Massachusetts shifts gears: New Mass Save plan targets rental units for green upgrades

A few months back, Frank Hays found himself in what he calls a “landlord’s plumbing nightmare.” At both of the rental properties he owns in Worcester, and even at his own home in Framingham, things just kept going wrong. Water heaters? Busted. Heating system? Down. Appliances? Shot.

Kyle Murray, of the Acadia Center, said there are some efforts underway by advocacy groups and the utilities to identify other funding, but that largely, the shortfall isn’t being addressed.

“We’re pushing these programs as far as they can go on current budgets,” he said. “We really need to be finding alternative sources of significant funding for the program that doesn’t put it again on the back of ratepayers.”

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

Clean energy experts warn new Trump tariffs could produce ‘chilling effect’ on green jobs

SOMERSET — The now-defunct Brayton Point power station looks like a relic from another time, a collection of aging industrial warehouses ringed by parking lots with cracked pavement and rusty chain-link fences.

Yet here is where the future of energy in Massachusetts is poised to take its next big step, as SouthCoast Wind’s offshore wind project gears up to make landfall on nearby shores, and the Prysmian manufacturing company prepares to launch a new facility for the undersea power cables that will pipe in electricity from the new wind farm off the state’s southern coast.

But under Trump, the costs of imported equipment could spike, dealing a “fairly significant hit” to the clean energy industry, said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the climate nonprofit Acadia Center — and to the state’s goal of adding 34,000 clean energy jobs to the workforce by 2030.

“If you’re driving up prices … energy would not be spared,” Murray said. “There’s a lot of things the state can do regarding incentives and tax breaks, but we’re gonna have to think creatively and work quickly to try and mitigate any potential harms.”

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

David vs. Goliath: Mass. tries to even the playing field for decisions about energy infrastructure

Decisions about where to locate energy facilities like power plants and substations can have a major impact on a community’s health and well-being. But in Massachusetts, those communities have rarely had a seat at the table.

The problem: It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to hire lawyers and expert witnesses to influence the process, and unlike energy utilities, community groups can’t recoup those funds from ratepayers.

Looking ahead, Kyle Murray of the Acadia Center said the new program is critical for addressing historic hardships for average people and small cities and towns.

“This funding is critical to put these participants on an even playing field and ensure that their voices are heard.”

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

ISO-NE Stakeholders Respond to Potential Long-term Transmission RFP

Regional stakeholders widely support the New England States Committee on Electricity’s (NESCOE’s) proposed procurement of transmission solutions in Maine and New Hampshire but have differing views on the scope and format of the solicitation, according to public comments published Dec. 2

The Acadia Center submitted additional comments advocating for flexibility in potential solutions, a priority for using existing rights of way, and consideration of benefits related to increased interregional transmission capacity and offshore wind compatibility.

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

As climate focus shifts to states, East Coast partnership offers model for multi-state collaboration

A trailblazing regional greenhouse gas partnership on the East Coast is considering possible changes or expansion that would allow it to keep building on its success — and the stakes grew higher last month with the reelection of Donald Trump.

The 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, established in 2005, is the country’s first regional cap-and-invest system for reducing carbon emissions from power generation. Since 2021, administrators have been conducting a program review, analyzing its performance since the last review in 2017 and weighing potential adjustments to make sure it continues to deliver benefits to member states.

“RGGI has not only been an effective climate policy, it’s been an extraordinary example of how states can work together on common goals,” said Daniel Sosland, president of climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “It is a major vehicle for climate policy now in the states, more than it might have seemed before the election.”

The RGGI states are also contemplating a possible change to the compliance schedule that would require power generators to acquire allowances worth 100% of their carbon emissions each year, and certify compliance annually. The current system calls for certification every three years, and only mandates allowances equivalent to half of carbon emissions for the first two years of each period.

The program is looking for ways to appeal to potential new participant states that have less aggressive decarbonization goals than current member states without watering down the program’s overall impact on decarbonization, said Acadia Center policy analyst Paola Tamayo. Acadia suggested possible program mechanisms such as giving proportionately more allowances to states with more stringent emissions targets to incentivize tighter limits.

“At this point it is critical for states to maintain a high level of ambition when it comes to programs like RGGI,” Tamayo said. “There are different mechanisms that they can implement to accommodate other states.”

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

Report: CT spends RGGI funds on renewable energy

A new report showed how states such as Connecticut are allocating Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative funds.

The report from the nonprofit Acadia Center found the 11 states participating in the initiative are using the funds on a variety of initiatives. Connecticut has allocated up to 80% of its funds for clean energy projects. However, some advocates said there are ways the funds can be put to better use.

Paola Moncada Tamayo, policy analyst for the center, said New Jersey serves as a model for other initiative states.

“They have a plan which they publish and that plan goes through a period of public comment,” Tamayo explained. “They go through several iterations of the public comment period. They also publish a dashboard which has all the investments they do.”

The report recommended states such as Connecticut consider increasing funding investments in environmental justice, including requiring at least 40% to 50% of initiative funds be invested in environmental justice and other underserved communities. The Connecticut Environmental Justice Mapping Tool showed the highest concentrations are located around larger urban areas such as New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport and Danbury.

Advocates said the recommendations can better hold states accountable for how their funding is spent. The report found some underreporting occurring, which benefits some states’ narratives of how the money is being spent. Tamayo acknowledged implementing the report’s recommendations could prove challenging.

“I’ll say probably in some states, there has been lack of funding and so they’ve been trying to fill funding holes from it,” Tamayo observed. “Other states might just be that they don’t have the manpower to do the level of reporting that we would want them to do.”

Tamayo hopes the improvements will be implemented so states such as Connecticut can make better use of their initiative funding. While it has not been front and center, she feels it has been an important tool for helping states decarbonize.

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

Report Outlines Scope, Challenges of Clean Energy Siting in New England

A new policy paper from the Acadia Center and the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) emphasizes the importance of community engagement to enabling the wide-scale deployment of clean energy infrastructure over the next two decades. 

“For New England to build out its infrastructure at the speed and scale needed to unlock a local energy transition, it will take buy-in, acceptance and trust from the communities that will host these clean energy resources,” the climate advocacy nonprofit wrote in the report, published Nov. 25. 

The paper includes a quantitative literature review of five recent studies on decarbonization in the region, which, on average, indicate New England’s peak load will grow to 55 GW by 2050, compared with the 2024 peak load of 24,310 MW. This figure is in line with ISO-NE’s projection of a 57-GW winter evening peak in 2050.  

To meet the growing demand, the review found the region will need to add “up to 5 GW of new clean energy capacity per year for the next twenty years,” assuming the region’s existing nuclear plants remain online. The studies estimated on average that 84% of generation in 2050 will come from renewables.  

“The highest order recommendation is that the region must adopt a diverse, clean energy portfolio approach to achieve decarbonization goals while keeping the lights on and heat pumps running,” Acadia said, adding that this portfolio should include a mix of renewables, clean firm generation, interregional transmission, demand flexibility, energy efficiency and storage. 

The organization emphasized how energy efficiency and demand flexibility could help significantly reduce the peak, with the studies estimating that flexibility could reduce the 2050 peak by about 7%. This peak reduction could save the region billions in transmission costs alone; ISO-NE found in its 2050 Transmission Study that a 10% reduction in peak load could reduce the overall transmission buildout cost by about a third.  

Acadia noted that energy efficiency and building retrofits were not modeled in detail in the studies and said more research is needed to quantify the full potential of both efficiency and demand flexibility. 

“Increased modeling focus on the cost-effective potential of building envelope improvements to reduce overall space heating demand could reveal lower levels of generation buildout than currently found by these studies,” the group wrote.  

“Energy efficiency can and should be deployed as a competitive resource, able to be procured and acquired by the MWh or MW just as states and the region currently procure generation resources,” the group added, noting that the prices of efficiency procurements would likely be cost-competitive with solicitations of large-scale renewables.  

Community Buy-in Needed

Efficiency, demand flexibility, advanced transmission technologies, repowering existing renewable sites and strategies like agrivoltaics can help reduce the overall infrastructure footprint, but any decarbonization scenario will still require large amounts of new infrastructure, the report said.  

To enable the construction of this infrastructure, developers must do a better job building community buy-in for their projects, incorporating feedback into project design, and providing tangible local benefits, Acadia wrote.  

The report features case studies of several high-profile projects from recent years, including the canceled Aroostook Renewable Gateway and Twin States Clean Energy Link projects, along with Eversource Energy’s substation in East Boston — which is expected to come in service in 2025, 11 years after it was initially proposed. 

“Levels of community support or opposition are key factors in a project’s success or failure,” Acadia wrote. “High profile project failures and stories of bad actors spread between communities and stoke opposition.” 

The organization added that community benefit agreements alone are not enough to prevent opposition and said “the process of negotiating and implementing community benefits programs is as important as the benefits themselves.” 

“Development of a community benefit should occur through an early, inclusive, community-led process that not only informs the structure of community benefits program, but also incorporates community input into the design of the project itself,” Acadia wrote, adding that benefit plans should include accountability measures to ensure promises are met. 

Community opposition can also be amplified by fossil fuel companies and incumbent power producers, Acadia said, referencing the campaign to stop the New England Clean Energy Connect Pipeline and the challenges to the Vineyard Wind project funded by fossil fuel groups. (See Avangrid Sues NextEra over ‘Scorched-earth Scheme’ to Stop NECEC.) 

“Those who have benefited from the region’s widespread reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure are reluctant to accept, and often in opposition to, shifting the resource mix [toward] clean energy generation,” Acadia wrote. “Incumbent power generators have interfered in infrastructure development in numerous instances, particularly around transmission that would bring new clean energy supply into the market.” 

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

Mass Pike is finally getting more EV chargers — by 2026

Electric vehicle drivers looking for a speedy recharge along the Mass. Turnpike can look forward to some major improvements over the next two years.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is about to award a new 30-year contract for managing 18 state-owned rest stops along the Pike and other highways. The contract requires the manager install new fast chargers at eight of the 11 rest stops on the Pike by the end of 2026, with more expected by the beginning of 2028 around the state at stops on Routes 3, 6, 24, and 128.

The transportation sector accounts for 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts and the state’s climate plan to curb emissions relies on convincing almost one million drivers to switch to EVs by 2030, 10 times the current number of EVs on the road.

Adding better chargers on the turnpike is a “critical piece of electrifying transportation,” according to Kyle Murray, Massachusetts Program Director at the nonprofit Acadia Center.

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

How Trump could stall Massachusetts’ electric vehicle transition

Trump has offered contradictory statements about EVs during the campaign and may not be able to make all of the changes he seeks, experts said.

“Sometimes with the president-elect, there is a gap between rhetoric and action,” said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the Acadia Center in Boston. “It can be difficult to judge what is actually going to occur.”

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

New Report Outlines New England’s Renewable Energy Needs

A new report from the Acadia Center and the Clean Air Task Force examines the critical role that community engagement will play in meeting New England’s 2050 decarbonization goals. The report highlights the opportunity to accelerate the region’s renewable energy progress by addressing local concerns and better equipping communities to meaningfully participate in the siting and approval processes.

The laws and policies of most New England states generally target 80% to 100% greenhouse gas emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2050.

Drawing from prominent case studies from around the region, the report also identifies promising options for developers, communities, and policymakers to improve project planning and engagement, helping reduce the risk of failures, legal challenges, and delays.

Without comprehensive reforms to improve community engagement processes and modernize siting and permitting policies, the region’s renewable energy transition risks significant delays and setbacks, according to report’s authors.

Part 1 of the report examines New England’s renewable energy infrastructure needs. Part 2 examines how to build a supportive community and policy environment for renewable energy development, while considering several case studies in the region.

The two-part report summarizes the findings of a yearlong assessment, offering options and opportunities for both state and local governments, as well as for community stakeholders and project developers.

As New England transitions from fossil fuels to a decarbonized, renewable grid, the success of this transformation will depend on active and meaningful community engagement, according to the authors. Without local buy-in, critical energy projects will continue to face significant headwinds and delays, putting the region’s climate goals at risk, they added.

To read the full article from ecoRI, click here.