‘Natural gas is not in the future’: Could a ban on new gas hookups come to Aquidneck Island?

NEWPORT – When state regulators extended the life of a controversial liquefied natural gas facility in Portsmouth last year, they did so with less than whole-hearted support.

The members of the Energy Facility Siting Board accepted Rhode Island Energy’s argument that the LNG storage and vaporization plant on Old Mill Lane in Portsmouth is necessary, at least for the foreseeable future, to back up Aquidneck Island’s natural gas system, which may be vulnerable to disruptions because it’s located at an endpoint of the region’s network of supply pipelines.

In 2021, the environmental groups Conservation Law Foundation and the Acadia Center argued a ban was justified after passage of the Act on Climate, the state law that requires Rhode Island to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

To read the full article from the Providence Journal, click here.

What to know about Mass.’ new electricity rates for heat pump users

Using an electric heat pump in Massachusetts is about to become more affordable.

Beginning in November, the state’s three big electric utilities — Eversource, National Grid and Unitil — will offer cheaper electric rates during the coldest months of the year for households that use a heat pump.

“Part of the reason it has been difficult to get owners to switch from gas to electric is that the math hasn’t always penciled out in terms of cost savings,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for the Acadia Center, a nonprofit that advocates for clean energy policies. Murray said the new winter rates “will likely make heat pumps significantly more affordable.”

A recent report commissioned by several environmental groups, including the Acadia Center, found that with the new rates, 45% of households would reduce their heating bill by installing a heat pump. The Department of Public Utilities, which ordered the utilities to implement these rates, said the average household with a heat pump should save about $540 this winter.

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

Why a new gas pipeline into New England may (or may not) lower energy bills

New England is at an energy crossroads: Demand for electricity is expected to rise for the first time in nearly 20 years. Offshore wind and other renewables aren’t being built at the speed and price once predicted. And many people still have sticker shock after a winter of exceptionally high utility bills.

On the other side of the debate are those who say a new gas pipeline is simply a bad investment — for energy prices and the planet.

“There really is no economic case for expanded gas pipeline capacity in the region, and that’s because we think consumers are going to be left worse off as a result,” said Jamie Dickerson,  senior director for climate and clean energy programs at the Acadia Center, a Boston-based research and advocacy nonprofit.

While there hasn’t been a new interstate pipeline into New England in a long time, several developers have expanded the diameter of some existing pipes and built new compressor stations to push more gas through. Since 2014, the total capacity on major pipelines into the region has increased 51%, Dickerson said. And during that time frame, the cost of gas has gone up for utility customers.

Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the Acadia Center, had a challenge for anyone supporting new pipeline along economic lines.

“ I would say, ‘Prove your case, show your math,’ ” he said. “Because I don’t think the math bears out.”

If ratepayers in the region are going to pay for energy infrastructure to bolster the supply of electricity in the short-term and help control costs, Dickerson, of the Acadia Center, said they’d be better off funding more electric transmission lines, like a project in Maine slated to come online later this year.

“If there’s a desire to spend a billion dollars on linear infrastructure,” he said, “I think there’s no doubt about it that transmission is going to be a wiser course than a gas pipeline.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

Win-wins are key to securing interregional transmission buy-in: experts

Cost allocation for these projects is “one of the hardest things to agree on, if not the hardest,” said Anya Poplavska, a senior policy advocate at the Acadia Center. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this is a huge limitation and reason that interregional projects just don’t get pursued as much.”

Poplavska noted that there are opportunities for more regional collaboration between the Northeastern states and Canada, thanks not only to geography but also to mutually ambitious carbon-reduction goals. In July, Nova Scotia designated four offshore areas for future offshore wind development, and it’s exploring the idea of exporting some of that power to New England, CBC News reported. The move comes as President Donald Trump is working to limit U.S. offshore wind development.

“Given what’s going on at the federal level with us right now … Obviously, that’s massive,” Poplavska said. “We need to take advantage of the opportunities that we have cross-border in light of domestic limitations.”

To read the full article from Utility Dive, click here.

States’ Interregional Transmission Efforts Examined

The American Council on Renewable Energy hosted “Powering Progress: States Leading on Transmission Collaboration” to examine the outcome of past multistate efforts and the drive for further collaboration. 

ACORE’s Kevin O’Rourke was joined by Silverman, an assistant research scholar with the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University; Anya Poplavska, senior policy advocate at the Acadia Center; and Beth Soholt, executive director of the Clean Grid Alliance.

Poplavska spoke about the Northeast Grid Planning Forum, convened by the Acadia Center and Nergica to lay the groundwork for collaboration to meet what is projected to be a 100% increase in power demand over the next quarter century – and to loop in neighboring parts of Canada, which has a deep and long-standing infrastructure connection with the U.S. Northeast.

There is only piecemeal and fragmented decision-making now, she said. “And [the forum is] really born of the synergies between Canada and the Northeastern states. The whole point of it is to really create a framework across these different regions that facilitates planning, coordination and decision making.”

Poplavska identified three steps in the process: identification of needs; design and selection of projects; and, most difficult of all, allocation of costs.

“How are costs going to be borne across different regions?” she said. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this is a hige limitation and reason that interregional projects just don’t get pursued as much.”

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

Massachusetts Seeks to End Ratepayer-Funded Subsidy for New Natural Gas Connections

A new Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities policy designed to discourage continued growth in the use of natural gas would end existing subsidies for gas utility lines in all newly constructed homes and buildings.

Under the new policy, developers, home builders or home buyers who wanted gas heat would have to pay the full cost of the connection, which is currently around $9,000 per home. Under the state’s existing policy, utilities pass the cost of those gas hook-ups along to their existing customers in small monthly surcharges on their bills.

“At a time when we know we should be actually winding down the gas system, we have continued to expand it, and ratepayers have been the ones who have borne the brunt of that,” Kyle Murray, the state program implementation director at Acadia Center, an environmental organization based in Rockport, Maine, said. “This is just a really great decision for energy affordability and a really great win for climate as well.”

To read the full article from Inside Climate News, click here.

RGGI market rebounds from program review bearishness

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) allowances have mostly recovered since plunging immediately after the member states finished their third program review as summer power demand looms larger in the market.

As a result, various stakeholders view the latest changes to RGGI as a compromise, while those concerns likely contributed to the length of the review process.

“If this is the way to get consensus then I can’t really complain too much,” said Paola Tamayo, a senior policy and data analyst at the Acadia Center, a non-profit clean energy research group.

In addition, member states may have accounted for increased uncertainty with regards to the resource mix for the region, said Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at the Acadia Center, citing, for example, recent roadblocks to offshore wind development.

As a result, the size of the combined CCRs relative to the emissions cap is “partly a reflection of that sort of medium-term uncertainty around what resources will be available” and which resources will be left to buy allowances, Dickerson said.

In addition, interim climate goals — which, for many states, are approaching in 2030 — could be a large driver of conversations. Member states likely will take a fresh look at the “evolution of the power mix, where technology costs are, [and] where the policy landscape” is at the federal level, Dickerson said.

To read the full article from Argus Media, click here.

Mass. DPU Requires Revisions to Gas Line Extension Policies

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities has directed the state’s gas distribution companies to revise their line extension policies and require new customers to cover the cost of new hookups, with limited exceptions.

Issued on Aug. 8, the order is poised to end the longstanding utility practice of charging to the rate base the costs of connecting new gas customers. The practice assumes the new customers will eventually pay back these costs through distribution fees (20-80-E).

“This order is another great step in the right direction toward an orderly transition off of the natural gas system,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the Acadia Center. “It also shows that the natural gas system has traditionally only been able to expand thanks to massive subsidies from existing ratepayers. This order is simply removing that subsidy and requiring natural gas to compete on an even playing field.”

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

New state law could power cryptomining, data centers in New Hampshire

A new state law signed earlier this month by Gov. Kelly Ayotte allows for off-grid energy providers in New Hampshire, part of a larger Republican-backed effort to make the state more attractive to the cryptocurrency industry.

These off-grid providers, which would operate independently from the state’s energy grid, could connect directly to specific buyers while bypassing regulations related to pricing and renewables

Noah Berman, senior policy advocate and utility innovation program manager at the energy think tank Acadia Center, said the law could protect consumers from energy price spikes which usually follow when power-hungry businesses come into town.

“This could potentially reduce demand if facilities choose to go this direction, but I don’t think in the short term there are any realistic residential price impacts,” Berman said.

Other states, including Texas and Ohio, are having to deal with those price spikes retroactively, attempting to come up with ways to reduce the impact of data centers on their grids.

Protection from such spikes would only materialize if this law gets widely used by the industry, which, on the flip-side, could also introduce new challenges, Berman said. He is worried about what New Hampshire’s new law could mean for renewable energy goals, since off-grid providers would not be required to meet state renewable energy standards.

“The environmental impacts would be quite negative if this pathway gets significant uptake in such a way that, for instance, brings many new diesel generators online all around the state,” Berman said.

To read the full article from New Hampshire Public Radio, click here.

Ayotte says she supports a new gas pipeline. What might that mean for prices in NH?

Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced her support this week for a pipeline project that would bring natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York.

During a visit from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Ayotte said she hoped New York leaders would take new interest in the Constitution Pipeline, which was initially approved in 2014 but shuttered in 2020.

Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs with the Acadia Center, which advocates for cutting carbon emissions in the Northeast, said customers may be worse off if a new pipeline were built.

“We see that it’s much more likely that prices would go up rather than go down as a result,” he said.

Domestic gas prices continue to grow more volatile in the global market which means unreliable prices for consumers, he said. He highlighted the spike in gas prices in 2022 as a result of the war in Ukraine as an example of that international context.

Pipelines and natural gas infrastructure are also expensive – both to construct and to maintain — and customers are usually the ones footing those bills, Dickerson said.

“We already have this multi-billion dollar gas network underneath our streets,” he said. “There is really a huge, looming bill that is coming due over the next 10 years that I think the general public is not aware of, and only increases the imperative of basically phasing out our reliance on natural gas and shifting off a natural gas system as quickly as possible.”

Dickerson says there are other energy resources — like offshore wind, solar, batteries, and inter-regional transmission lines — that could help with reliability in the winter, when gas is used for heating and electricity.

“The clean energy alternatives that exist have never been more cost effective and more readily available, both for utilities to invest in, for customers to invest in, for states to invest in,” he said.

To read the full article from New Hampshire Public Radio, click here.