Constructing our future with low-carbon buildings

A 2014 Acadia Center report commissioned by Natural Resources Canada examined the impact of Canadian energy efficiency policies on GDP and job creation. The researchers concluded that energy efficiency programs would spur a net increase in GDP, contributing $230 billion to $580 billion to the economy between 2012 and 2040. In fact, each $1 spent on energy efficiency programs in Canada would yield a GDP increase of between $5 and $8. Every $1 million invested in efficiency programs generates 30 to 52 job-years.

Read the full article on Policy Options here.

An Ode to Docket 4600

As told through a series of haiku:

I drove to Warwick

In a blue electric car

The chargers were full

 

Those in the know, know

Rhode Island utilities

Governed in Warwick

 

Fifty-four miles left

Should be plenty to get home

I am risk averse

 

Endure long meeting

With many energy geeks

Time-based rates for cars

 

Leafs swap spots at lunch

Brain can’t take much more rate talk

Level 2 charging

 

Start up in silence

I pause a moment, and breathe

Rate case up ahead

 

Clean energy intrigue alleged

Peter Shattuck, the Massachusetts director of the Acadia Center, an environmental advocacy group, said the RFP should be changed. “As written, the RFP would favor large hydro over the wind and solar that we need to diversify the energy mix, drive in-region economic development, and achieve renewable power requirements,” he said.

Read the full article from Commonwealth Magazine here.

Eversource facing big Beacon Hill challenge

Peter Shattuck, the director of the Massachusetts office of the Acadia Center, an environmental advocacy group, said he didn’t think Eversource would be successful in winning support for pipeline financing on Beacon Hill. “Last session the Senate voted unanimously to block the pipeline tariff, and with continuing grassroots opposition and another uneventful winter, legislation is unlikely,” he said.

Read the full article from Commonwealth here. 

New farmland harvest – solar energy – creating political sparks

But asked whether he’d favor a moratorium, Miner laughed and took a long pause. “I don’t personally like moratoriums,” he said. “Is there a real hardship with some period of a moratorium so you could figure this out? I don’t know.”

But Bill Dornbos, who heads the Connecticut office of the environmental advocacy group Acadia Center, does. “I’ve been contacted by utility-scale developers who are expressing great concern and nervousness about this because they heard the word moratorium,” he said. “They were worried we were going to go to a place like we were with the wind-power issue.

“Legislation that restricts solar incentives on the basis of land type is probably not the optimal solution in the long term,” Dornbos said.

Read the full article from the CT Mirror here.

War, peace and innovation: Solar policy in 2016

In Massachusetts, a “Next Generation Incentive” would offer changes to the net metering credit that steps down as well as changes to the state’s Solar Renewable Energy Credit program and compensation “adders” designed to serve as price signals to guide growth. While the successor tariff includes “thoughtful elements such as long-term price guarantees to lower financing costs, land use standards, and incentives for pairing solar and storage,” it lacks protection for community solar programs, said Peter Shattuck, clean energy initiative director of Acadia Center. But protections seem to be lacking for community solar and for solar programs, he added.

Read the full article from Utility Dive here.

Rules to cut carbon emissions in Mass. may increase them in New England, critics say

Since the initiative began in 2008, it has led to reduced emissions and lower energy prices, said Peter Shattuck, director of the clean energy initiative at the Acadia Center, an environmental advocacy group in Boston.

“While there may be some offsetting increases in emissions beyond Massachusetts’ border, the Commonwealth has to set its own policy course,” Shattuck said. “If we’d been looking over [our] shoulder at what other states were doing, we might never have pursued health care reform, marriage equality, or the Global Warming Solutions Act itself.”

Read the full article from the Boston Globe here.

Eversource seeks higher fees on customers with solar

Mark LeBel, a staff attorney at the Acadia Center, an environmental advocacy group, said Eversource’s demand charge isn’t fair to small consumers of electricity because there is no way for a customer to forecast the fee or manage it. He also said a utility’s costs are never driven by the peak demands of an individual, residential customer.

Acadia recommends creating a distribution reliability charge based on the customer’s electricity consumption over a 12-month period, which would give the homeowner an incentive to reduce his or her use of electricity. LeBel – the coauthor of a report on demand charges entitled “Charge Without a Cause?” – said Eversource’s response to growing solar use appears to be an overreaction. “There’s not a big enough problem to go there anytime soon,” he said.

Read the full story from Commonwealth Magazine here.

Connecticut Environmentalists Urge Grass-Roots Campaign To Block Trump’s Pick for EPA

Activist groups represented at Monday’s event included Environment Connecticut, the Sierra Club, the Connecticut Audubon Society, Citizens Campaign for the Environment and the energy watchdog group Acadia Center.

William Dornbos, Connecticut director for the Acadia Center, said Pruitt as EPA head would “have a real impact on Connecticut” by restricting access to key air and water pollution records. “Connecticut could lose fundamental resources even without a law being passed,” Dornbos said.

Read the full article from the Hartford Courant here.

Paul Burns: Clean Energy Works for Vermont

Under Gov. Douglas, Vermont joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) along with seven other Northeast states – and that initiative is paying off. A recent study by the Acadia Center found that, “member states have reduced emissions 16% more than other states and seen 3.6% more economic growth.”

Read the full op-ed in the VT Digger here.