Another year, another decarbonization bill. And more angst about a deadline.

A new report commissioned by the Rhode Island General Assembly offers a laundry list of problems — and up to $1.4 million in annual costs —  preventing the state from collecting energy and emissions information from large privately owned buildings.

Yet the city of Providence has already managed to pull off its own version of a building energy benchmarking program, with one half-time employee and a $28,000 city budget, according to information from Priscilla de la Cruz, city sustainability director.

The OER estimated an initial $600,000 cost to expand an energy benchmarking program beyond state-owned buildings, rising to $1.4 million for technical support to implement performance standards around emissions.

Emily Koo, senior policy director and Rhode Island program director at Acadia Center, was unconvinced the problems were as big, or costly, as the report suggested.

 “Providence has already done the work to stand this kind of program up,” said Koo, who previously worked as the city’s sustainability director. “This is the absolute lowest-hanging fruit.”

To read the full article from the Rhode Island Current, click here.

Mass. orders gas utilities to slash delivery fees for residential customers

Financial relief for natural gas ratepayers in Massachusetts is coming — though the changes won’t take effect until March.

On Thursday, the Department of Public Utilities ordered the six gas utilities in the state to slash delivery fees, by enough to reduce the average customer bill at least 5% over the next two months. The utilities can collect the deferred costs when the weather is warmer and gas bills tend to be much lower, DPU officials said.

Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the nonprofit Acadia Center, said the rate cut could make a meaningful difference for people in Massachusetts.

“I appreciate the Department’s announced steps to lower energy costs for consumers, he wrote in an email. “These measures will begin to provide much-needed relief to households that have been struggling with persistently high heating bills”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

Frustrated by high heating bills? On Facebook, energy customers are venting together

When Elijah DeSousa noticed a spike in his energy bills, he turned to social media to see if others were experiencing the same thing.

“I have thousands of examples of customers who have been really monitoring their usage and their usages have been lower,” said DeSousa, who lives in New Bedford. “The crux of it is the delivery charges, and when you look at the prices, I mean, nobody understands what they’re looking at.”

He created a Facebook group called Citizens Against Eversource, where customers discuss their energy bills.

“The vast majority of the delivery charge is the vast pipeline network that we have,” said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at clean energy research and advocacy organization Acadia Center. “Unfortunately, maintaining this sprawling gas pipeline network that we have is very expensive and unlikely that costs are going to go down in the near future.”

He added that “it’s important that the state do everything in its power to kind of transition off of the gas system as soon as we can for heating.”

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

Mass. DPU Proposes Major Shift in Gas Line Extension Policies

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities has proposed requiring customers who request new gas service to cover the full cost of any needed line extensions, which effectively would end the gas utilities’ practice of spreading these costs across their rate base.

The proposal is the latest step in the department’s docket focused on aligning gas regulations with the state’s statutory decarbonization requirements (DPU 20-80).

Ben Butterworth, of the Acadia Center, called the draft policy “a pretty big deal,” adding that it likely will result in “a significant reduction in terms of the growth of the system.”

“Obviously those three variables are open to interpretation by the commission, but my interpretation is the vast majority of projects would have an extremely hard time meeting those criteria,” Butterworth said.

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

Gas utility cancels networked geothermal pilot in Lowell

National Grid has canceled a major geothermal heating project in Lowell.

The decision is a blow for environmentalists, who hope geothermal networks will help Massachusetts meet its ambitious climate goals quickly and equitably.

Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the nonprofit Acadia Center, said that while it’s “disappointing” that National Grid pulled the plug on the Lowell project, he doesn’t think the whole model of utility-led networked geothermal is doomed.

“Part of the reason the commonwealth is currently pursuing them as pilot projects is exactly so that we can pace progress accordingly and learn lessons,” he said. “Doing new and innovative things is hard and things don’t always go smoothly.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

5 ways tariffs on Canada could affect New England energy prices

Brace yourself. If President Trump’s tariffs on imported goods from Canada take hold next month, experts said the cost of energy and, well, pretty much everything else, would almost certainly go up.

The economic effects would be felt all over the country, but they could be most acute for New England, which relies heavily on Canadian energy exports.

“New England, specifically, will be very, very hard hit by these tariffs,” said Dan Sosland, the president the nonprofit Acadia Center.

Trump has threatened a 10% levy on Canadian energy products and 25% for other goods. According to the New England-Canada Business Council, New England imports about $10.2 billion of heating oil, diesel fuel, natural gas and electricity from Canada annually. Given the region’s dependency on our neighbors to the north, Sosland likened the tariffs to building a big, disruptive wall in the middle of somebody’s house.

“It’s unclear what the purpose of that would be,” he said.

“Once energy prices go up, everything is affected by it,” said Sosland of the Acadia Center. “Egg prices go up, housing prices go up, the cost of programs go up. And that starts to have a trickle [down] effect, reducing employment and productivity.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.

Experts worry about how tariffs would impact Massachusetts residents

President Donald Trump announced plans over the weekend to tax imported goods from Mexico, Canada and China. On Monday night, the administration announced it would delay implementing tariffs on Mexico and Canada , but the taxes would still go into effect on Chinese goods Tuesday. And China responded with its own tariffs on American goods.

Local experts are keeping an eye how these federal trade policies and may affect Massachusetts residents and businesses.

Tariffs could also increase utility costs in Massachusetts. The state gets some of its energy from Canada, and the paused tariffs include a 10% levy on energy imports from the country.

Acadia Center President Dan Sosland said that would have a major impact on gas and electric utility bills, as well as heating oil and gasoline.

“Ninety percent of the jet fuel at Logan Airport comes from Canada. Eighty percent of New England’s gasoline and diesel comes from Canada,” Sosland said. “In addition to electricity across the board in terms of energy burden and inflationary cost around energy, and then that spillover effect into the whole economy really could be quite significant.”

To read the full article from GBH, click here.

Uncertainty Remains Around Energy Tariffs amid Last-minute Deals

As the Trump administration forged last-minute agreements with Canada and Mexico to postpone steep new tariffs, the energy industry fretted about potential fallout for cross-border supply chains and wholesale electricity markets.

Joe LaRusso, manager of the Clean Grid Program at the Acadia Center, a New England-based climate advocacy group, said he does not think tariffs would have a major effect on New England resource mix, but said they would likely lead to an overall increase in electricity prices.

“It’s not good for a region that is already feeling the pinch of a significant energy burden,” LaRusso said, adding that the cost increases would likely be the most pronounced in the winter, when the region relies most heavily on imported electricity. 

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

The Northeast Braces for a Possible Power Shock From Trump’s Tariffs

Donald Trump reemphasized on Thursday that he intends to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico beginning February 1, and while that date is rapidly approaching, the details remain sparse. Although the president has suggested the duties will be sweeping, covering everything from cars to lumber to oil, their impact on one key commodity — electricity — is very much in question.

Whether this would produce a noticeable cost increase for consumers would largely depend on the price of natural gas. In 2023, imports to New York from Quebec dropped precipitously because a drought reduced hydropower capacity, but natural gas prices were also especially low, so electricity prices were not significantly higher.

Low natural gas prices are not guaranteed in the long term, of course.

“Natural gas prices are very market driven, and the more we are reliant on natural gas in the northeast, the more demand you put on that supply, the more those prices are going to go up,” Daniel Sosland, president of the New England-based environmental nonprofit the Acadia Center, told me

And if the tariffs remained in effect in 2026, New Yorkers would be hit much harder. That’s when the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a power line that will deliver 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower into New York City, is expected to be completed. The line will supply some 20% of New York City’s electricity demand.

“I don’t know what the point of all this is,” Sosland told me. Electricity trade between the U.S. and Canada brings mutual benefits, he said. “The idea of tariffs and trying to create a fence along the system is going to be very destructive to customer cost, to clean air, to power reliability, because it’s going to foreclose all these other options that are on the table right now that provide benefits on both sides.”

To read the full article from Heatmap, click here.

Environmental groups launch coalition to pressure Hochul on cap-and-invest

A coalition of nearly two dozen environmental and climate change groups are coming together to put pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul to implement the cap-and-invest program considered necessary for New York to meet its climate goals.

The proposed cap-and-invest program would place a limit on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that major companies could produce in New York. Companies could buy a limited number of allowances to release more emissions, with the money from sales of those allowances going towards resiliency projects. The number of allowances would gradually be reduced over the coming years.

Other groups involved so far include the Association for Energy Affordability, the League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Advocates NY and the Acadia Center.

To read the full article from City & State NY, click here.