Massachusetts’ “Green Bank”: What’s it all about?

In Massachusetts, Governor Healey’s administration has announced the creation of the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank. Otherwise known as the Green Bank, it will begin with $50 million in seed funding and will be initially targeted at decarbonizing affordable housing. While other states have established Green Banks, the Massachusetts approach is notable because it will be the first ever in the nation devoted to affordable housing. However, there are plans to expand it eventually. You may have two questions though: 1) what is a Green Bank, and 2) with so many programs already in place for decarbonization, why do we need it?

At the most basic level, Green Banks are “public, quasi-public, or nonprofit financing entities that leverage public and private capital to pursue goals for clean energy projects that reduce emissions.”  They allow clean energy projects which may not be able to meet traditional financing requirements to get the capital necessary to move projects forward. The $50 million initial investment from the Healey Administration will allow it to access some of the $27 billion in funding in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund established by the federal Inflation Reduction Act. Miriam Wasser from Boston radio station WBUR has prepared this explainer about Green Banks operate.

A more interesting question is why Massachusetts needs a Green Bank when the state already has several incentive programs. The answer is straightforward: what is currently available is nowhere near enough to fund our building decarbonization needs. The Commonwealth will need to invest billions to achieve its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction requirements.

In Massachusetts, over 65% of the energy used by buildings comes from fossil fuels. Unfortunately, roughly 85% of the residential buildings expected to exist in 2050 have already been built. This housing stock is also older, as with much of New England and the Northeast. Older homes are significantly more difficult and expensive to retrofit. These aspects of the building stock in Massachusetts signal the need for more large-scale investment in programs to retrofit, weatherize, and replace fossil fuels used in these buildings.

Currently, the vast majority of funding in Massachusetts for weatherization and heat pump installation comes from the utility-administered  Mass Save energy efficiency program. Massachusetts has fielded a top-rated energy efficiency program for over a decade that provides billions of dollars in investment toward energy efficiency, weatherization, and heat pumps. However, the program is primarily funded through ratepayer dollars. As the need to invest in housing stock improvements, additional funds are needed to avoid placing the decarbonization burden on utility ratepayers. Therefore, the need to find alternative funding mechanisms for decarbonization is clearly critical.

A Green Bank alone will not entirely solve our decarbonization financing needs for the Commonwealth. However, it remains a critical piece in the decarbonization jigsaw puzzle and signals that the Healey Administration understands the need to diversify the funding sources to meet the building decarbonization challenge.

Community Engagement Towards a Clean Power Grid: How Cities and Towns Can Advance the Fight for Transmission and Grid Reform

The electric power grid is an essential part of our energy system. While we can see the transmission lines and supporting infrastructure that crisscross the landscape, what is hidden from view are the billions of dollars consumers pay to support the power grid. 

Historically, the power grid has established planning and tariff policies that have favored fossil gas generation in the name of reliability and has failed to embrace the full potential for clean energy. The result is that over 50% of electricity is generated by fossil gas plants. This exposes consumers to volatile pricing in fossil fuel markets and imposes economic burdens by limiting clean energy options that offer clean, cost-effective technologies. By sustaining fossil infrastructure, public health is damaged, most often in communities that suffer from disproportionate impacts of pollution. Acadia Center’s recent RGGI Report shows the stark legacy of siting fossil fuel infrastructure near low-income communities. 

Local communities are key stakeholders in how the regional grid is operated. Many cities and towns have adopted clean energy and climate goals that can only be achieved with the regional grid acting in alignment to embrace clean energy. Hospitals, agencies, and social services – are impacted by energy costs, volatility, and the myriad ways harmful air pollution affects residents. 

For these reasons, with the generous support of the Barr Foundation, Acadia Center is starting a new program to conduct outreach on power grid issues to communities. Our Communities and Clean Grid Engagement Project will explore the interest of local communities in adding their voices to the critical issues addressed at the regional grid level. 

Cities and towns play a unique role because they are large energy consumers themselves and they represent their residents’ interests in having access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity. Across the United States, cities and towns are emerging as clean energy leaders and have procured over eight gigawatts of renewable energy over the last five years. This city leadership is catalyzing action across smaller communities and other public institutions. 

Acadia Center has been engaged since 2006 in the role of the grid in addressing and intruding on climate, clean energy, and consumer goals. We have raised issues around barriers created by project funding and tariff formulas, governance, and failures in long-term planning. We are working with other organizations and coalitions growing in their focus and outreach. 

We look forward to engaging with public officials, community leaders, and other stakeholders around the region and strengthening the movement for building a clean grid that benefits all residents. 

Climate Change Solutions with Bill McKibben

Most understand the climate is changing before our eyes. Implementing solutions has been slowly occurring, but much more needs to be accomplished. Join Bill McKibben for an in-depth discussion on the opportunities, priorities, and diverse solutions to address the challenges of carbon emission and climate change. Find out what each of us can do to make a difference.

Recording of the Webinar available here: https://www.nfrpp.org/2023/07/13/climate-change-solutions-with-bill-mckibben/

Join us July 11 @ 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KhSMFuBjRCuTyV4aox1vuA

To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

Speakers:

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, and his latest book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.

Daniel L. Sosland, the moderator, is the President of Acadia Center. For over 25 years, Dan has been working in the field of climate and clean energy solutions. His major focus has been as president and co-founder of Acadia Center, a non-profit research and advocacy organization acting at the state, regional, and community levels to advance climate and clean energy solutions in the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada. One of the first such organizations created in the U.S. to address climate solutions, Acadia Center, has won awards from U.S. EPA, the American Council for an Energy Efficiency Economy and others for its groundbreaking work on climate pathways, energy efficiency and transforming government to be responsive to climate and equity and is ranked in the top 1% of non-profits evaluated by Charity Navigator. Prior to Acadia Center, Dan’s work focused on energy efficiency and forest and watershed protection. Dan was given the Maine Forever Award by Gov. Angus King and the Exemplary Public Service Award from Cornell Law School.  He began his career at a major law firm in New York City and holds a JD with honors from Cornell Law School and a BA from Brown University.  He is a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Climate Action Network.

The Canadian Wildfires Ominously Messed Up a Clean Energy Power Line

The Quebec forest fires that have recently contributed to some of the worst smoke days in American history are also wreaking minor havoc on the electric grid.

Observers of electricity markets were puzzled Wednesday evening when grid operator ISO-New England announced that “due to an unanticipated transmission outage and higher-than-forecast consumer demand,” the New England grid would be calling on reserves “to balance the regional power system.” Demand that day did not seem particularly or unexpectedly high, nor were there any obvious supply issues in New England, so why was ISO-NE having trouble? More illumination came Thursday, when it specified there was a transmission issue with its imported power.

On the other hand, as Joe LaRusso of the Acadia Center, a New England clean energy group, pointed out to me, transmission is also what saved the day when Quebec’s imports were shut off, as imports from New York picked up the slack.

“It serves as a demonstration not that transmission is a weak link, but that it’s the principle means of enabling balancing authorities like ISO-NE and NYISO to rely on one another to make up for variations in capacity.” That’s as true of “unplanned generator and transmission outages” as was the case in Quebec, as it is for more predictable fluctuations in solar and wind power.

To read the full article from Heatmap, click here.

Massachusetts has vast solar potential, according to new state report

As Mass. towns adopt new climate-friendly building codes, homebuilders push back

Massachusetts faces two enormous challenges: The cost of housing and the changing climate.

And while nearly everyone agrees the state needs to tackle both of them, the debate over a new report out last week highlights how — at least to some — the solutions sometimes conflict.

The report, published by the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Massachusetts (HBRAMA), and written by economists at MIT and Wentworth, argues that the new net-zero building codes being adopted by communities around the state could increase the cost of building a new single-family home by anywhere from $10,000 to $23,000. That, they warn, could push housing out of reach for even more Massachusetts families.

Then there are state and federal initiatives that help pay for them. One of the major state programs, Mass Save, provides a $15,000 subsidy for all-electric single-family homes. The state also offers tax credits of up to $1,000 for homes that use solar-generated electricity and hot water.

Leaving those out was a major omission, said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for the Acadia Center, a non-profit organization for clean energy solutions.

“The report estimates a cost premium, but that’s without factoring in public incentives,” he said. “So I would disagree with that major conclusion about costs going up.”

To read the full article from the Boston Globe, click here.

Who decides where we get electricity and how much we pay? Mostly White, politically connected men

Few government officials will have a bigger say in how states transition from fossil fuels than public utility commissioners.

Yet, for the most part, these boards operate below the radar, rarely drawing the level of scrutiny faced by other agencies or officeholders.

Jared Heern wants to change that.

In an effort to draw more attention to the role of state utility commissions, Heern, a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute at Brown University for Environment and Society, recently assembled data on the more than 800 commissioners who served on public utility commissions across the country between 2000 and 2020. The results are laid out in a new study published in the journal Energy Research and Social Science.

“These proceedings can be very technical and opaque,” said Oliver Tully, director of utility innovation at the Acadia Center. “It can be challenging for groups who are already limited in terms of resources to participate meaningfully in proceedings where there is a lot of jargon and data to wade through.”

To read the full article Energy News Network, click here.

How social movements catalyse entrepreneurship in emerging industries such as green energy

Social movements could help support finding innovative solutions to issues such as climate change by encouraging entrepreneurial activity. Research shows that social movements can also play a key role in bringing new players into the solar industry, green building and recycling. Such collective enterprises could help push forward the changes needed for entrepreneurship to flourish in emerging industries like green energy.

In the search for innovative solutions to the climate crisis and other challenges, new businesses may find an unexpected source of support: social movements. Though often associated with opposition and protest, such collective enterprises can be crucial in encouraging entrepreneurial activity in emerging industries, serving as catalysts for innovation in some of the areas where it’s needed most. To understand the relationship between social movements and entrepreneurship, we looked at the solar power industry in the US and the tech-focused advocacy organizations dedicated to promoting renewable energy.

We wanted to know whether these social movement organizations can benefit entrepreneurship, as well as where and when they may be most effective in bringing new entrants into the fray.Of course, not all social movement organizations – those dedicated to promoting shared social or cultural goals – are created equal. The US-based organizations we studied had an approach that was targeted and goal-oriented rather than confrontational; they were interested more in educating than in shouting. Examples of the groups we looked at were Carolina Land and Lakes, Acadia Center and the Energy Trust of Oregon and all launched various initiatives to promote clean energy. They held training and educational programmes; fought misinformation and found common ground; pushed for regulatory reform; and managed programmes for technology swapping or upgrading.

When an industry is in its infancy, social movements help it and new players come across as viable and legitimate. They clarify the unknowns in a company’s offering, push for legal frameworks that make room for them, and target potential customers. Clean energy groups can increase the incidence of state-based incentives like sales tax credits for renewable technologies. Acadia Center, for example, publishes data on the role of clean energy investments on job creation and economic growth, and designs market-based strategies for renewables and advocates for policies to implement them.

To see the original article on the European Sting, click here.

No juice on the Mass. Pike: Charging stations out of order; what does it mean for drivers?

Range anxiety is alive and well in Central Massachusetts.

What is range anxiety? It’s nervous energy a driver of a fully electric vehicle feels when the dashboard signals a dangerously low power level and there are few, if any, charging stations nearby.

Panic can set it because the thought of running out of juice and being stuck along a busy highway or in the middle of nowhere can grate on the nerves.

There is a workaround for the charging station challenge on the Pike, said Joseph LaRusso, senior advocate and manager of clean grid initiative at Acadia Center, a Boston-based nonprofit that develops clean-energy solutions.

That workaround is good planning.

LaRusso drives his EV on the Pike on the way to visiting in-laws in Utica, New York, and plugs in at home by way of a home-based charger to make sure he departs with a full charge.

“I’ve never relied on chargers on the Pike. There are too few of them,” said LaRusso.

Using his mobile application, LaRusso said he’s located plenty of fast chargers just minutes off the Pike, including in Auburn and Chicopee. With a quick stop to power boost, LaRusso has the confidence to reach his destination.

LaRusso is a savvy EV owner, with good planning skills. But what about the inexperienced EV owner who doesn’t think ahead and relies on chargers in places like the Pike to reach a destination? Or those, like Mills, who are planning especially long trips?

“If people hear in the news that a major artery in the commonwealth is without chargers, they might say, ‘Oh, gosh.’ They likely will pause about purchasing an EV. They might go with a hybrid instead.”

To read the full article in the Telegram & Gazette, click here.

New England solar is already displacing vast quantities of methane gas or fuel oil

Joe LaRusso, the manager of the Clean Grid Initiative at Acadia Center, pointed out what he called the most interesting fact presented as the recent FERC New England Gas-Electric Forum:

“Every 700 MW of solar offsets 7-10 million gals. of fuel oil or 1-1.5 billion cubic feet of methane gas. There’s about 5,500 MW of solar in New England today, & about 700 MW is being added *every year.*

And most of that comes from “rooftop” – behind-the-meter – solar, not big utility farms. And most of that is in Massachusetts and Connecticut, with Vermont punching well above its weight. New Hampshire and Maine are real laggards.

To read the article from Granite Geek, click here.