Acadia Center Response #1: The modeled level of renewables buildout in the AOER Report diverges sharply from every other reputable study that has modeled deep decarbonization pathways in New England. Yes, there will need to be significant buildout of wind, solar and battery storage to achieve the levels of building and transportation electrification needed by 2050, but the AOER Report overstates the level of installed capacity needed in New England in 2050 by a factor of at least 1.5X and up to 1.8X,[2] based on a literature review conducted by Acadia Center and Clean Air Task Force that examined five of the most prominent and well respected deep decarbonization studies for the region. As one example, the High Electrification Scenario analyzed by Energy and Environment Economics (E3) in the Massachusetts “Future of Gas” Proceeding (D.P.U. 20-80) found a 2050 capacity buildout of 127 GW to support widespread electrification in the building and transportation sectors, in sharp contrast to the 231 GW of buildout claimed in AOER’s report (see Figure 1 below).
Figure 1. Installed New England Capacity by Resource Type: 2020 vs. MA DPU 20-80 High Electrification Scenario (2050) vs. Always on Energy Renewables Scenario (2050)
As illustrated in Table 1 below, the AOER report modeled 2.2X the amount of solar capacity in 2050 relative to the E3 study, 3.2X for battery storage, 2.7X for offshore wind, and 3.4X for onshore wind and, simultaneously, makes no attempt to explain why their modeled capacity levels are so high relative to other studies.
Table 1. Installed New England Capacity by Resource Type in 2050: MA DPU 20-80 High Electrification Scenario vs. Always on Energy Renewables Scenario
In ISO New England’s (ISO-NE’s) 2024 report, titled Economic Planning for the Clean Energy Transition, they estimated New England would need an additional 97 GW of solar, wind, and battery storage combined by 2050 to achieve state electrification goals – a far cry from the approximately 183 GW of additional capacity of those resources modeled by AOER in their report. Acadia Center would provide a detailed critique of the AOER’s proprietary capacity expansion model that produced these results, but that’s not possible given the limited details the report provides on the model. Capacity expansion models are used to determine the optimal mix of new and retiring resources over a long-term planning horizon, typically identifying least-cost portfolios of generation and storage while meeting policy constraints, but the specific policy constraints and assumptions underpinning AOER’s modeling are not clear enough to meaningfully evaluate why their results are so different from other industry leading studies. AOER’s overestimate in needed capacity buildout by 2050 in the Renewables Scenario ties directly to Claim #2 below related to their estimated cost associated with that scenario.
Claim #2 Made by AOER Report: Compliance with the New England Decarbonization Plans would cost $815 billion through 2050.
Acadia Center Response #2: AOER’s overestimated need for renewable buildouts paired with unrealistic cost and technology development assumptions lead to wildly inflated costs for the renewable scenario analyzed – so miscalculated that the analysis is essentially unusable.
Study Ignores Declining Cost of Renewables Over Time: While fossil fuel and nuclear costs have been largely flat (or increased) in recent years and decades, the costs of renewables and battery storage have quickly and substantially declined. Between 2000 and 2020, the cost of useful energy from wind, solar, and battery storage decreased by 72%, 90%, and 94% (See Figure 2 below), respectively. In fact, prices have declined so quickly that studies incorporating cost projections to model future adoption systematically overestimate the costs of renewable energy because the modelling of price decreases is not able to keep up with how quickly costs are actually going down. And prices continue to drop – for example, between 2023 and 2024, battery equipment costs fell 40%, and they are on track for another substantial decrease in 2025. These dropping costs will likely continue and are unaccounted for in the report. Notably, historically these cost decreases have mitigated electric rate increases. Over the last 20+ years (2001-2024), there is an observed trend across the country – which holds true in the Northeast – of smaller electric rate increases in states that get a higher percentage of their energy from renewables, regardless of whether those renewables are market-based independent power producers or state procured resources. Furthermore, the study’s assumption that today’s gas costs will stay static into the future ignores forecasts about expected gas price increases – including new projections from the U.S. EIA that gas commodity costs will increase roughly 33% year-over-year between 2026 and 2027.
Figure 2: Historical Useful Energy Costs of Energy Resources (1880-2020) Source: Way et al., 2022
On the contrary, the report understates the cost of nuclear by using overnight (immediate/short-term) capital costs to estimate project costs. Using overnight capital costs to compare nuclear to renewables is misleading because it ignores interest during construction, which is much larger for long-lead nuclear projects than for fast-built wind and solar, meaning the true up-front cost of nuclear projects is understated by the metric. Studies have shown that interest during construction can add upwards of 40% to the up-front cost of nuclear projects.
- Additional unaccounted-for costs: Another glaring omission is the social cost of carbon.[3]While the social cost can be ignored in a report, it cannot be ignored by families facing rising costs due to fossil fuel emissions in their daily lives. Emissions from fossil fuels lead to increasing costs for families: medical costs, storm repair costs passed onto them by utilities, insurance costs, and more. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that households are already paying between $400 and $900 annually due to climate-driven costs, and the authors of that study concede to only have calculated a subset of all costs. Furthermore, another recent study finds that temperature changes alone cut US incomes by 12%, on average, between 2000 and 2019.
- Even ignoring all of the bad assumptions: In total, the AOER analysis suggests an annual average electric system cost passed onto consumers of $31.3b per year over 26 years (2024-2050). In 2023, the six New England states spent roughly $75b on total energy under the status quo/‘business as usual’ approach. Even if the AOER figures were sound – and they are not – it would be vastly preferable to invest $31.3b per year on clean energy in our region rather than spend the majority of $75b per year on fossil fuels from outside the region, as our current energy system does. In analysis undertaken by Massachusetts, findings showed that the total cost increase of a representative mitigation pathway in 2050 ($1.5 billion annual spending) compared to a non-decarbonized reference case in 2050 was actually less than the expected increase in statewide energy costs resulting from population and economic growth ($2.4 billion annual spending).
Claim #3 Made by AOER Report: The AOER Report only focuses on additional generation and transmission costs associated with building and operating electricity generation portfolios – one piece of the overall energy transition puzzle.
Acadia Center Response #3: In the simplest terms, some components of the energy transition will cost money (e.g., electric generation buildout) and some will save money and increase in-region economic activity (e.g., reduced reliance on fossil fuel imports for heating and transportation). The AOER Report fails to quantify three categories of major cost savings:
- 1) Reduced use of fossil fuels for building heating
- 2) Reduced fossil fuel use for transportation and
- 3) Reduced investment in the gas distribution system.
Buried on page 45 of the AOER Report, the authors admit calculating anything on the savings side of the ledger is simply “out of scope” for the report, stating “Quantifying….the fuel savings of electrification is outside the scope of this analysis. For example, there would be fuel savings from electrifying home heating and transportation, as New England households would no longer need to purchase natural gas, fuel oil, or propane for home heating or gasoline or diesel fuel for transportation.” It is a glaring omission to (inaccurately) report electricity system costs of the energy transition while ignoring all the cost savings, one of the primary reasons for undertaking the energy transition in the first place. In direct contrast to the AOER report claim, a more comprehensive study on future state-level household energy expenditures conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) found that the decrease in household spending on fossil fuels (for both heating and transportation) will more than offset the increased per-household electricity spending as we transition to an electrified economy over the next 25 years.
New Englanders withdraw billions of dollars out of the regional economy each year to purchase fossil fuels sourced outside New England. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine alone spend $8.2 billion annually importing fossil fuels. Let’s be candid: there will be significant costs from the energy transition (and significant benefits as well) – Acadia Center has been clear-eyed about this reality and what it means for our public policymaking. However, using intentionally misleading information to fearmonger on behalf of the fossil fuel industry and advance its interests does not serve the best interests of New England ratepayers.
Claim #4 Made by AOER Report: The AOER analysis relies on small modular reactors (SMRs) as a key decarbonization strategy despite the technology not being commercialized and ignores more market-ready solutions.
Acadia Center Response #4: Small modular reactors (SMRs) are advanced, small-scale nuclear fission reactors designed with factory built, modular components that theoretically offer the potential for lower upfront cost, faster deployment and enhanced safety relative to the type of nuclear power plants currently in operation in the U.S. today, known as light water reactors. As the AOER report notes, “…no SMRs have been installed anywhere in the United States on a commercial basis to date.” While assuming technological advancement and deployment of currently not yet commercially available technologies can make sense in certain instances when it comes to energy system modeling spanning a time horizon of decades, a core problem with the AOER report is that it only includes one non-commercialized technology (SMRs) that fits their narrative in their modeling, while conveniently failing to model other emerging technologies that would lower the estimated cost of the Renewables Scenario.
For example, advancements in long-duration battery storage, automated electric vehicle (EV) load shifting and electric vehicle-to-grid bidirectional charging are all promising technologies that will play a lynchpin role in helping the region manage peak demand on the grid in the coming decades, and, as a result, significantly drive down costs associated with investment in electric system generation, transmission and distribution. In other words, we need to build less if technologies like long-duration storage can help us reduce peak demand. For example, a 2024 study from researchers at UMass Lowell estimated that incorporating long-duration energy storage into the technology mix results in a modeled 55% reduction in overall electric system costs in New England.
[1] This total installed capacity figure includes generation, battery storage, and New England-Canada transmission capacity.
[2] The 231 GW of total New England capacity in 205o is 1.5X greater than the 5-study average of modeled 2050 capacity found in Acadia Center’s lit review and 1.8X greater than two of the five studies examined.
[3] The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is a dollar estimate of the long-term economic damages from emitting one additional ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, including impacts on health, property, agriculture, and productivity, used by governments for cost-benefit analysis of climate policies to weigh the costs of regulations against their climate benefits, reflecting the societal cost of climate pollution
Opinion: CT needs a business model for more affordable and reliable utility service
Connecticut residents are rightly frustrated with their electric bills.
Today, we have cleaner, cheaper, and more flexible energy technologies than ever before. Solar, batteries, energy efficiency, demand response, and advanced grid hardware and software can reduce costs, cut pollution, and improve reliability. Yet they aren’t being implemented as widely or rapidly as they should be, while costs continue to climb.
The reason isn’t a lack of technology. It’s the business model we use to run electric utilities. The major utilities in Connecticut still operate under a “cost-of-service” model. Designed in the early 20th century, it made sense when electricity systems were built around large power plants and analog technology. But today, that same model is holding us back.
There is good news. Connecticut has the solution at its fingertips: performance-based ratemaking. And in fact, this solution is at the finish line and ready for implementation, pending final regulatory approval.
Before explaining what performance-based ratemaking is, it’s important to understand the problem it’s designed to fix. Under cost-of-service regulation, utilities primarily earn profits by investing in capital infrastructure such as poles, wires, and substations. These capital expenditures are called the “rate-base.” Utilities are guaranteed their money back plus some percentage profit on it when invested prudently. Thus, a bigger rate base means more allowed earnings.
There is political and public pressure to keep rates low. However, that pressure collides with the reality that utilities compete for shareholders in financial markets, where investors expect returns. The way for utilities to deliver those returns under a cost-of-service model is not by minimizing total system costs, but by growing the rate base. Consequently, utilities are incentivized to favor the most expensive solution that meets regulatory requirements, rather than the most cost-effective one.
This problem is compounded by a significant information imbalance. Utilities usually control the engineering studies, forecasts, and models that determine what infrastructure is deemed “necessary.” Regulators work diligently, but they are often at the mercy of the studies run and information provided on solutions by the utilities.
Even more troubling is what utilities aren’t rewarded for. They do not earn more for decarbonizing the grid faster than legally required, reducing customer bills, or improving reliability and resilience beyond minimum standards. In short, we are asking utilities to innovate at their own expense.
That’s where performance-based ratemaking, or PBR, comes in.
PBR is a common-sense utility regulatory framework that ties financial incentives for utilities to measurable performance outcomes, rather than simply allowing recovery of costs plus profit for capital investments. Under PBR, a portion of utility earnings can be tied to how well they perform, not just how much they spend. Regulators set clear, measurable goals—such as affordability, emissions reductions, reliability, customer service, and efficient grid utilization—and utilities are rewarded for meeting or exceeding those outcomes. If a utility finds innovative, lower-cost ways to maintain reliability, integrate clean energy, or reduce peak demand, it can share in the savings. If it falls short, its earnings are reduced.
Suddenly, advanced grid software, energy efficiency, and modern power electronics become business opportunities rather than threats. Utilities would be incentivized to use existing infrastructure more efficiently, avoid unnecessary upgrades, and deploy new technologies that lower total system costs. Importantly, PBR is not anti-utility. In fact, it offers something utilities consistently ask for: clearer incentives and a more stable framework for earning returns in a rapidly changing energy system. But it also ensures that those returns are earned by delivering real value to customers.
The regulator in Connecticut, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has worked with numerous stakeholders over the past several years to develop a PBR framework. In July and August, three draft decisions were issued by the Regulatory Authority outlining a strong PBR framework. However, with the changeover of commissioners at PURA, the final decisions have been postponed indefinitely from their anticipated October publication dates.
That draft framework, shaped by numerous stakeholders and PURA staff, would make Connecticut a national leader in utility regulation. The technologies for a more affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy future exist. What we need is a regulatory system that rewards utilities for using them and delivering real benefits to customers. Once the new PURA commissioners have reviewed the relevant materials, they should waste no time in making the PBR decisions final—because those decisions do just what is needed: move Connecticut to a business model that aligns utility incentives with improved customer outcomes.
Will Taylor is the strategy director, Infrastructure and Resilience at Acadia Center and holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Connecticut. He resides in Simsbury. Kate McAuliffe is the Senior Policy Advocate for Connecticut at Acadia Center and holds a master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment. She resides in Avon.
To read the full article from the Hartford Courant, click here.
Conservative think tanks pitch ditching solar and wind
BOSTON (WWLP) – A group of conservative think tanks and watchdog groups held a news conference on Tuesday, highlighting a new report suggesting that New England could save hundreds of billions of dollars by switching from wind and solar power back to nuclear and natural gas.
The findings, presented by Always on Energy Research, indicate that the region’s renewable energy costs could reach $815 billion by 2050. The report outlines that nuclear energy could reduce costs by $399.5 billion and natural gas by $708 billion when compared to the projected expenses of renewable energy projects.
“The report released today is unfortunately more deeply flawed analysis presenting a highly distorted and unrealistic view of New England’s grid and energy systems,” said Kyle Murray, Acadia Center’s Director of State Program Implementation and Massachusetts Program Director. “It is the same nonsense we have seen time and time again. The numbers are fictious. It’s magical thinking, completely at odds with reality. No serious grid planning or even modeling exercise would put all power generation eggs in just one or two baskets. Any low cost grid mix is going to include a portfolio of many resource categories, and we know that renewables are poised to anchor the most cost-effective portfolio for the region. Further, across the country, and in the Northeast, states with higher natural gas penetration have higher electricity rates – whereas states that have added more renewables have seen smaller electric rate hikes over the past two-plus decades.”
To read the full article from WWLP, click here.
Understanding Energy Cost Drivers
On December 12, an article was published by Robert Rio on the topic of why energy bills are rising but emissions allegedly aren’t falling. The article claims it isn’t anti-clean energy, but poses a series of questions which, knowingly or not, points blame for rising energy bills directly at renewables and clean energy policies. The article goes on to use data cherry-picked from particular days to support the conclusion that emissions are not falling.
Affordability should be at the forefront of energy conversations. However, to address the affordability question successfully, the Commonwealth must take a holistic view of the factors driving affordability. This blog provides answers to some of the questions the article asks and data-driven responses to some of the statements made – demonstrating that, in the face of the many factors which are leading to higher bills, renewables are both helping affordability and reducing emissions.
Instead of misplacing blame on renewables, a better approach to affordability for the Commonwealth would be to focus on the true cost drivers of climbing electric rates, including fossil fuels and volatile supply costs, utility business models and oversight (or a lack thereof), and aging infrastructure in a heavily forested area of the country with storms which are increasing in severity and frequency. The Commonwealth also has an opportunity through it’s recently opened investigation into bill transparency to ensure ratepayers understand the costs and cost savings of charges on their bill, helping to buoy the truth that renewables and energy efficiency improve affordability while also decreasing emissions.[i]
Claim 1: “Absent renewables and storage coming way down in cost—or more supply coming online—bills aren’t going to fundamentally change.”
The article claims that “[a]bsent renewables and storage coming way down in cost—or more supply coming online—bills aren’t going to fundamentally change.” This statement starts in the wrong place and ends with the wrong conclusion.:
- Recent gas and electric rate increases have been driven primarily by non-supply factors such as transmission and distribution (T&D), which are not affected by changes in supply of fuel or power. This trend is true in the northeast and across much of the U.S.[ii]
- Overreliance on a single fuel – natural gas – is driving price increases. New England has expanded interstate gas transmission capacity by over 30% since 2010. At the same time, the consumption of natural gas in New England was only 2.6% higher in 2023 than in 2010—largely due to persistently increasing usage in Connecticut. In Massachusetts, gas usage actually went down nearly 14% from the year of peak usage, 2011, to 2024, the most recent year with data available.[iii],[iv] Yet, electricity prices still increased. This is in part due to the export of U.S. natural gas in the form of liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe and elsewhere abroad, tying gas prices to global markets, where prices are much higher.[v] LNG exports are expected to continue to rise and, consequently, so are gas prices – and it has increasingly less to do with the supply-demand balance at any given time in the region.[vi]
- Renewables and storage are coming way down in price – fast: Over recent decades, renewables have become considerably cheaper. Between 2000 and 2020, the cost of useful energy from wind, solar, and battery storage decreased by 72%, 90%, and 94%, respectively.[vii] In fact, prices have declined so quickly that studies incorporating cost projections to model future adoption systematically overestimate the costs of renewable energy because the modelling of price decreases is not able to keep up with how quickly costs are actually going down.[viii]
Figure 1: Historical costs of energy sources. Source: Way et al.[ix]
- And prices continue to drop – for example, between 2023 and 2024, battery equipment costs fell 40%, and they are on track for another substantial decrease in 2025.[x] These dropping costs have translated to electric rates. Over the last twenty some-odd years, there is an observed trend across the country – which holds true in the Northeast – of smaller electric rate increases in states that get a higher percentage of their energy from renewables, regardless of whether those renewables are market-based independent power producers or state procured resources.
Figure 2: Change in Electricity Prices vs. Change in Renewable Penetrations. Source: EIA[xi]
- The cost of developing renewables in the northeast is higher than in other parts of the country and the world, but the bulk of those costs are “soft costs” associated with non-equipment/non-technology factors such as permitting, interconnection, red tape associated with other bureaucratic approvals, and beyond – all of which can and should be addressed by policy reforms. At the same time, however, every generation resource – including natural gas and nuclear – has been exposed to rising costs from inflation and supply chain disruptions over the last three to five years.
- Bills may not “fundamentally change” due only to clean resources – but the prices would be even worse without renewables. Recent price increases are real and having very significant impacts on energy burdened families. And it may be that bills won’t fundamentally change (though it is not clear what exactly a “fundamental change” would look like) without putting more affordability tools in place beyond clean energy resources. However, it is critical for the public understanding of energy that cost increases be appropriately and accurately attributed. There are a number of electricity cost drivers, including volatile fossil fuel costs, utility business models that incentivize the implementation of expensive grid solutions, aging infrastructure in need of replacement, and elevated storm response costs due to increasingly severe and frequent storms in the Northeast. As examples, 1) nearly half of transformers in the United States are approaching their end of life, indicating the age of the electric grid, and 2) in Massachusetts, where National Grid historically budgeted for 4 major storms a year, there were between 9 and 14 a year from 2020-2022, leading to over $100 million more in spending than was budgeted for storm response costs.[xii]
- On the contrary, renewables have in fact been helping to mitigate rate increases. If solar and storage are deployed at a rate that meets policy projections, the difference in deployment between 2025 and 2030 levels will reduce New England energy costs by $684 million annually, with over $313 million in annual savings for Massachusetts customers alone – not accounting the $432-721 million in benefits from avoided greenhouse gas emissions.[xiii] In Vermont, a battery lease program already helps customers ride through blackouts and saves customers millions annually, and adding 3.5 GW of offshore wind could have provided Massachusetts customers net savings of $105 – $212 million if online in Winter 2024/25.[xiv], [xv]
- So, while bills may not fundamentally change much without further action to bring them down – the reality is that bills are not rising even more because renewables are helping to keep costs down, despite short-term natural gas cost increases.
Claim 2: “If higher bills were clearly delivering lower emissions, the tradeoff might be easier to explain.”
The article also claims that emissions aren’t decreasing. Specifically, it notes that “If higher bills were clearly delivering lower emissions, the [cost] tradeoff might be easier to explain.” There are two major flaws with this claim: the data shows that renewable energy is both helping to combat rising prices, as discussed above, and clearly lowering emissions. As seen in the Annual Emissions plot below, New England’s grid emissions of all types, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide, are all down in the past decade (especially considering the dip in generation and emissions during COVID).[xvi]
Figure 3: Annual Emissions in New England. Source: ISO New England.[xvii]
Similarly, in Massachusetts, emissions across all sectors, and in the electric sector specifically, are down substantially since the early 2000s (see Figure 4).[xviii] This highlights how, while we may have days where the resource mix is more or less polluting in Massachusetts, overall, renewable deployment is leading to cleaner air for the state, in addition to helping increase energy affordability.
Figure 4: Massachusetts Gross Emissions by Year. Source: MA Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs.[xix]
The data presented thus far in terms of renewable affordability and emissions lead directly to the first question posed in “Why Your Energy Bill Is Rising — But Emissions Aren’t Falling” that Acadia Center will address.
Question 1: When will renewable energy pay off?
The article questions when the payoff of renewables will be seen. The answer is clear: right now. Renewables are currently helping to deliver cheaper electricity prices and reducing emissions, even in the face of numerous other factors that are increasing electric bills. New major influxes of clean energy will provide further assistance as well, such as the $50 million in annual bill savings expected for Massachusetts residents thanks to the hydroelectric power now beginning to flow over the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) transmission line from Quebec.
We are also seeing a tremendous payoff from energy efficiency. Ratepayers in Massachusetts have saved from the Mass Save program, even if they’ve never utilized the program themselves. When electricity prices rise during heatwaves or cold snaps, energy efficiency mitigates price swings by reducing the demand for electricity that would otherwise be needed. Thanks to the efficiency program, Massachusetts’ electricity demand is 27.7% lower than it would have been absent the existence of the program. This means billions in lifetime savings on avoided supply and infrastructure costs. In total, Mass Save provides $2.69 of value for each $1 invested.[xx] While the article questions whether that value is inflated, even if benefits were half of what they have been found to be, the program would still have an impressive return on investment.
Question 2: “How do we reduce skyrocketing winter emissions before reliable, affordable alternatives are in place?”
The article goes on to question how we can reduce skyrocketing winter emissions before reliable, affordable alternatives to expensive fossil fuels are in place. First, it should be pointed out that “skyrocketing winter emissions” is misleading – as annual emissions have been substantially reduced in recent years (see plots in previous sections). Putting that aside, the answer to the question does not have to be exclusive of reliable, affordable alternatives – in fact, it depends on them. Mass Save will continue to provide additional savings to ratepayers by reducing electricity demand, so long as it is fully funded. Renewables – which improve affordability and are rapidly declining in cost – are also the quickest energy resources to build (see below plot).[xxi] Therefore, building more renewables and energy storage (particularly to align production with winter peaks) should be a focus for grid reliability, reducing energy costs, and decreasing emissions. By adding storage, clean energy can more effectively shave peak demand, reducing the need for expensive, dirty, fossil-fuel peaker plants and expensive infrastructure upgrades that would otherwise be needed to accommodate only a few peak usage hours a year.
Figure 5: Average U.S. Power Plant Development Timeline by Technology. Source: SEIA.[xxii]
Conversely, things are getting worse for fossil fuel powered energy. It now takes at least six years to bring a gas-fired power plant online, and since 2022 the full-scope cost of a combined-cycle gas turbine plant has more than tripled.[xxiii]
Additional solutions to help reduce costs are to implement new technologies, such as grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) and virtual power plants. GETs are advanced hardware and software – such as dynamic line ratings, power flow control devices, and advanced sensors – that increase the usable capacity and efficiency of existing grid infrastructure. Their implementation can cost less than 5% of the annual congestion costs they help eliminate, and they are often cheaper than traditional poles and wires solutions.[xxiv]
Virtual power plants are networks of distributed energy resources – such as rooftop solar, batteries, electric vehicles, and smart appliances – coordinated through software to operate as a single power plant. Like grid enhancing technologies, they are often cheaper to install than “traditional” alternatives: 40-60% cheaper than generation and storage alternatives. They also can be implemented in as little as 6-12 months, helping to avoid multi-year transmission upgrades.
Question 3: How much more can people take?
Lastly, the article inquires about how much cost households and businesses can absorb before public support erodes.
The short answer: not much.
Between 2022 and 2024, investor-owned-utility (IOU) residential electricity rates increased 49% more than inflation.[xxv] Looking at the bigger picture of household economics, between 2001 and 2024, median wages – adjusted for a minimum quality of life – decreased by 4%.[xxvi] Part of the reason for that decrease is skyrocketing costs, including costs driven by emissions, to which fossil fuel-based energy generation is a large contributor. For example, fossil fuels pollute the air and environment, leading to increased medical costs and excess deaths due to pollution.[xxvii], [xxviii] They also emit greenhouse gases which worsen climate change, leading to increased storm response and restoration costs.[xxix] Insurance premiums also suffer: the average US homeowner’s insurance premiums increased 8.7% faster than inflation from 2018–2022, with sharp spikes in climate-exposed regions.[xxx] In fact, households are already paying between $400 and $900 annually due to climate-driven costs – and that is likely an underestimation, as the analysis only considered a subset of all fossil-fuel related costs.[xxxi]
Such findings place an added emphasis on the importance of clean, affordable energy and programs like Mass Save. Not only can energy efficiency and renewables help keep electric costs lower, but they also have the added benefit of mitigating these “hidden” costs of fossil fuels, which people pay without considering them part of their household energy budget. Accordingly, Acadia Center believes policymakers and energy bills should be more transparent to ratepayers across the state how renewables are saving them money. This aligns well with a recent investigation launched by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) regarding utility bill design, “increasing transparency for ratepayers when they receive their bills[,] and creating more consistency across companies.”[xxxii]
This investigation and subsequent outcomes will provide an opportunity for increased transparency regarding utility bill costs and benefits. For instance, while energy efficiency programs and renewables have some cost associated with them, they avoid other substantial costs – including millions in fuel costs daily during extreme weather.[xxxiii] The avoided costs due to these programs should be visibly included on bills, particularly if the costs of the same programs are included, either as individual line items or under a bucketed cost category (e.g., public benefits charges). Making avoided costs visible will help ratepayers understand both the costs and cost savings from the programs they are paying for, help mitigate any erosion in public support, and help improve understanding of the truth: renewables are decreasing emissions, improving local public health, and increasing electric bill affordability (by avoiding additional costs).
Plus, we don’t have to accept other “business-as-usual” approaches to paying for energy infrastructure. Forthcoming research from Acadia Center and other partners will examine, for example, how a greater use of public financing sources has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of electric transmission infrastructure build-out (stay tuned for more).
Even More Data
For more information on: 1) gas cost drivers, 2) gas volatility explained; 3) electricity cost drivers, and 4) how renewables affect energy costs, see the linked Acadia Center fact sheets.
[i] DPU Opens Investigation to Review All Charges on Utility Bills | Mass.gov
[ii] Retail Electricity Price and Cost Trends – 2024 Update | LBNL & NREL
[iii] Natural Gas Consumption | EIA.gov
[iv] Massachusetts Natural Gas Total Consumption (Million Cubic Feet) | EIA.gov
[v] Short Term Energy Outlook: November, 2025 | EIA.gov
[vi] Short Term Energy Outlook: December, 2025 | EIA.gov
[vii] Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition | Way et al.
[viii] Are we too pessimistic? Cost projections for solar photovoltaics, wind power, and batteries are over-estimating actual costs globally | ScienceDirect
[ix] Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition | Way et al.
[x] Batteries now cheap enough to make dispatchable solar economically feasible | PV Magazine International
[xi] Generation over 1MW data: Form 923 Power Plant Operations Report | EIA; Generation under 1MW data: Electric Power Monthly – Table 1.17.B | EIA; cost data: Electricity Sales Data |EIA
[xii] National Grid wants to raise electric rates to pay for storm damage from 2 years ago | CBS Boston
[xiii] Powered Up: Evaluating the Year-Round Benefits of Solar and Storage in Massachusetts | Synapse
[xiv] A $55/month Tesla Powerwall lease program in Vermont just got a lot bigger | electrek ; Green Mountain Power Kept 1,100 Homes Lit Up During Storm Outage | Greentech Media.
[xv] Value of Wind in Winter 2024/25 | RENEW Northeast & Daymark
[xvi] Environmental and Emissions Reports | ISO New England
[xvii] Environmental and Emissions Reports | ISO New England
[xviii] Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Metrics | Mass.gov
[xix] Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Metrics | Mass.gov
[xx] Efficiency Ahead: How State Energy Efficiency Plans are Driving Utility Bill Savings and Benefits Across the Northeast | Acadia Center
[xxi] We Need Solar and Storage to Address the Energy Emergency | SEIA
[xxii] We Need Solar and Storage to Address the Energy Emergency | SEIA
[xxiii] The gas turbine crunch: Why supply won’t meet demand | Infrastructure Investor
[xxiv] Building a Better Grid: How Grid-Enhancing Technologies Complement Transmission Buildouts | The Brattle Group
[xxv] Rate of Return Equals Cost of Capital: A Simple, Fair Formula to Stop Investor-Owned Utilities From Overcharging the Public | American Economic Liberties Project
[xxvi] Minimal Quality of Life – The true cost of economic well-being | LISEP Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity
[xxvii] Fossil fuel air pollution responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
[xxviii] The Costs of Inaction: The Economic Burden of Fossil Fuels and Climate Change on Health in the United States | Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health; Natural Resources Defense Council; Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action
[xxix] Time Series – U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters | Climate Central; Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world | Carbon Brief
[xxx] FIO data reveals sharp rise in homeowners premiums in climate-exposed ZIP codes | Insurance Business
[xxxi] Who Bears the Burden of Climate Action? Working Paper 34525 | National Bureau of Economic Research
[xxxii] DPU Opens Investigation to Review All Charges on Utility Bills | Mass.gov
[xxxiii] Grid Action Report – June Heat Wave | Acadia Center
Conservative think tanks challenge New England’s clean energy strategy
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, Jan. 13, 2025…..A new report promoted by conservative New England think tanks warns that the region’s decarbonization plans could add as much as $815 billion in electricity costs by 2050.
Kyle Murray, Acadia Center’s director of state program implementation and Massachusetts program director, said no grid planning “would put all power generation eggs in just one or two baskets.”
“Any low cost grid mix is going to include a portfolio of many resource categories, and we know that renewables are poised to anchor the most cost-effective portfolio for the region,” Murray said.
“Across the country, and in the Northeast, states with higher natural gas penetration have higher electricity rates – whereas states that have added more renewables have seen smaller electric rate hikes over the past two-plus decades,” Murray said.
To read the full article from State House News Service, click here.
Will the environment be a big topic during the legislative session? What to expect
Two years ago, the state Senate approved legislation that aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating and cooling buildings in Rhode Island, but the measure was held up in the House.
At a meeting last month of the state Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, Emily Koo, Rhode Island director of the Acadia Center, a clean energy advocacy group, spoke of a “vacuum of climate leadership” across state government.
Koo said she’s hoping for more attention in the General Assembly on reducing the state’s reliance on natural gas. She mentioned a proposal to limit new spending on the gas delivery system. She also said that reduced electric rates for heat pump users and variable rates that could make it cheaper to charge electric cars would also help.
To read the full article from the Providence Journal, click here.
New report: Gas utilities spent record amount replacing leaky pipes in 2024
Gas utilities in Massachusetts spent a record amount of money in 2024 replacing leaky pipes through the state’s Gas System Enhancement Program, according to a newly released report from regulators, even as the actual miles of replaced pipes remained stubbornly flat since the program’s inception a decade ago.
“We’ve just seen an absolute explosion in the costs of this program, and it appears to be far beyond inflation,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at Acadia Center, an environmental research and advocacy nonprofit.
“If you do business as usual here, you’re going to keep throwing money at a system that is becoming antiquated,” Murray said. “And we’re going to stick an ever-declining ratebase with these costs, and then you are going to end up in an even greater affordability crisis. We’re going to be stuck with stranded assets if we don’t change the way we fundamentally do business here.”
To read the full article from Commonwealth Beacon, click here.
Funding, infrastructure delays have held up electrification of the commuter rail
For years, the idea to replace the existing diesel engines on the Massachusetts commuter rail system with electric ones has promised a slew of potential benefits across the region. Decreased carbon emissions and air pollution, increased economic opportunities and more frequent, reliable and quiet services are among them.
So why is the idea still just an idea?
The Fairmount line was chosen as the test line for a variety of reasons. Its current emissions negatively and disproportionately affect environmental justice communities predominantly made up of Black, brown and immigrant residents. It’s also the shortest of the 12 commuter rail lines and it is fully within the city of Boston.
“The hope of the [Fairmount line] project is that we can show that we can really do this. That is just the first step towards the electrification of the entire commuter rail,” said Daniel Gatti, director of the Transportation Program at the Acadia Center.
“We know that trains that are powered by electricity, they accelerate faster, they stop faster. They’re more reliable in their service in difficult conditions,” Gatti said. “They just provide a better passenger experience. But can we come up with the upfront cost? Can we come up with the capital that we need to make these kinds of investments? That’s the issue that we’re seeing in climate policy again and again.”
To read the full article from Boston Business Journal, click here.
Trump administration suspends five offshore wind projects, including Vineyard Wind, escalating attack on renewables
Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration suspended five federal leases for offshore wind projects on Monday — the latest salvo in the White House’s fight against renewable energy. Two New England projects, Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind, were among those caught in the crosshairs.
Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for the advocacy group the Acadia Center, called the decision Monday an unjustified attack by this administration on clean and cheap electricity.
“The end result will be higher energy costs for ratepayers and higher profits for fossil fuel companies and utilities,” he said.
To read the full article from the Boston Globe, click here.