Report: CT utility company wrongly rejects solar procurement

Connecticut ratepayers could lose out on major savings because of what some affordability advocates call a miscalculation by power provider Eversource.

An Acadia Center report finds the company is abandoning a multi-state, 54-megawatt solar procurement plan, citing high development costs. It also finds those contracts would potentially save ratepayers $80 million over the next 20 years.

Kate McAuliffe, senior policy advocate for Connecticut at the Acadia Center, said Eversource has a double standard for solar projects, but not for its asset condition projects.

“Those can amount to as much as $300 million in spending annually,” she said. “When you compare that to the annual costs of these solar projects, it’s pretty small, and yet we’re not hearing the same level of objections when they look to recover the costs of those asset condition projects.”

Renewable-energy buildouts often face challenges. While the projects come with large up-front costs, the long-term benefits and cost-saving measures pay off in the end. Yet, the Acadia Center report notes renewables are a reliable boogeyman for utility companies regarding affordability.

Noah Berman, senior policy advocate and utility innovation program manager at the Acadia Center, said Eversource scapegoats these developments because it can’t make money on them.

“Those other pieces of the bill frequently are actually saving money for ratepayers,” he said, “because, unfortunately, the way electricity bills work is you see the gross cost, but you don’t see the net benefit on the bill. However, those net benefits still exist.”

To read the full article from the Public News Service, click here.

Why the average Connecticut electric bill could hit $300 this July

The hottest, most humid July in recent memory was in 2013. That year, the average Connecticut household paid about $179 for electricity that month.

This year, if this July rivals 2013 in heat and humidity, that same $179 bill could be almost doubled, $300 or higher, according to a CT Insider data analysis.

On June 24, 2025, as temperatures skyrocketed, ISO New England issued four escalating energy alerts “due to hot, humid weather driving consumer electricity demand to a peak of 26,024 megawatts,” according to a report from the nonprofit Acadia Center. It was the “highest demand that ISO-NE experienced in over a decade.”

But ISO-NE reported that its power plants were serving approximately 24,020 megawatts of demand, meaning behind-the-meter solar power — energy produced locally and fed back into the grid — “shaved approximately 4,400 megawatts of demand from the gross peak,” according to the Acadia Center.

To read the full article from CT Insider, click here.

New England Supply Challenges Put Pressure on Solar to Continue Growth

By nature, distributed solar is less spectacular, high profile and controversial than the offshore wind farms, nuclear reactors and fossil power plants that define the power industry’s popular narratives.

It is also far more ubiquitous, covering the rooftops of apartments, rural hilltops and empty spaces left by highway spaghetti. Over the past 15 years, this lower profile has helped enable the resource’s steady growth into a network, with major effects on the New England region’s power grid.

BTM solar growth also has brought significant reliability benefits, particularly during periods of extreme heat. This dynamic was on display during a capacity scarcity event on June 24, 2025, during which ISO-NE recorded its highest peak load since 2013. (See Behind-the-meter Solar Shines in ISO-NE Capacity Deficiency Event.)

ISO-NE demand and real-time prices on June 24, 2025 | Acadia Center

Without BTM solar, demand would have peaked at about 28,400 MW in the mid-afternoon, instead of about 26,000 around 7 p.m.

Meanwhile, during the June 24, 2025, heat wave, BTM solar suppressed wholesale costs by as much as $19.4 million, according to an Acadia Center analysis.

To read the full article from RTO Insider, click here.

Office of Energy Resources Pulls Bids On Energy Efficiency Programs; Gives Rhode Island Energy the Contract

PROVIDENCE — When the General Assembly approved language that would allow the state to put administration of its energy efficiency programs out to bid, advocates had been hopeful.

By statute, Rhode Island’s designated gas and electric monopoly has administered the state’s suite of energy efficiency programs since their inception; first National Grid, then when Pennsylvania-based PPL Corp. bought the assets, Rhode Island Energy took over.

VEIC’s bid came in about $5 million more than Rhode Island Energy’s, some $130 million to run the program. But VEIC also estimated it would be able to increase the benefits associated with the state’s energy efficiency programs by 32%, getting more mileage out of each dollar spent.

Emily Koo, state director for the Acadia Center, a longtime advocate of energy efficiency programs and an industry stakeholder, said the RFP process by OER was “disappointing.”

“It doesn’t put a great taste in your mouth for the state’s interest in actually pursuing a third-party administrator,” Koo told ecoRI News. “Their assessment was disappointingly status quo.”

Energy efficiency programs are designed to help ratepayers use less energy — the line in the industry is that the cheapest energy is the one that is never used — by weatherizing buildings, purchasing LED lighting, and providing free home energy audits and rebates for bigger appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines. Rhode Island’s programs are collected as charge items on monthly utility bills for gas and electric.

The estimated benefits with each program is how they measure their own efficiency. Benefits come from a wide swath of sources, including reduced energy costs for consumers, reduced strain on the electric grid and its infrastructure, and public health benefits from improved air quality and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. All of which, even if in tiny ways, can slowly decrease energy bills over time.

“It’s the most bang for your buck,” said Koo, explaining energy efficiency benefits. “Reducing your demand, so reducing energy consumption, so there’s actual savings on energy and it’s savings for the entire electric system, particularly because of less peak demand for electricity.”

“I would certainly put more emphasis on benefits per dollar,” Koo said. “The premise of least cost procurement is that you’re investing in energy efficiency that’s going to be less than the cost of supply.”

To read the full article from ecoRI, click here.

Eat the Rich Before They Devour the Planet

It took the world’s richest 1% the first 10 days of 2026 to burn through their share of climate-changing emissions. Not to be outdone, the wealthiest 0.1% needed just three days to exhaust their annual carbon budget.

In late March, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) struck down the return on equity (ROE), or allowed profits, that New England’s electric transmission utilities have been earning on their power line investments. The federal agency found previous rates of return to be “unjust and unreasonable” and required the utilities to refund as much as $1.5 billion in overpayments to New England electricity customers dating back more than a decade.

Despite this spring reduction, the utilities recently proposed to FERC that they should receive an even higher new rate of guaranteed return on equity. Rather than adopting the 9.57% rate that FERC had specified, the utilities proposed a rate of 11.39%.

This proposed ROE, if adopted, would result in billions of dollars in additional charges for New England electricity customers that would significantly increase the cost of electricity across the region, according to the Acadia Center.

To read the full article from ecoRI, click here.

The Dirt on Clean Energy’s Slowdown

A few years ago, the country seemed on the cusp of a major energy transition as Biden-era legislation made massive investments in clean energy and other climate programs.

Today, more than a year into the second Trump administration, many of those policies have been reversed.

New England is projected to need a lot more power in the coming years as home heating systems are electrified and electric vehicles become more widespread. But the recent reversals in federal policy—and continued resistance in Concord to expanding support for renewables—have raised the question of where NH and the rest of the region should look for that extra energy.

Some point to last summer, when solar and batteries helped New England meet peak demand on the hottest days and likely saved customers millions, according to an analysis by the Acadia Center, a nonprofit that advocates for clean energy solutions.

To read the full article from Business NH Magazine, click here.

How We Unlock the Huge Solar Potential in Massachusetts’s Environmental Justice Communities

Massachusetts has tremendous solar potential in environmental justice neighborhoods: enough to power all of the Commonwealth’s nearly three million homes. Activating this resource is key to fulfilling the state’s decarbonization and affordability goals.

In addition, not only do BTM solar and storage adopters save directly on their bills, but these cost saving benefits flow to all ratepayers because these resources help with lowering peak demand. Addressing the peaks minimizes the need for expensive transmission and distribution investments and reduces wholesale electricity prices.In fact, during a 100oF peak event in June 2025, a study from Acadia Center found, BTM solar saved New England consumers at least $8.2 million on one of the most expensive days of the year for the grid. Those savings are particularly impressive considering how small the BTM solar deployment is across Massachusetts, and makes actualizing the full potential even more appealing.

To read the full article from the Union of Concerned Scientists, click here.

Dirty fuel powered Massachusetts electric heat pump surge this winter

NEEDHAM, Mass. — Massachusetts has spent years encouraging homeowners to switch to electric heat, arguing that heat pumps are a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. But during this winter’s prolonged cold snap, the electricity powering many of those systems came increasingly from oil-fired power plants, highlighting the challenges facing New England’s energy transition and the limits of the regional grid.

Clean energy advocates, however, said the system performed as designed.

“It was an example of the system working exactly as it should have,” said Joe LaRusso, senior advocate at the Acadia Center, a nonprofit that promotes cleaner energy across New England.

LaRusso acknowledged that oil remains part of the region’s backup strategy during extreme conditions, but said it should be viewed in a longer-term context.

“We’re in a transitional phase, and we are not going to be able to snap our fingers and make oil go away,” he said. “Last year in 2025, oil generation accounted for 1% of all of the electricity that was generated here in the region.”

LaRusso also argued the grid still has the capacity to absorb more electric heating demand. He noted that New England’s peak winter electricity record was set in 2002 and has not yet been surpassed.

For now, this winter’s cold snap offered a reminder that the region’s shift to cleaner heating is colliding with the limits of its current electric system.

To read the full article from wcvb, click here.

$1.4B saved: Massachusetts locks in cheaper offshore wind power

Massachusetts has activated long-term contracts for Vineyard Wind, the state’s first utility-scale offshore wind project. Officials say the move will stabilize prices for 20 years and cut a projected $1.4 billion from customer electricity bills over that period.

Offshore wind is especially valuable in New England because it tends to produce the most electricity when the grid needs it most – during winter months, when demand spikes and natural gas prices can surge.

That dynamic showed up during a week-long deep freeze earlier this year. According to a report from the Acadia Center, wind generation reached near-record levels during the cold snap, helping ease grid pressure.

The same report estimates offshore wind could have saved New England ratepayers at least $400 million during the winter of 2024–25 by lowering wholesale electricity prices by 11% and reducing reliance on volatile natural gas markets.

To read the full article from Electrek, click here.

Carbon – In focus: RGGI soars to historic highs

Houston, 1 May (Argus) — The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) CO2 allowance trading market catapulted to historic levels in recent days ahead of Virginia’s earlier-than-expected return to the program in July, leaving market participants confounded over the cause behind the record rise in prices.

The northeast US power plant cap-and-trade program has set a series of record highs since 20 April, with prompt-month and December 2026 allowances soaring as much as 44pc week on week to $47/short ton (st) and $47.09/st, respectively, on Thursday.

Virginia’s emissions are on track to reach 7.5mn st for the first quarter of this year, according to preliminary US Environmental Protection Agency data. The state’s adjusted RGGI emissions cap for the latter half of this year is set at just under 11.5mn st.

“Virginia has absolutely been a factor and probably will be dominant in the near term,” said Paola Tamayo, a senior policy and data analyst at the Acadia Center, a non-profit clean energy research group.

Northeast US states have had to balance affordability with their climate goals, which are some of the most stringent in the nation and are increasingly being framed as an obstacle towards lowering costs.

Still, RGGI is a vehicle for member states to raise revenue for clean energy and energy efficiency investments and, more importantly, ratepayer rebates to compensate for rising costs.

“I still think policymakers still view RGGI as a very high value revenue source for those programs in the sense that it’s an efficient way to raise revenue,” said to Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at the Acadia Center.

But Virginia’s summertime return may only be part of the reason behind the dramatic rally.