Acadia Center applauds Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island Governors for regional action to reduce tailpipe pollution.

BOSTON — Today, three states and the District of Columbia announced their plan for a regional program to cut tailpipe pollution while delivering much-needed investments in clean, equitable, and modern transportation options. Working together through the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C. will participate in a cap-and-invest program to revitalize their transportation system and rein in pollution from vehicles, which are the country’s largest source of carbon emissions.

“Through their collaboration on TCI, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island will deliver cleaner, fairer and better transportation options for their residents and cleaner air in the most polluted communities, said Daniel Sosland, Acadia Center’s President. “These states are providing the kind of bipartisan leadership on climate change in the region that we all deserve. Acadia Center is committed to advancing a clean energy future that works for everyone, and major improvements in the transportation sector will help achieve this vision.”

The four jurisdictions participating in the program need to achieve significant emission reductions from the transportation sector to meet their ambitious climate targets. Transportation pollution accounts for 46% of the CO₂ emissions across Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., more than double the contribution to climate change from any other sector. By participating in the TCI program, these jurisdictions will be able to invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year in clean transportation projects that create jobs, boost the economy, improve mobility, and slash pollution.

The collaboration between Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C. represents action at a substantial scale. With a combined GDP of $1.09 trillion, the participating jurisdictions would be the world’s 15^th largest economy, similar in output to Mexico. And the scale of this project is likely to grow. In a separate document released today, the four MOU signatories were joined by eight other TCI member states to assert that they are collaborating on the next steps of the cap-and-invest program’s development, suggesting that the program will expand beyond southern New England and D.C. Notably, that list includes a new TCI member, North Carolina, demonstrating the growing appeal of the TCI framework. All together, these jurisdictions would represent the world’s third largest economy.

As for the details, the TCI jurisdictions have incorporated stakeholder feedback to make the program more equitable and ambitious. Important new provisions have been added to last year’s draft MOU to ensure that overburdened and underserved communities receive at least their proportional share of TCI proceeds, that those communities are included in investment decisions and program design, and that air quality monitors will be deployed in the most polluted communities.

“These commitments represent significant progress at the regional level, but states have much more work to do to develop stakeholder processes and policy solutions that meet the needs of their communities,” said Jordan Stutt, Acadia Center’s Carbon Programs Director. “While an equitably-designed TCI program should benefit overburdened and underserved communities, TCI is just one piece of the puzzle: other action will still be necessary to deliver transportation justice.”

The MOU also charts an ambitious emission reduction trajectory. The emissions cap will decline by 30% from 2023 to 2032, consistent with recommendations Acadia Center submitted on behalf of 200 organizations in November. Reducing CO₂ emissions from transportation fuels by 30% will help states achieve their climate targets while delivering critical improvements in air quality. The TCI program and additional transportation policies are key to realizing Acadia Center’s vision for a just and sustainable future.

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 Acadia Center is a regionally-focused, non-profit organization headquartered in Rockport, Maine, working to advance a clean energy future that benefits all.

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Media Contacts

Massachusetts and Regional:
Jordan Stutt, Carbon Programs Director
jstutt@acadiacenter.org, 845-702- 5217

Connecticut:
Amy McLean Salls, Connecticut Director and Senior Policy Advocate
amcleansalls@acadiacenter.org, 860-246-7121 x204

Rhode Island:
Hank Webster, Rhode Island Director and Staff Attorney
hwebster@acadiacenter.org, 401-276-0600 x402

Maine:
Jeff Marks, Maine Director & Senior Policy Advocate
jmarks@acadiacenter.org, 207-236-6470 x304

Massachusetts loses its claim to being the most energy-efficient state

Read the full article in the Boston Globe here.

Northeast States Again Rank High in 2020 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, but Massachusetts’ Fall to Second Place Highlights Need for Continued Improvement

Rockport, ME – Massachusetts has lost its energy efficiency crown to California, after 9 years on top of the national rankings for efficiency, according to rankings released by the nonpartisan American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). As they have for the past decade, Northeast states performed well in the 2020 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, with Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New York filling out the top 5 spots, respectively. Connecticut ranked #7, Maine at #16, and New Hampshire at #18, a slight improvement from the 2019 Scorecard, which ranked New Hampshire at #20.

“Investing in energy efficiency is the best way to reduce the energy burdens faced by consumers in the Northeast,” said Daniel Sosland, Acadia Center’s President. “The region’s continued strong showing in the national rankings is due to the last decade of successful efficiency policies and programs in these states – helping the Northeast lower carbon pollution while providing over $49 billion in economic and public health benefits, region-wide.”

“Massachusetts’ falling to #2 highlights the need to not rest on past success, but instead keep innovating to ensure that the programs are helping to deliver clean, healthy buildings in our poorest neighborhoods, too,” Sosland continued.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on state budgets and policy agendas across the country and has forced hundreds of thousands of people in the clean energy sector out of wo rk, especially energy efficiency contractors. The pandemic has slowed progress on new energy efficiency legislation, and yet, existing efficiency policies and appliance standards continued to help reduce energy use and emissions and save consumers money.

The ACEEE rankings, released annually, are based on scoring in categories including state government initiatives, building efficiency policies, utility and public benefits programs, transportation policies, and appliance standards. The Northeast’s success in the rankings is largely the result of a policy championed by Acadia Center that requires programs to pursue all energy efficiency that is cost-effective, rather than defining a prescribed level of funding, and to involve stakeholders in developing efficiency plans. ACEEE awarded Massachusetts and Rhode Island a near-perfect score in the utility program category, praising the programs for being the largest contributor to state greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. And both Massachusetts and New York have begun to incorporate fuel-neutral savings goals that better align efficiency programs with electrification.

“Over the last ten years, Massachusetts’ strong customer-funded efficiency programs have grown the economy while lowering electric and gas bills and cutting emissions – and they’ll continue to do so.  Massachusetts lost its first-place rank largely because it has not adopted appliance efficiency standards – an area heavily weighted under the scoring rubric,” said Amy Boyd, Director of Policy at Acadia Center and a member of the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Advisory Council. “Massachusetts should adopt appliance standards, but also take this shift in rankings as a wake-up call that even though our utility efficiency programs are among the best in the nation, they’re not perfect. We need to ensure that all communities and customers can access the efficiency programs and include climate as one of the program’s explicit statutory goals.”

The Northeast is a national leader in energy efficiency, but states can and must do more. Acadia Center is working with states in the Northeast to keep energy efficiency funding high, serve low- and moderate-income communities better, and align energy efficiency programs more closely with climate targets.

Most importantly, many households in the Northeast—particularly those living in older buildings in environmental justice communities—suffer from excessive indoor air pollution, unhealthy temperature swings, and other inadequate living conditions. The communities most impacted by this substandard housing disproportionately consist of people of color. These buildings also emit more climate pollutants than better-weatherized housing. Existing efficiency programs must embrace this chance to marry traditional energy savings with crucially important equity and climate goals. Acadia Center is working with a wide range of partner organizations on policy changes that will enable efficiency programs to seize this opportunity.

New Hampshire Must Continue to Push for Energy Efficiency Gains

This holiday season provides a chance for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to deliver the gift that keeps on giving to Granite Staters: a strong energy efficiency program for 2021 and beyond. New Hampshire energy efficiency programs deliver a diverse set of benefits to consumers including lower overall energy system costs, individual cost savings, improved comfort, and lower overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, not to mention supporting almost 12,000 jobs in that state’s efficiency industry.

The PUC is set to vote on whether or not to approve the 2021-2023 Energy Efficiency Plan that implements the state’s Energy Efficiency Resource Standard. The Plan would require the state’s electric and gas utilities to reduce annual electric demand by 4.5% and fossil gas by 2.8% over 2019 sales. While the Acadia Center supported even more ambitious savings targets of 5% for electric utilities and 3% for gas utilities, we believe that the final Plan represents an effective energy efficiency strategy for action over the next three years. Acadia Center supports the continued progress toward acquisition of all cost-effective energy efficiency resources across all fuel types and sectors, helping New Hampshire residents, businesses, institutions, and low-income families meet their energy needs while reducing their cost of energy.

The Granite State lags its New England neighbors in overall energy efficiency policies and progress according to the recently published American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s 2020 national efficiency state scorecard. While Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont are in the top 10 for overall state-wide energy efficiency policies, with these states saving enough electricity in 2019 to power 250,000 homes for a year, New Hampshire remains stalled in the middle of the pack. While the state has seen improvements in recent years, it must do more to become a regional leader on energy efficiency. New Hampshire residents and businesses deserve to reap the full benefits of robust energy efficiency programs, which not only reduce energy use and costs, but improve public health, support economic growth and employment in energy efficiency sectors, and are consumer-friendly. Acadia Center research indicates that every $1 invested in regional energy efficiency investments yields an average of $3.75 in total benefits. Leaving that kind of money on the table doesn’t make sense for New Hampshire consumers who have some of the highest energy bills in the nation.

This has been a difficult year for all, and Acadia Center understands that residential and businesses customers should not be overburdened with increasing costs. However, as result of the 2019 Granite State test, a cost-benefit calculation that ensures that any and all energy efficiency programs provide benefit to all of the state’s energy consumers, the PUC and state lawmakers can be assured that long-term energy efficiency programs are a sound investment in the state’s future. This Plan allows goals, programs, and budgets to be adjusted during the triennium as needed, while recognizing that the cost-effectiveness savings needed to drive energy efficiency improvements ensures that consumers realize the benefits of these programs. And with a vigorous economic recovery expected in 2021 and beyond, it is essential that the state have in place as strong and robust of an energy efficiency program in place as possible.

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

Will FERC’s Latest Order Open the Door for Distributed Resources?

It is time for the U.S. electric grid to start thinking small. The grid of the future will be built around distributed energy resources (DERs) such as rooftop solar, neighborhood battery storage, and advanced energy efficiency and smart appliances, capable of responding to fluctuations in electricity demand to optimize energy use and supply. DERs encompass a wide variety of technologies – they can be small-scale energy generators, smart appliances, renewable and non-renewable generating resources. In aggregation, DERs contribute to a more distributed, decentralized, and responsive grid. They also reduce demand for electricity from fossil fuel plants, avoiding the need for costly grid infrastructure like centralized power plants that spew greenhouse gases and air pollutants into the communities they are sited in. Thankfully, the grid is one step closer to this vision of a clean, distributed future thanks to the recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 2222.

On September 17,  FERC, the federal body that oversees the regulation of the U.S. electric markets, will require regional electric regulatory bodies to come up with market rules to allow DERs to compete and be compensated for services provided in the wholesale electric markets. This will level the playing field for DERs, while providing owners of DERs, such as homeowners, with revenue for services delivered to the grid.

The U.S. grid is often called the most complicated machine in the world. Comprised of large fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants, renewable generators like wind, solar, and hydropower; poles, wires, sensors, and meters; and finally, end-use consumers, such as homes and businesses, the grid must balance supply and demand at every moment. Energy technologies have emerged over the last 20 years that allow consumers to generate, save, store, and use electricity on-site or send back to the grid. DERs , often called behind-the-meter resources, as they are sited behind the utility-issued electric meter at the distribution level[1], like rooftop solar systems, home battery storage, electric vehicles, and active demand response, can either reduce energy use during periods of high demand or sell energy back to the grid if the right price signals and market structures are present.

As the cost of these distributed technologies rapidly declined, consumers adopted DERs to reduce their carbon footprint, save energy and money, and improve reliability during power outages. In fact, the DER market is expected to play a vital role in the decarbonized and distributed grid of the future, with some estimates of as much as 380 gigawatts (GW), or almost one-third of installed U.S. generation capacity, of DERs over the next 5 years, with most of it at the residential level.

In New England, DERs have expanded rapidly and will continue growing. The regional grid operator, ISO-NE, noted that in 2019, DERs provided a full 20% of total system capacity. ISO-NE’s forecast anticipates continued rapid development and adoption of energy efficiency, demand response, rooftop solar, battery storage, and other DERs over the next decade, with an estimated 4,300 megawatts (MW) of additional behind-the-meter solar by 2029 (on top of 3,500 MW installed already), and up to 10% of energy demand met through energy efficiency efforts.

While DERs are an important and growing energy resource they are, on their own, often too small to effectively participate in wholesale markets due to high barriers to entry with specific participation parameters. Although DERs benefit the grid through reduced demand, reduced emissions, cleaner air, and enhanced reliability, they are not properly compensated for those services. Without clear market rules these DERs are unable to participate fully in the regional wholesale markets, meaning that vital revenue streams from the regional markets are not available to small-scale distributed resources. Under new market rules ordered by FERC, potentially millions of rooftop and community solar panels, batteries, energy efficiency investments, electric vehicles, and smart appliances can access revenue streams that previously excluded them.

Ultimately, FERC Order 2222 could be a game-changing piece of regulatory reform that opens the door to a cleaner, more reliable, more distributed and democratized electric grid. This a refreshing and needed piece of regulatory reform from FERC and in notable contrast to a number of recent rulings favoring large incumbent generators like natural gas and that continue to undermine state-level clean energy policy through heavy-handed and burdensome federal intervention into wholesale markets. Ultimately, FERC Order 2222 has the potential to spur new and exciting innovations in the clean energy sector, creating market opportunities for not-yet-invented technologies and solutions.

What does FERC Order 2222 Say and Do?

FERC began addressing market participation for DERs in late 2015. The Commission collected data, held technical conferences, and released a proposed rule in 2016. In a separate but related order, FERC required regional grid operators to develop rules that allow battery storage located at the distribution level to participate in wholesale markets. After several years of legal challenges to FERC’s authority, the storage order was upheld in July 2020, paving the way for this new supplemental order affecting other DERs. Together, these two reforms will open the wholesale markets to battery storage and aggregated DERs, allowing groups of smaller DERs to participate in wholesale markets as if they were a single resource controlled by the aggregator.

FERC Order 2222 provides clarity to regional grid operators as they develop participation rules that remove barriers for DER aggregations in capacity, energy, and ancillary service markets. FERC found that existing market rules are “unjust and unreasonable” barriers to participation of DERs, hindering competition and increasing rates by creating barriers to emerging technologies by unfairly favoring large incumbent generators, such as fossil-fuel plants. FERC notes in its order that by reforming market rules to allow DERs to compete fully in wholesale markets, regional grid operators will be able to “account for the impacts of these resources on installed capacity requirements and day-ahead energy demand, thereby reducing uncertainty in load forecasts and reducing the risk of over procurement of resources and the associated costs.” Specifically, FERC requires that each grid operator develop market rules that address DER aggregation in the following ways:

1. Allow DERs to participate directly in the wholesale markets and establish DER aggregators as a type of market participant;
2. Allow DER aggregation to register under a participation model that accommodates the physical and operational characteristics of the DER aggregation;
3. Establish a minimum size for DER aggregation no larger than 100 kilowatts (kW) (roughly equivalent to 12 home solar systems);
4. Address locational, distributional, information and data, and grid coordination requirements for DER aggregator participation; and,
5. Require market participation rules for DER aggregators located in large utility service territories while allowing smaller utilities (defined as distributing more than 4 million megawatt-hours (MWh) in the previous year, approximately 70% of the U.S. utility market) to opt-in to the DER market rules.

By requiring regional grid operators to develop market rules allowing DERs to participate in wholesale markets, FERC Order 2222 paves the way for increased DERs, and will create markets and new ways to finance distributed energy projects. These market opportunities will make DERs more financially viable, increasing adoption, and result in a stronger, cleaner, and more resilient grid.

Next Steps

FERC Order 2222 goes into effect after publication in the Federal Register. At that point, regional grid operators will have 270 days to submit proposed changes to their market rules to implement the order. However, it will likely take several years before all the rules and processes are in place and full market participation is possible due to the need to develop, design, and implement complex technical and market parameters for participation. Acadia Center holds a membership position in NEPOOL, the region’s stakeholder governance body. Acadia Center will coordinate with state, regional and national stakeholders to ensure the region has fair and transparent market participation rules that support continued development of DERs.

[1] The electric distribution system is typically defined as electric transmission at 69 kilovolts (kV) or less, whereas the transmission system operates at higher voltages and travels further distances.

By Deborah Donovan, Senior Policy Advocate and Massachusetts Director, and Stefan Koester, Policy Analyst

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