Batteries Take Heat Off Strained Electric Grid In Con Ed AC Experiment
When a heat wave hits New York City, many customers can soon expect a message from Con Ed, asking customers to conserve energy.
The reason is to protect the heat-strained electric grid, which, when taxed to the point of failure, can lead to blackouts and brownouts.
When demand for power is high, especially in the summer, fossil fuel-fired peaker plants kick in to meet that need. Those plants, often located in and around low-income neighborhoods, can be highly polluting and costly to rely on.
“By switching your AC to a battery rather than the outlet, you’re providing a measure of relief to the grid, avoiding more expensive, dirtier power plants turning on,” said Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at Acadia Center, a research and advocacy nonprofit.
The small batteries in participants’ homes have served as a source of back-up power in other instances.
To read the full article from The City, click here.
State OKs new heat pump rate for Eversource customers. Here’s how much you could save
The state’s utility agency recently approved a heat pump rate for Eversource customers that could save them hundreds of dollars, state officials said this week.
On Tuesday, the Department of Public Utilities approved a way for customers of Eversource to enroll in seasonal electric rates, which could save them — on average — $540 throughout the winter season.
Heat pumps help reduce the cost of electricity while the state works to achieve its climate goals, a report from Switchbox, a New York climate policy think tank, said last week.
“This is a good first step,” said Kyle Murray, director of implementation in Massachusetts for the clean-energy advocate Acadia Center, which is based in Maine. Murray’s work focuses on advocacy efforts in the commonwealth, including coalition building and outreach.
If that new rate is adopted, 8 out of 10 Massachusetts homes with heat pumps will save on their winter energy bills, with median savings of $687 per heating season, the Switchbox report said.
“That would be a universal, increased, heat pump rate reduction,” Murray said Tuesday, meaning all heat pump users would benefit.
To read the full article from Mass Live, click here.
Save RIPTA Coalition addresses devastating bus service cuts; Proposes alternatives
A coalition of community organizations, transit riders, bus drivers, and legislators gathered outside the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 618 Hall in Providence to speak out against the proposed cuts to RIPTA Service and how this “devastating” loss of service will affect all Rhode Islanders.
“I’m here to remind our state leaders that a robust public transit system is necessary to reach our climate mandates and mitigate the climate crisis’s harm for generations to come,” said Emily Koo, policy advocate for the climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “As a mom, I’m worried about the heat, flooding, and air quality that my son will face 15 years from now when he’ll be about driving age. But maybe he’ll take the bus instead. Fifteen years beyond that, he may consider starting a family. If these cuts stand, it will only become harder to rebuild our beleaguered transit system and reduce emissions from how we get around our state. I urge our leaders to fund RIPTA to have a safe, healthy, and livable climate for our children.”
To read the full article from RI Future News, click here.
As rooftop solar gets hammered, virtual power plants offer a way forward
The rooftop solar industry is facing an unprecedented crisis. Utilities are cutting incentives. Major residential solar installers and financiers have gone bankrupt. And sweeping legislation just passed by Republicans in Congress will soon cut off federal tax credits that have supported the sector for 20 years.
But the fact remains that solar panels — and the lithium-ion batteries that increasingly accompany them — remain the cheapest and most easily deployable technologies available to serve the ever-hungry U.S. power grid.
During last month’s heat wave across New England, as power prices spiked and grid operators sought to import energy from neighboring regions, distributed solar and batteries reduced stress on the grid. Nonprofit group Acadia Center estimated that rooftop solar helped avoid about $20 million in costs by driving down energy consumption and suppressing power prices.
Familiar Claims About Offshore Wind Aired at Portsmouth Forum on SouthCoast Wind Cable Project
PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — While polling shows they have wide public support, southern New England’s offshore wind projects continue to be dogged by vocal opposition — and at times, misinformation — from a minority of local residents and property owners, as evidenced by a public forum Wednesday evening.
The project itself, and the substation where the electricity generated by the turbines will connect into the grid, is outside Rhode Island’s lands and waters. The turbines will sit in a lease area in federal waters, and the substation sits at Brayton Point in Somerset, Mass.
Other groups supporting the project include the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, the Rhode Island office of the Acadia Center, the Conservation Law Foundation, Climate Action Rhode Island, and 24 state representatives and 11 state senators.
To read the full article from ecoRI, click here.
Opinion: Utilities count on your boredom to keep electric bills high
Want to know the quickest way to clear a party? Start talking about utility regulation. First, the record scratches, eyes glaze over, conversations die, and suddenly everyone remembers they need to check on their pets. It’s regulatory Kryptonite … so mind-numbingly technical that even policy wonks reach for their phones.
And that’s exactly how utilities like it.
Maybe you’ve seen and promptly forgotten a confusing and uninteresting public notice about “Performance-Based Regulation (PBR) implementation frameworks.” Well, the companies sending you those painful monthly electric bills don’t think those frameworks are boring — and they are busy trying to shape a system they hope will lock in their profits for years to come. They’re betting millions of your dollars that this is all so impenetrable that you’ll leave the decision-making to them.
Connecticut rate-payers face some of the highest electricity costs in the nation. Yet when the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (“PURA”) opens regulatory cases about fundamentally restructuring how our utilities get paid, proceedings that could determine whether your bills go up or down for the next decade, the hearing rooms are practically empty … except for utility lawyers, of course (and a few advocates like us).
The great regulatory reveal
Here’s what’s happening behind all the technical jargon: Connecticut is considering revising the way utilities make a profit to incentivize them to spend less money (or at least spend it more where it counts). Instead of the traditional model where utilities get paid based on how much of your money they spend (yes, you read that right — they literally make profit from spending your money), performance-based regulation ties their compensation to actual, specific results.
Right now, utilities in Connecticut (and across most of the country) operate under what’s called a “cost-plus” model. They spend money on grid infrastructure — think wires, poles, and substations — then get to charge you for it, plus a guaranteed profit margin. It’s like someone giving you a credit card and promising they’ll pay your bill and give you a 10% tip on whatever you spend, regardless of what you buy or how much it costs. Who wouldn’t max out that card?
Performance-based regulation flips this script. Instead of rewarding utilities for spending, it rewards them for delivering actual value: reliable service, faster storm restoration, meeting clean energy goals, and, crucially, keeping costs reasonable.
If this idea sounds obvious, that’s because every company that isn’t a monopoly utility makes a profit when it delivers value. It’s what a competitive market yields naturally.
Why ‘it’ll never work’ is the real problem
The real barrier isn’t technical – it is psychological. We’ve become too comfortable accepting a system that doesn’t work for anyone except utilities. For too long, the energy sector has operated under the assumption that monopolistic structures and guaranteed profits are just how things have to be, as if sky-high electric bills and utility monopolies are like gravity — natural laws we have to accept, rather than policy choices we can change.
This comfort with dysfunction has real costs. While we’ve debated incremental tweaks around the edges, utilities have continued collecting guaranteed returns regardless of performance, and ratepayers have continued footing the bill for inefficiency. The longer we accept “that’s just how it has always been done” as a valid response to systemic problems, the more entrenched these issues become.
But those of us who came of age watching entire industries transform overnight know better.
We’re the voice that refuses to accept “that’s just how it’s always been done” as a valid answer to systemic problems. We’ve seen Uber disrupt taxis, Netflix kill Blockbuster, and solar prices plummet by 90% in a decade. For us, it’s obvious: industries only seem “unchangeable” until they change completely.
The truth is, resistance to change has become the energy sector’s most expensive luxury and ratepayers — all of us who depend on electricity — are footing the bill. But we don’t have to be paying for nothing to change, and we shouldn’t be. When incumbents shrug off innovative regulatory approaches, they’re not making a prediction; they’re making a choice: to protect a system that keeps utility profits sky high (and growing!) while everyone else pays through the nose.
What’s really at stake
Performance-based regulation isn’t just regulatory housekeeping. Done right, it could be the key to breaking Connecticut’s cycle of ever-increasing electric bills. Done wrong, it could lock in the current system where utility shareholders get richer while ratepayers get poorer. The grid will require significant investment in the coming decades, of course, so it is vital that the public’s money be invested as prudently as possible.
Literally, only utilities are happy with increases in electric and gas bills right now. Families are choosing between air conditioning and groceries. Small businesses are closing because they can’t afford to pay their electric bills. So why aren’t we throwing everything we have at fixing this problem?
The framework being developed now will determine whether your utility gets rewarded for efficiency or excess, for innovation or inertia, for serving customers or enriching shareholders. This is the rare regulatory moment where the wonky details will make a big difference to your wallet and your future.
Time to crash the party
The window for action is opening: PURA is expected to issue their proposed final decisions in the PBR proceeding this July. Organizations such as Vote Solar, Acadia Center, and a growing coalition of advocates are fighting for performance standards that matter and translating gate-keeping utility-speak into plain English so you can join the fight.
We’re demanding that any new regulatory framework serves the people paying the bills, not just the companies sending them. We’re fighting for faster power restoration after storms, real progress on clean energy goals, and incentives for utilities to keep your bills affordable for you rather than profitable for them.
But your electric bill depends on someone showing up who represents your interests. The utilities are certainly showing up … and they have teams of lawyers that your money pays for whose job is to protect their interests, not your pocketbook.
Luckily, PURA provides equitable opportunities for advocates and rate-payers to weigh in on these critical decisions. Keep your eyes open for ways to get involved when these decisions drop. Whether that means submitting comments supporting provisions to lower your bills or voicing concerns about proposals designed more for utility shareholders than rate-payers, your input matters. It may seem like it doesn’t, but we promise: it actually does.
Younger generations will be the ones living with the consequences of today’s energy decisions. Climate change isn’t a distant threat for us — it’s the backdrop of our entire adult lives. Energy affordability isn’t an abstract policy debate either — it can be the difference between saving for a house or paying rent forever.
Connecticut rate-payers deserve a voice in how their utilities get regulated and compensated. Don’t let the utilities’ strategy of “boredom-by-design” win by default, especially when PURA is actively creating space for you to be heard.
Your future electric bills are counting on it. Because the most expensive conversation is the one you’re not part of.
To read this article from CT Post, click here.
Electricity demand is on the rise in Maine. Should nuclear power be a part of the energy mix?
The remains of the Maine Yankee nuclear plant in Wiscasset are protected by a tall chain link fence topped with razor wire and a checkpoint manned by armed guards.
About a quarter of New England’s electricity comes from nuclear reactors in New Hampshire and Connecticut.
But Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at the Acadia Center, doubts nuclear will make significant inroads in the region.
“Most of the modeling that we have reviewed largely suggests a future where solar, wind and batteries are really dominating the generating resource mix well into the future,” Dickerson said.
Even as New England states see prospects to rapidly build out offshore wind resources in the face of market forces and political obstruction, Dickerson still thinks nuclear will complement, not displace, renewable generation.
To read the full article from Maine Public, click here.
Massachusetts could give heat pump owners a huge discount on electricity
Massachusetts regulators are considering a plan to make heat pumps an obvious financial choice for most residents.
The state Department of Public Utilities is mulling a proposal to heavily discount electricity rates in the winter months for households with heat pumps, a move that could cut energy bills for more than 80% of residents who switch over to the efficient, electric appliance from fossil-fueled or electric resistance heating. For many of those households, the savings would amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars each winter.
Supporters of seasonal heat pump rates stress that the lower prices do not mean that heat pump users are being subsidized by everyone else. In fact, they say, the proposed rate structure is far more fair than the status quo.
“This is not a handout to heat pump owners,” said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation for clean-energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “This is a fundamental issue of fairness.”
Here’s why: The delivery portion of an electricity bill pays for the construction and upkeep of the poles, wires, and other infrastructure needed to get power where it’s going. To determine how much to charge customers — and this is a bit of a simplification — the utility divides the total cost by the number of kilowatt-hours it expects customers to use. That number becomes the delivery rate.
To read the article from Canary Media, click here.
Report: Adopting heat pumps in Mass. is an issue of fairness
SPRINGFIELD — There’s a way for Massachusetts residents to reduce the costs of electricity while the state works to achieve its climate goals: widespread adoption of air-source heat pumps.
That’s according to a new report from Switchbox, a New York climate policy think tank.
The fund was one of a few organizations that commissioned Switchbox’s report. The others include Green Energy Consumers Alliance in Boston; Acadia Center in Hartford, Connecticut; ZeroCarbonMA, a statewide coalition; and Rewiring America, a national group.
“They actually aren’t incurring any more stress upon the grid or the system than than their non-heat pump counterparts,” said Kyle Murray, state program implementation director at Acadia Center in Connecticut. Despite this, heat pump customers are charged more than double for the delivery of electricity, the report said.
Murray, of Acadia Center, said ratepayers should only be charged for the amount of energy they incur.
“This is a fundamental issue of fairness at the end of the day,” he said.
To read the full article from Mass Live, click here.
New Report: Massachusetts households poised for more than $600 in median savings with heat pump upgrades under proposed rates
BOSTON – A new report shows that 82% of MA households can save an average of $687 each winter by upgrading to high-efficiency heat pumps if the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) adopts proposed rate changes from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER). The findings show that the proposed rates would help correct an existing imbalance in which current heat pump users are unfairly subsidizing other electric ratepayers.
The report, Heat Pump Rates in Massachusetts, was developed by Switchbox and sponsored by Environmental Defense Fund, Acadia Center, Rewiring America, Green Energy Consumers Alliance, and ZeroCarbonMA. The analysis highlights how Under DOER’s proposed rates, most electric customers of National Grid, Eversource, and Unitil would save money by switching to heat pumps, including single-family homeowners and customers who heat with methane gas.
“This report makes clear that fairer electric rates are key to unlocking the full potential of clean heating,” said Kyle Murray, Director, State Program Implementation and Massachusetts Program Director for Acadia Center. “The proposed heat pump rates level the playing field, correcting outdated price structures and delivering real savings for households. This isn’t just about savings for individual households, smarter rates strengthen the grid, support a cleaner economy and move us closer to our climate goals.”
To read the full press release from Environmental Defense Fund, click here.