28 (Particularly Timely) Charities to Donate to This Holiday Season
Acadia Center
Through legal strategy, public advocacy, and consumer education, it aims to generate practical methods for universalizing the use of sustainable-energy sources.
See the full list from New York Magazine here.
Trump Could Have Leverage Over UTC In Carrier Negotiations
Bill Dornbos, director of the Connecticut office of Acadia Center, a clean energy advocacy group, said changing the regulations could be difficult because the rule-writing process is drawn out and complicated. For example, minimum energy conservation standards apply to more than 60 categories of appliances and equipment, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
In addition, cutting energy efficiency standards for air conditioning equipment would not likely help Carrier and other U.S. manufacturers because of investments in meeting higher standards, he said.
“Any rollback would more likely end up benefiting foreign manufacturers who could flood the market with lower-quality, less-efficient products,” he said.
Read the full article from the Hartford Courant here.
Can RGGI flourish under a Trump administration?
Emissions in the nine RGGI states have fallen by 37 percent since 2008, according to a report from the Acadia Center, an environmental group. At the same time, electricity prices have dropped by 3.4 percent across the region, the report says.
[…]
“Leadership now is vital on the state level,” said Peter Shattuck, executive director of the Acadia Center. “If we’re not going to see as much as folks would like at the federal level, there is a renewed rationale for the states being the laboratory of innovation.”
Read the full article from Energy & Environment News here. This article may require a subscription for access.
States Considering Future of Northeast Climate Program
BOSTON — Nine states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) will be hosting a webinar today to discuss the future of the eight-year cooperative effort to reduce power plant carbon pollution. Materials that will be discussed during the webinar indicate that states will take the important step of establishing emissions limits through 2030, but the ambition and scope of new rules remains unresolved.
“RGGI’s success shows that states can and should lead on climate,” said Acadia Center President Daniel Sosland. Acadia Center’s July 2016 report Measuring Success shows that states in RGGI have experienced 3.6% more economic growth than states that have yet to act on climate, even as emissions have declined 16% more in RGGI states than in other states.
The core decision about RGGI’s future centers on the cap level — the overall limit on carbon pollution — and states are describing two options on today’s webinar: a cap that continues the current 2.5% annual decline, and a more ambitious cap that declines by 3.5% annually.
In addition to potential cap levels, the RGGI states will be discussing possible changes to other program design elements including accounting for banked and surplus emissions allowances and price controls. “These program designs will be crucial to ensuring that the RGGI cap achieves necessary reduction targets and avoids being burdened by a glut of allowances leading to insignificant carbon prices,” said Jordan Stutt, Policy Analyst in Acadia Center’s Clean Energy Initiative. “Improvements to existing design elements and the establishment of a strong emissions containment reserve will show that the RGGI states are committed to improving—not just maintaining—their model program.”
“State action on climate is now more important than ever,” said Peter Shattuck, Director of Acadia Center’s Clean Energy Initiative. “During the hottest year on record and with federal action uncertain, building on RGGI’s success is vital. Establishing ambitious targets through 2030 will show the country and the world that the RGGI states intend to remain at the forefront of climate action.”
Information on RGGI’s performance to date and necessary reforms through the 2016 Program Review are described in Acadia Center’s recent RGGI Status Report:
Additional information on the benefits of RGGI can be found at https://www.cleanenergyeconomy.us/
RGGI Overview:
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is the first mandatory, market-based effort in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Nine northeastern and mid-Atlantic states reduce CO2 emissions by setting an overall limit on emissions “allowances,” which permit power plants to dispose of CO2 in the atmosphere. States sell allowances through auctions and invest proceeds in consumer benefit programs: energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other programs.
The official RGGI website is: www.rggi.org
New York Proposes New Rates for Distributed Energy
This blog was co-authored with Miles Farmer, Clean Energy Attorney at Natural Resources Defense Council.
The New York Department of Public Service has proposed to change the way distributed energy resources (like community solar and small wind projects) are rewarded for the benefits that they provide to the electricity system. The Department released a landmark report in its “Value of Distributed Energy Resources” proceeding, recommending a methodology by which these resources can receive credits that align more closely with their true value to the electricity system. Acadia Center and NRDC have been involved in the collaborative process around the report’s creation, and here we examine what these proposed reforms hope to accomplish, give initial feedback, and look toward next steps.
This report marks the latest step in the state’s ambitious Reforming the Energy Vision (“REV”) initiative. REV aims to create a more consumer-centric, efficient, resilient, and cleaner energy system. The Department’s report focuses on reforming an electricity rate structure known as “net energy metering,” where credit for clean energy generation is set equal to the retail rate. Reforms to net energy metering have been a controversial topic across the country for the last several years. Some states have proposed successful new approaches. California, for example, is phasing in time-of-use rates for most customers that recognize when electricity generation is most valuable.
From the outset, New York’s Value of Distributed Energy Resources proceeding has sought to better align credits for community solar and other distributed generation resources with their value to the system. New York’s current net energy metering policies are simple, easy for customers to understand, and have proved to be effective incentives for investments in clean energy, so revising methods for net metering presents risks. A new ‘value-based’ crediting system is more complex by its very nature. But if done correctly, aligning credits more closely with benefits created by distributed generation has the potential to incent more efficient investments in the electric system. Acadia Center discusses value-based crediting here.
The staff report is a good start to a long-term iterative process. Throughout this process, Acadia Center and NRDC will be closely analyzing the report and offering recommendations for improvement. On first review, Acadia Center and NRDC find that the report recommends many approaches to important issues that are worthy of support:
- It protects existing projects from unexpected changes and allows mass market development of small rooftop projects to continue under traditional net energy metering, providing continuity.
- It provides credit to projects for their environmental value, with a floor at the social cost of carbon, pursuant to the New York Public Service Commission’s previous Benefit-Cost Framework Order.
- It provides for a ‘market transition credit’ that incorporates some values that cannot be accurately calculated at this time, recognizing limits in current techniques to estimate the value of benefits provided by distributed energy resources.
- It adopts monetary crediting, where each kilowatt hour generated is translated into a monetary amount based on the value it provides. This approach is more flexible and allows for smarter pricing than traditional volumetric crediting (which tracks only the amount of electricity generated and cannot accommodate details like the time at which the electricity was generated).
When creating a “value-based” crediting system like the Department’s proposal, the most difficult task is to develop a method for calculating the value of each of the benefits that distributed energy resources can provide. These benefits include energy, capacity (the availability of the system to provide electricity at times of peak demand), transmission and distribution value (because distributed energy resources like rooftop solar reduce the need for infrastructure to send electricity to customers), environmental and public health value, and other values that are more difficult to quantify. In practice, there are many ways to define and calculate the value of each of these components. However, the precise methods chosen have significant consequences for what investments will be made and how resources will be operated. Certain methods offer different tradeoffs. For example, using dynamic credit values may allow a resource to respond in real time to system needs, but they set less predictable values that might prevent investors from putting capital into beneficial resources.
The staff report effectively balances these goals in a manner that should facilitate continued growth of the solar industry in New York. It provides a good framework for further refinement, and we look forward to working with the Department and other parties to evaluate it further and carry out additional improvements.
The report also reflects the inclusive approach taken by the New York Department of Public Service. The Department facilitated a collaborative process to allow utilities, solar developers, customer representatives, environmental groups, and others to work together and provide input on a variety of issues including how the values of these different components should be calculated. Department staff has listened carefully to the concerns of all parties, including a range of detailed suggestions by Acadia Center and NRDC.
New York’s approach to valuing distributed energy resources is new and innovative, and regulators in states across the country will be examining it closely. We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively on these important issues as New York refines its proposal and builds upon it in future years.
Finding New Frontiers: Clean Energy on Aquidneck Island
This summer, an Acadia Center blog post highlighted the clean energy moment happening in Connecticut. Policymakers in that state are currently deciding what its energy future will look like for years to come, and stakeholders must take notice—but Connecticut isn’t the only state having a clean energy moment. In fact, you might say the whole region, country, even world is having a clean energy moment. At Acadia Center, we strive to capture a vision that will help more communities, of whatever size, embrace these moments, and recently in Rhode Island we found ourselves in a room with more than one hundred locals excited by that vision.
At Acadia Center’s latest forum, community members came together from Aquidneck Island’s three towns to celebrate achievements, explore possibilities, and identify specific 
opportunities for using clean energy locally. The audience heard from two state representatives, Lauren Carson and Deborah Ruggiero, and two state commissioners, Marion Gold of the Public Utilities Commission and Carol Grant of the Office of Energy Resources. Attendees had the opportunity to engage with these four women as well as with panelists from National Grid, People’s Power & Light, the City of West Warwick, and the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank. Acadia Center’s Rhode Island Director, Abigail Anthony, also presented the basic principles of EnergyVision, with particular emphasis on Community|EnergyVision.
The event was called “Solar and Beyond” and it highlighted the community’s solar potential by featuring sponsors from solar companies, who were available to answer questions before and after the panels (a big thank you to Newport Solar, RGS, and Direct Energy Solar). Other topics that drew interest included Block Island’s new offshore wind farm, transportation’s role in the clean energy future, energy efficiency, and the possibility of going 100% renewable.
Acadia Center was privileged to have two excellent partners in this venture, the Aquidneck Island Planning Commission (AIPC) and Emerald Cities Collaborative. We are excited to continue working with these organizations to harness the momentum built at the forum and support effective policies to make the community’s vision a reality. Working with AIPC and Emerald Cities, Acadia Center is developing a forward-looking policy agenda to remove barriers to community energy and build a coalition of support from municipal leaders on Aquidneck Island. Acadia Center is promoting several key actions that Aquidneck Island leaders can take to advance community energy, including:
- Expand the use of local energy resources to avoid the construction of infrastructure projects and reduce costs. In December, the state’s Energy Efficiency & Resource Management Council will propose reforms to utility planning that are designed to proactively deploy energy efficiency and distributed energy resources, like solar, in “highly-utilized” areas of the electric grid to ensure energy reliability for all.
- Adopt Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs to provide long-term clean energy financing for businesses and residents. Aquidneck Island towns should authorize Commercial PACE, which offers financing for clean energy projects on commercial, industrial, agricultural, non-profit, and multifamily properties. Municipal leaders should also advocate for strong consumer protection elements in the roll-out of Residential PACE in Rhode Island.
- Expand access to community solar. Rhode Island laws passed in 2016 create more opportunities for residential and qualified low- and moderate-income housing developments to benefit from solar projects. However, the Community Remote Net Metering program is currently capped at 30 MW. Aquidneck Island leaders can support advocacy efforts to remove this cap and promote community solar projects.
Over the coming months, Acadia Center will work with AIPC and Emerald Cities to build a strong coalition of support for these policies and others. Together we hope to lay a foundation for community energy in Rhode Island that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and better serve consumers. By seizing this clean energy moment, Aquidneck Island will secure an energy future that is reliable, cost effective, and community driven.
State gov’ts energy-reduction efforts need more money
The Acadia Center, an environmental nonprofit with an office in Hartford, recently released a report criticizing Lead by Example’s lack of progress.
“It doesn’t appear that the program is on track,” said William Dornbos, senior attorney and director of Acadia’s Connecticut office. “It’s hard to see, based on this information, how the program is going to get there.”
[…]
Acadia’s report also criticized DEEP for not releasing mandated annual reports on the program’s progress, which it said makes it difficult for the public to track results. DEEP published annual reports online earlier this month covering 2014 and 2015, following the publication of Acadia’s report.
Read the full article from the Hartford Business Journal here.
Environmental, consumer groups call on Connecticut regulators to cut UI rate
The groups making the request include such environmental groups as the Acadia Center and the Sierra Club, as well as consumer groups including AARP Connecticut and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
[…]
Bill Dornbos, Connecticut director and senior attorney at Acadia Center, said reducing UI’s current fixed charge for residential customers “would not only give immediate relief to Connecticut homeowners who are struggling with high energy costs, but it would also better align our electricity pricing with our energy efficiency and clean energy policies and help grow clean energy industries that can boost Connecticut’s economy.”
Fixed-rate charges became a hot topic among Connecticut lawmakers in 2014 when Connecticut Light & Power, now known as Eversource Energy, sought to raise its monthly rate. PURA ultimately allowed an increase in the fixed charge for Eversource’s residential customers to $19.25 per month, currently the highest residential fixed charge for any investor-owned electric utility in New England.
State lawmakers responded by passing a new consumer protection law, enacted in 2015, that requires PURA to apply a new standard to fixed charges. Dornbos said passage of the law “made it clear that they (lawmakers) wanted to see fixed charges capped and reduced.”
“They clearly did not want the status quo to continue,” he said.
Connecticut’s Office of Consumer Counsel has offered expert testimony concluding that UI’s residential fixed charge should be reduced to between $6 and $8 per month to comply with the new law’s requirements, Dornbos said,
“I think the public is going to be very disappointed if that is not the outcome,” he said.
Read the full article from the New Haven Register here.
Mass. Regulators Reject DER Surcharge in Rate Case
Several intervenors contended that the proposal ran contrary to Massachusetts’ efforts to have its rate design more accurately reflect market conditions.
“Reforms to electricity rate design must strike a careful balance between economic efficiency, equity for all customers, protection of low-income ratepayers and access to community distributed generation,” Mark LeBel, staff attorney at Acadia Center, said in a statement.
Read the full article from RTO Insider here.
Video: Energy policy a top issue in campaign
“Obviously, we still have a ways to go,” said Jordan Stutt, policy analyst for the Acadia Center. “We’re still pretty dependent on some fossil fuels, but as we continue to invest in new energy technologies — as those costs come down, as we build out the infrastructure for distributed energy generation — I think we will be able to achieve that goal.”
Watch the news report and read the full article from WMUR here.