Acadia Center Major Wins and Impacts in 2025

As energy demand grows and new sources of power generation, storage, and demand-side resources are deployed, high-voltage transmission – including cross-border projects between the northeast states and provinces – will be needed to better connect resources and provide consumers with reliable, affordable, and clean power. Community Powered Progress outlines a pathways for community involvement in transmission projects.

On behalf of the Northeast Grid Planning Forum (NGPF), Acadia Center and Nergica produced the Eastern Canada – Northeast U.S. Interregional Transmission Planning Roadmap report (the Roadmap), commissioned by NGPF and prepared by Power Advisory. The Roadmap is intended to support ongoing conversations towards interregional planning of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers and advance collaborative interregional transmission planning and the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) region.

DPU Halts Gas Line Extension Subsidies, Saving Customers Millions. This victory is a good example of how coordinated advocacy, grounded in data analysis, can shape precedent-setting regulatory outcomes. In April of this year, Acadia Center and Rewiring America co-authored group coalition comments that were generally supportive of the draft gas line extension policy but also contained specific recommendations for how to make the policy stronger. For example, the draft policy mentioned exception criteria projects would need to meet to receive a line extension subsidy, including one criterion describing how the project must have “….no feasible alternatives to the use of natural gas, including electrification.” In its comments, Acadia Center argued “feasibility” should be defined as “technical feasibility” (a subtle yet crucial distinction), and the DPU agreed with us in their final decision, limiting allowances to projects that could prove there was no technically feasible alternative to natural gas in their specific building. How do we know Acadia Center helped shape the outcome? Our letter was cited 18 times throughout the DPU’s decision. 

Acadia Center, in coordination with other advocacy organizations in Maine, has been active in encouraging the Maine PUC to undertake a "Future of Gas" investigation in Maine. This effort culminated in a meeting between advocates and Maine PUC Commissioners in January 2025, where the Maine PUC announced that they would open an inquiry later in 2025 to evaluate how natural gas distribution system planning aligns with Maine's overarching climate goals.

The CT Energy Efficiency Board has established an equity working group, which will operate similarly to that in Mass and RI. Acadia Center has been a huge voice in calling for this since re-joining the board and it is finally giving stakeholder and board a time and space to get together on driving forth equity and environmental justice goals of the energy efficiency program. Prior to this group, stakeholders and community members had two opportunities each meeting to share comment, but were not working collaboratively on achieving goals.

Acadia Center staff have been actively involved in the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources' Electric Rates Task Force, which has held utility regulatory framework and mechanism education sessions throughout 2025 with the goal of informing a Motion from DOER to the DPU asking for a holistic reexamination of the MA electric rates regulatory framework through a customer affordability and performance-based lens.

Mobilized response to rapidly introduced 'alternative fuels' commission. Acadia Center and other advocates stopped this duplicative, likely biofuels-driven Special House Commission on Alternative Fuels (House Resolution No. 6418) from becoming a thing.

Acadia Center has been actively involved in the Massachusetts Office of Energy Transition Decarbonizing the Peak Emissions Subgroup. It used this forum to make strong arguments against reliance on alternative fuels (biogas, RNG, hydrogen) as a core strategy for decarbonizing power sectors emissions in the state.

Acadia Center’s Efficiency Ahead report highlights the essential contributions energy efficiency programs make to stabilizing costs, benefitting ratepayers, and diversifying the energy mix in seven states in the northeast.

On behalf of the Northeast Grid Planning Forum (NGPF), Acadia Center and Nergica are pleased to share the attached Eastern Canada – Northeast U.S. Interregional Transmission Planning Roadmap report (the Roadmap), commissioned by NGPF and prepared by Power Advisory. The Roadmap is intended to support ongoing conversations towards interregional planning of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers and advance collaborative interregional transmission planning and the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) region.

This report is the culmination of a two-part analysis on how to advance toward more effective and equitable community benefits negotiations for transmission projects. In it, the authors focus on benefits to communities – including tangible benefits like new facilities and services, economic benefits for whole communities and individual households, and more equitable power dynamics – and how to practically achieve them.

Acadia Center’s New York’s Household Energy Burden Imperative report – done in partnership with WE ACT 4 CHANGE – examines the scale of the issue, explores policy and program solutions, including energy affordability programs, community solar, weatherization and electrification retrofits, bill assistance programs, and advanced rate design reforms. As lawmakers and regulators consider new strategies to tackle this crisis, policies like the NY HEAT Act present an opportunity to strengthen energy affordability commitments.