Mass., other states near historic agreement to curb transportation emissions

After years of negotiations, Massachusetts and other states on the East Coast are poised to sign a landmark agreement that would constitute one of the nation’s most ambitious efforts to fight climate change.

By the end of the month, a group of 12 states and Washington, D.C., are expected to announce details of the controversial cap-and-invest pact, which would require substantial cuts to transportation emissions, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases.

Called the Transportation Climate Initiative, the accord aims to cap vehicle emissions from Maine to Virginia and require hundreds of fuel distributors in participating states to buy permits for the carbon dioxide they produce. That limit would decline over time, mirroring a similar pact that has reduced power plant emissions in the Northeast, with the goal of reducing tailpipe emissions by as much as 25 percent over the next decade.

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“Every reputable source of analysis . . . shows that the TCI program will deliver net economic benefits, will be a job creator, and will save us billions of dollars in avoided health costs,” said Jordan Stutt, carbon programs director for the Acadia Center, an environmental advocacy group in Boston. “We need TCI and other policies to deliver cleaner air, better transportation options, and leadership on climate change.”

Read the full article in the Boston Globe here

Maine has a plan to fight climate change; now comes the hard part

A state climate council has completed a roadmap for reducing greenhouse gases, but the real challenge will be implementing it, advocates say.

The Maine Climate Council is set to release the final version of a four-year climate plan Tuesday, marking an important step for the state as it tries to meet an ambitious renewable portfolio standard.

Gov. Janet Mills signed the renewable standard into law last year, calling for 80% of the state’s electricity to come from renewable resources by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

Now that the plan is all but finalized, advocates say the hard work begins — particularly figuring out how to pay for the strategies it outlines.

The council approved the plan, which includes more than 50 proposed policies and goals, at a Nov. 12 meeting with stakeholders. Council members wrote it based on recommendations by six working groups that met beginning last year and focused on issues like energy, transportation, building efficiency and natural resources. Now that the body of the plan is set, the council — which includes lawmakers and executive branch members, as well as nonprofit representatives and municipal leaders from across the state — will make minor language changes and package the report.

“The plan itself is set in stone, but really we’re getting to the difficult part now, and that plan is going to have to be implemented,” said Jeff Marks, the Maine director at Acadia Center and a working group member. “In a way, putting together the plan was the easy part,” he said.

Read the full article in Energy News Network here

Maine’s bold climate action plan will require money, commitment

Flooded buildings and eroded beaches. More illness from ticks, mosquitos and high heat. A reduced lobster harvest, with crustaceans moving northward to cooler water. Down East weather that resembles present-day Rhode Island.

Those are some of the ways scientists say Maine will change over the next 30 years unless substantial steps are taken now.

To help slow the change, they say Maine urgently needs to slash greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the myriad impacts of a climate that’s changing so quickly, it poses a cascading threat to the health, prosperity and way of life of every resident and enterprise.

The primary way to do it is to encourage a quick pivot from gasoline and heating oil, Maine’s dominant, longstanding energy options for fueling cars and warming homes. In their place, electricity from renewable generation such as wind and solar, coupled with evolving storage technology, will power electric vehicles and efficient heat pumps.

These areas get special attention because transportation accounts for 54 percent of Maine’s climate-warming emissions, followed by 19 percent for home heating.

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Notably, the plan demurred on endorsing a compact of East Coast states including Maine called the Transportation Climate Initiative. That approach would require fuel distributors to bid into a shrinking limit, or cap, of greenhouse gas emissions. Money raised through the process would go to states to help fund electric vehicles, mass transit and other priorities.

Environmental advocates are for it. Acadia Center, a clean-energy advocacy group with an office in Maine, is pushing for Maine to support what it calls “the only policy proposal that would reduce emissions while providing a stable and sustainable revenue source.”

Read the full article in the Portland Press Herald here

Gas or clean energy? How should Aquidneck Island stay warm?

If anything, the natural gas outage on Aquidneck Island in January 2019 exposed the vulnerabilities of an area that is literally at the end of the pipeline network that sends gas around New England.

The interruption, which left thousands of people without heat on some of the coldest days that winter, was the result of an extraordinary set of circumstances — a malfunctioning valve on a transmission line in Massachusetts, a spike in demand caused by the frigid weather and the failure of a liquefied natural gas plant in Providence to pump much-needed supplies into the system.

National Grid, the only utility that distributes gas in Rhode Island, is looking at ways to shore up the system on the island to try to prevent another outage from occurring.

It may seem a simple matter but many of the options proposed by the company rely on some type of expansion of the gas infrastructure on the island. Environmental advocates, meanwhile, argue that the last thing anyone should be doing in an era of climate change is ramping up use of a fossil fuel that would lead to more greenhouse-gas emissions.

“Every time you light a new fire with a new gas furnace, that’s a fire that’s going to burn for the next 20 or 30 years,” said Hank Webster, Rhode Island director for the Acadia Center, a Boston-based group that specializes in clean-energy issues.

Read the full article from the Providence Journal here

Energy Bill Takes on Storm Response and Grid Reform Challenges

Energy legislation wasn’t on the radar for any special legislative sessions called to deal with critical issues lost to the COVID-cancelled session from this winter. Even the annual July electric rate adjustment –- which this year contained big increases that sparked public outrage — would not have warranted legislation.

That was until Tropical Storm Isaias strafed Connecticut on Aug. 4, leaving close to 1 million customers without power and enduring the slow recovery that followed.

As legislators meet this week, a bill aimed at holding Eversource, especially, and the state’s other electric utility United Illuminating to account for future storm responses  is taking center stage. The legislation also contains provisions touted by Gov. Ned Lamont as: “Establishing a performance-based regulation to hold the state’s electricity, gas, and water companies accountable for the critical services they provide to customers.”

Well, sort of.

What’s in the latest version of the bill is eliciting few objections. It’s what it doesn’t contain that may cause problems.

What didn’t make it into the bill – now down to a mere 20 pages from its 40-page original – is a way to help stabilize the state’s solar industry as COVID continues its economic slash and burn. Also MIA is expansion of a wildly popular program to help municipalities benefit from clean and renewable energy even if they can’t site it in their own town.

Read the full article in the CT Mirror here

Maine Company Looks to Tidal Power as Renewable Energy’s Next Generation

After years of development, tidal and river energy supporters say the technology is on the cusp of wider commercial deployment, especially if it can win federal support.

With much of New England’s attention on offshore wind, a Maine company hopes to put itself on the map with tidal energy.

Portland, Maine-based Ocean Renewable Power Company recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the city of Eastport on a five-year plan to develop a $10 million microgrid primarily powered by tidal generation.

The project will be an opportunity for the small port city to expand its workforce and build its appeal for younger residents. It’s also an opportunity for ORPC to expand its reach as the company’s leaders try to find a viable market for ocean- and river-based generation in an industry largely dominated by solar and wind.

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“Tidal energy generally has been a bit of a background player in Maine’s energy world,” said Jeff Marks, Acadia Center’s senior policy advocate and Maine director. “But as far as Maine’s entrepreneurial energy world, it’s been pretty prominent over the last decade, and ORPC has been leading that.”

“Solar and wind are getting the attention now because they’re commercially viable and available today,” Marks said, but those resources spent a long time in development. “This is kind of how decarbonization and clean energy progress works in New England and throughout the country and throughout the world.”

Read the full article from Energy News here

Commentary: Maine’s renewable-energy industry gets a double shot in the arm

Opinion

Major new solar and offshore wind projects help position us as a hub to start, grow and maintain energy businesses.

Maine has incredible natural energy resources that can and should be an engine of its economy. New solar and offshore wind projects help position Maine as a hub to start, grow and maintain energy businesses in a global market. This week, Maine put out the welcome mat and opened the door to being a leader in clean energy.

First, two solar development companies on both sides of the Atlantic joined forces to advance projects to generate 350 megawatts of renewable energy capacity across eight Maine communities. The international partnership between European Union-based BNRG Renewables and Portland’s Dirigo Solar LLC is moving forward with large-scale solar projects to produce enough electricity to power 78,000 homes.

The next day, a $100 million joint venture publicly emerged to develop floating offshore wind technology off the coast of Maine, potentially bringing tremendous economic, energy and environmental benefits to Maine’s coastal regions and the state. The public-private partnership includes Maine’s flagship educational institution, the University of Maine, and New England Aqua Ventus LLC, a collaboration between technology giant Mitsubishi Corp. and the second largest offshore wind company in the world, RWE Renewables. According to a joint statement by Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden: “Maine’s offshore wind resource potential is 36 times greater than the state’s electricity demand, making this project so significant for Maine’s clean energy future.”

Read the full Op-Ed in the Portland Press Herald here.

Stop investing in natural gas. Invest more in renewable energy.

Massachusetts expands electric vehicle rebates to nonprofit, business fleets

Massachusetts has expanded its electric vehicle incentives to include nonprofit and business fleet vehicles, a move intended to maximize the environmental impact of the program at a time when a slumping economy has slowed vehicle sales across the state — and progress toward the state’s carbon emissions goals.

“It’s a big step forward,” said Jordan Stutt, carbon programs director at the Acadia Center, a nonprofit focused on the clean energy economy. “There’s no pathway in which we hit our climate targets without rapid electrification of vehicle fleets.”

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“We really need to be working to address equity directly in every facet of our clean transportation plan,” Stutt said.

Read the full article from Energy News Network here.

Critics say Rhode Island report overlooks potential of heat pumps

That go-slow recommendation comes as some environmental groups are advocating for widespread heat pump adoption in the Northeast to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Acadia Center, for example, recently put out an overview of specific policy measures that states can put in place to develop the market for and accelerate the transition to heat pumps.

Such programs are growing rapidly in the U.S., with current year budgets of nearly $110 million, a 70% increase over the prior year, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

“We know that heat pumps are the most straightforwardly carbon-free way to heat and cool a house, and there are also a number of health benefits associated with them,” said Matt Rusteika, a senior policy analyst in Acadia’s Boston office. “We’re focused on building up the policy interventions that are going to bring down the cost of heat pumps, which are still a pretty new technology.”

Rusteika co-wrote a commentary on the Natural Resources Defense Council blog criticizing the Rhode Island report for not recommending firm targets for heat pump acceleration. He and co-author Alejandra Mejia, a building decarbonization advocate for NRDC, argued that the report overstated the technology’s drawbacks using two “incorrect assumptions.”

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The other is the report’s prediction that the high upfront cost of the technology, including installation, will only drop by about 2% per year. Mejia and Rusteika called that estimate too conservative, and said that state incentive programs and other market development activities would drive down the cost more quickly.

“We’ve seen it with solar,” Rusteika said. “A number of overlapping policies have created a favorable atmosphere, with net metering being a big one, as well as renewable portfolio standards. That’s how you get the ball rolling.”

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Rusteika expressed hope that the state still might set specific targets for heat pump adoption, as Maine has done.

“We’ve been really impressed with the Raimondo administration’s willingness to tackle this issue in particular,” he said.

Read the full article from Energy News Network here.