Nevada leads pack in race for federal energy, climate cash

It has been just over two years since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which invests $369 billion of federal cash in energy security and dealing with climate change.

“Given that those transportation sectors are the largest [carbon] emitter in the state, having that is a really, really big push for us,” said Climate, Energy and Justice Policy Associate Jayson Velazquez with the Acadia Center.

Velazquez added that Connecticut is an early leader because the state had several plans ready to go when IRA funding became available. “Having the supplemental capacity of the IRA really just boosted some of those efforts,” he said.

To read the full article from Marketplace, click here.

Massport seeks millions from EPA to cut shipping emissions at its container, cruise terminals

Grappling with health and environmental impacts of increased marine shipping in Boston Harbor, Massport is seeking $280 million in federal grants aimed at reducing emissions and expanding electrification at its container and cruise terminals.

Local environmental advocates say it is time for policymakers in Massachusetts to pay more attention to the shipping industry here.

“These are such high emitters that it’s definitely a mistake to not focus on them now,” said Kyle Murray, who directs state policy at the Acadia Center,an environmental and clean energy advocacy nonprofit based in Boston.

To read the full article from GBH News, click here.

Mass. DPU Approves 1st Round of Utility Grid Modernization Plans

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities has approved grid modernization plans from electric distribution companies that outline longer-term strategies for handling increased electrification and the deployment of distributed resources.

The electric sector modernization plans (ESMPs) include five- and 10-year load forecasts, investments to meet forecasted demand and boost resilience, and cost-benefit analyses for the proposed investments. Overall, the plans predict major new costs for ratepayers. (See Mass. Utilities Submit Grid Modernization Drafts.)

Representatives of climate and environmental justice organizations expressed disappointment that the DPU did not take a broader approach to the ESMP proceeding.

“I wish they had gone further,” Kyle Murray of the Acadia Center told RTO Insider. There were “not a lot of significant changes from what the companies proposed,” and the DPU “didn’t take a lot of suggestions from the intervenors.”

However, Murray said the move toward long-term planning is a step in the right direction, and he applauded the DPU’s decision to lengthen the stakeholder process for the next round of ESMPs.

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

How ‘virtual power plants’ help reduce peak power demand in New England

On the hottest afternoons this summer, when residents across New England cranked their air conditioners, something noteworthy happened. Thousands of internet-connected thermostats, home solar panels and battery systems were called into action to help reduce the strain on the electric grid.

Welcome to the age of “virtual power plants,” or VPPs.

“I’m very excited about virtual power plants,” said Joe LaRusso, who manages the Clean Grid Initiative at the Acadia Center, a non-profit clean energy research and advocacy group. “There’s enormous potential for every house to behave as a grid asset.”

“On days when the grid is stressed, if each of our homes is serving as a grid asset — that is, we are turning stuff off in our homes or discharging batteries — we can, each of us, contribute to shaving the peak,” the Acadia Center’s LaRusso said. “And if the peak can be shaved across the region by thousands of megawatts, then we’re really talking about having a system that is much more nimble, and much more resilient and much more reliable.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

All EV drivers can save money, but Massachusetts drivers save the least

Drivers in all 50 US states could save money by switching from gas-powered cars and trucks to electric vehicles, adding up to almost $1,100 a year for an average consumer, according to a new analysis. But Massachusetts drivers would save the least, due in part to the region’s high electricity rates.

But the picture should improve for Massachusetts EV drivers as the state adds more renewable energy projects and reduces reliance on higher-cost natural gas generation, said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts Program Director at the nonprofit Acadia Center in Boston.

“The state continuing to keep the pedal to the metal … on solar and other low-cost renewables will be incredibly important,” Murray said. And the state is moving towards enacting lower electricity rates at night when the grid has excess capacity, which would reduce the cost of charging EVs at home overnight, he said.

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

Environmental Advocates Urge Update to Regional Cap-and-Invest Compact

PROVIDENCE — Environmental groups are putting pressure on the 10 states, including Rhode Island, to update the regional cap-and-invest compact that charges power plants for every ton of emissions they spew into the atmosphere.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has a set regional budget for CO2 among its member states, which include all of New England, New York, and New Jersey, since 1996. Power plants in participating states pay the program to emit carbon dioxide, money that in turn is divided among the states to use toward green projects.

But advocates say the latest update to the program, its third since it began, is taking far longer than expected. RGGI solicited public feedback virtually last year and was expected to make some kind of determination about its program revisions at the start of this year.

“We haven’t heard anything come out of their program review,” said Paola Tamayo, a policy analyst at the Acadia Center. “We were promised something in January, but it’s been six, seven, eight months now and there’s a lot of uncertainty with what’s happening. There’s a fear that they’re going to come out with a half-baked final product, with no room for input.”

The first program review took around two years, from 2012 to 2014. The second review lasted around a year, from 2016 to 2017. The third and current review process has been ongoing for almost three and a half years, kicking off originally at the beginning of 2021.

The Acadia Center sent letters to each member state asking for a new timeline on the program revisions, and repeating some long-sought-after updates. Advocates are asking the participating RGGI states to adopt a common definition of environmental justice; set a specific percentage of funds from RGGI auction proceeds; increase the availability of air monitoring around power plants close to frontline communities; and tie the programs allowances to the state’s ambitious climate goals, which have already outstripped RGGI’s original design.

To read the full article from ecoRI, click here.

Mass. Legislature Faces Looming Deadline to Pass Permitting Reform

With Massachusetts’ legislative session ending July 31, lawmakers are on the clock to reach an agreement on a major climate bill centered around clean energy permitting and siting reform.

Culminating over a year-and-a-half of work on a wide range of proposed climate legislation, the Senate passed an omnibus bill in late June (S.2838), and the House of Representatives followed with its own legislation on July 17 (H.4884).

The bills contain closely aligned changes to how the state permits clean energy infrastructure but vary significantly beyond the permitting provisions and have elicited mixed responses from clean energy advocates in the state.

“The Senate’s provisions on the gas system are really important,” said Kyle Murray of Acadia Center, adding that they would “give the DPU the tools necessary to pursue an ordered transition off of natural gas.”

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

A new bill in the House aims to ramp up clean energy, but advocates say it falls short

After decades (and decades) of trying to reform the way that energy projects are approved and sited in Massachusetts, legislators are poised to notch a win after a House energy bill passed Wednesday night.

The reforms — which are expected to cut approval times to less than half the current speed — may seem in the weeds, but they are crucial for expeditiously building out all of the substations and transformers needed to support a transition from fossil fuels to electricity.

“We need to get a handle on the orderly decommissioning of the gas system,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the clean energy advocacy group the Acadia Center. “This isn’t saying we’re going to turn it off overnight, because you can’t do that. But we need a plan in place.”

The Senate bill also leans on decommissioning leaky gas pipes when possible, rather than just replacing or repairing them.

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

The Rocky Road to Performance-based Regulation in Connecticut

In the sometimes sleepy world of utility ratemaking, Connecticut is frequently making headlines over public disputes between the state’s utilities and their regulators.

PBR encompasses a wide range of regulatory approaches including financial incentives and penalties, performance metrics and scorecards, multi-year rate plans, and revenue decoupling, all aimed at achieving goals and outcomes not explicitly considered in traditional ratemaking.

“Under cost-of-service regulation, we see a real tension between the kinds of investments that earn utilities an allowed rate of return and those they pass on to customers as operating expenses,” Oliver Tully, director of utility innovation at the Acadia Center, told RTO Insider. “We see a situation where the high capital-cost investments may not be the ones that are actually best for ratepayers and the grid overall.”

Traditional regulation, Tully said, can lead to “a clear misalignment between the incentives that the utilities face when making investment decisions and the policy priorities that the states have, especially around clean energy, equity, greenhouse gas emissions and affordability.”

Some advocates have expressed concern that the pushback to Connecticut’s proceeding could discourage other states from considering the pursuit of comprehensive PBR.

Acadia’s Tully said that, while he views the Connecticut proceeding as “a model for other states to follow,” he has been disappointed by the utilities’ response and is “a little bit fearful of what this could mean for other states.”

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

Green groups push Northeast states to update regional carbon market

A coalition of environmental groups is making the first move to apply organized pressure on 10 Eastern states to set new climate goals for a regional carbon market and provide a status update on a review of the program that is more than 18 months overdue.

Details: The groups will say in new letters, led by Acadia Center and set to be released on Wednesday, that they “have grown increasingly concerned with the lack of communication and engagement” from the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

RGGI members are engaged in their third program review, with the first concluding in 2013 and the second in 2017. They have reduced power sector emissions by 50 percent and generated $7 billion since 2005, according to the program.

The review will weigh comments like a proposal from Acadia Center, an environmental nonprofit, calling for mandated spending on alleviating pollution and air quality monitoring in overburdened communities. The letter also urges states to lower the threshold for electric-generating units and set an emissions cap that lowers to zero by 2040.

What’s next: While there is no updated timeline for the program review, the groups wrote that they hope states will provide clarity “in the days ahead.”

To read the full article from Politico, click here.