Not a moment too soon, the Massachusetts Legislature has enacted important new clean energy legislation that will maintain the state’s momentum in advancing clean renewable energy solutions like wind and solar energy. We breathed a sigh of relief as the final favorable votes were taken on July 31 – the very last day of the Legislature’s formal 2-year session – sending to Governor Patrick’s desk An Act Relative to Competitively Priced Electricity. The legislation includes key provisions that are essential for ensuring Massachusetts reaches its renewable energy targets. And this highly welcome development comes in the nick of time, just as existing programs are hitting their limits.  This means we can avoid a solar slowdown and keep the wind blowing behind the state’s clean energy revolution.

CLF celebrates the new Massachusetts energy bill together with the Green Communities Act Coalition (GCA Coalition) – a diverse coalition of business, labor, environmental, clean energy, low-income and other stakeholders who advocate for strong clean energy policies in Massachusetts. The GCA Coalition, which is co-led by CLF and the New England Clean Energy Council, came together in Fall 2011 in the face of attacks by clean energy skeptics who wrongly suggested that Massachusetts cannot afford clean energy. Since then, the GCA Coalition has worked together to bring forward facts demonstrating that clean energy is one of the most promising areas of economic growth, and that it is delivering considerable economic benefits. (See here for a helpful myth v. fact sheet.)

The new energy legislation, which some have dubbed “Green Communities Act – Part II”, builds on the tremendous success of the 2008 Green Communities Act, which is delivering hundreds of millions of dollars of net economic benefits while dramatically boosting the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy. The new Energy Bill will ensure continued growth of the state’s renewable energy programs with an even greater focus on affordability. This is a win for the environment, public health, jobs and the economy.

So, what exactly will the new Massachusetts Energy Bill do?

Central to the Energy Bill are provisions that will extend two critically important renewable energy programs: long-term renewable energy contracts and “net-metering”:

• The Energy Bill requires electric utilities to work together to sign additional long-term (10-20 year) contracts for the purchase of renewable energy to meet 4% of total customer demand.

 » This is in addition to the long-term renewable energy contracts the utilities already have signed under the existing 2008 Green Communities Act (which established a 3% minimum) — bringing the total amount of renewable energy long-term contracts to at least 7% of the electricity that is consumed in Massachusetts.

» Contrary to some confusing media reports, this requirement does not change the overall amount of new renewable energy that electric utilities must purchase each year (currently at 7% of all electricity consumed, and increasing by 1% per year). Instead, it only increases the extent to which utilities buy that energy using long-term contracts instead of spot-market purchases or alternative compliance payments.

» Long-term contracts are a win for renewable energy projects and customers alike.  Such contracts have become essential for getting new renewable energy projects built because the developers can show lenders that they will be able to re-pay their loans. This translates into lower financing costs, and those savings are passed on to electric customers.

» The Energy Bill generally requires utilities to jointly solicit and enter long-term renewable energy contracts, and competitive bidding will be required. Based on prior experience in Massachusetts, land-based wind energy projects are likely to be particularly successful in securing long-term contracts under the new law. In addition, the mechanism for joint solicitation should provide opportunities for larger projects to compete to sell their power to all Massachusetts customers.

» This expanded renewable energy long-term contracting program is likely to be an important complement to the agreement reached on July 30 by the New England Governors to work together to implement a regional renewable energy purchasing commitment.  Massachusetts already is ahead of the curve and well situated to help lead the region to success!

• The Energy Bill also will significantly expand existing renewable energy “net metering” programs, providing an important boost to smaller scale clean energy projects throughout Massachusetts:

»  “Net-metering” makes small-scale renewable energy installations more affordable by ensuring that homeowners and small businesses will be compensated fairly – at retail rates – for excess power that they deliver into the electric grid.

»  The Energy bill doubles the existing net-metering program limits, up to 6% of total electricity consumed in Massachusetts (3% from publicly owned facilities, 3% from privately owned).

»  The bill also allows anaerobic digestors – projects that convert organic waste to energy – to qualify for the program for the first time, together with small wind and solar projects.

These provisions are hallmarks of a critically important clean energy bill that will maintain clean energy momentum as we enter the summer doldrums.

The Energy Bill also is noteworthy for what it does not include:  e.g., significant clean energy program rollbacks that were championed by skeptics, and provisions that risked locking in new fossil fuel fired generation.  Whew!

So please join us in applauding the Massachusetts Legislature and the Patrick Administration for advancing an important and balanced Energy Bill that will keep clean energy growing!

Environmental issues span the globe. When it comes to nuclear power, global action is needed. That’s why it was a privilege for CLF advocates to meet with a number of environmental lawyers from Japan, many of whom are members of the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation.

The tragedy of Fukushima shows the need for the US to stop giving nuclear power a free pass. Just yesterday another mishap at the accident-prone Vermont Yankee facility resulted in the draining of some of the radioactive cooling water. Enough already.

Our conversation addressed how environmental groups operate. We also touched on some of the litigation tools available to protect our environment from the risks of nuclear power – from problems with the storage of waste, the possibilities of accidents, and the economic problems that nuclear power creates.

Our colleagues in Japan have a far keener sense of how important this work is. As different as our legal systems are, it was interesting to find the similarities as well, including how challenging it is to navigate the interplay of state or local government oversight with federal regulations.

The attorneys shared with CLF MA advocate Jenny Rushlow that most Japanese attorneys interested in practicing environmental law are only able to dedicate a small percentage of their time to environmental cases, as it is difficult to find compensation for that work. As a result, the attorneys we met with mostly take on environmental cases on a volunteer basis. The group reported on a number of high impact cases, including a current lawsuit aimed at classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant, much like the Massachusetts v. EPA case.

Photo credit: Jaypeg @ flickr

Peer-to-peer (“P2P”) car-sharing is gathering some major mainstream steam in New England and the rest of the country. RelayRides, originally founded in Cambridge and now one of the major players in the P2P car-sharing space, has officially begun a partnership with General Motor’s OnStar service that will give millions of vehicle owners the ability to start making money off their vehicle in seconds. The new partnership has the potential to benefit not only the region’s environment, but also its economy and residents – cars owners and not, alike.

For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, P2P car-sharing works by providing a platform, usually a web-based car-sharing service, that connects renters with a short-term need for a vehicle directly to a vehicle owner willing to rent out their personal vehicle for a fee. In areas where it is available, P2P car-sharing provides financial benefits for all parties involved. Renters avoid the high costs of vehicle ownership while still having access to a vehicle for an hourly rate when needed. The car-sharing service collects a percentage of the vehicle owner’s rental revenue and gains access to a fleet of rental vehicles without incurring the huge capital costs involved in running a traditional car rental service. Meanwhile, vehicle owners can defray their own costs of ownership by collecting rental revenue during the time that their vehicle would otherwise sit unused.

In addition to being a potential boon for vehicle owners, the widespread adoption of P2P car-sharing could also have environmental benefits. A recent study by UC-Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center suggests that car-sharing reduces household vehicle ownership by both allowing households that own multiple vehicles to shed one or more and also deterring carless households from ever purchasing a vehicle. Environmental advocates hope that this reduction in household vehicle ownership will reduce the carbon footprint of transportation by resulting in a lower number of total vehicle miles traveled (“VMT”) and a decrease in traffic congestion.

The new RelayRides/OnStar partnership has the potential to take P2P car-sharing beyond the daydreams of ardent environmentalists. Having already invested an undisclosed sum in RelayRides’ early round venture financing, General Motors (“GM”) doubled down on their investment by giving RelayRides members integrated web-access to their network of nearly 6 million GM vehicles with active OnStar subscriptions. OnStar subscribers with an eligible GM vehicle will be able to sign up for RelayRides online through their OnStar account and allow members, with an approved reservation, to instantly unlock their vehicle using either a smartphone app or by replying to a text message.

The new web-access technology streamlines the P2P car-sharing experience, removing the need for renters and vehicle owners to arrange to meet in person and exchange keys. In addition, many OnStar equipped vehicles include theft-prevention technology that can block a vehicle’s ignition or force it to slow to a stop and theft recovery technology that includes pinpoint location through GPS. GM hopes the added security and convenience of the partnership will create an added incentive for subscription to or renewal of their OnStar service while RelayRides hopes the new technology will help differentiate it from competitors and increase membership.

As highlighted by the liability issues surrounding a fatal accident recently covered by the New York Times, there are still kinks to be worked out in the P2P car-sharing model. These include things like clarifying how car-sharing will be treated for insurance liability purposes.  Despite these uncertainties, the partnership between GM and RelayRides could be a major step towards bringing P2P car-sharing closer to mainstream acceptance. Clf is hopeful that support from one of the world’s largest automakers is a good sign both for the burgeoning P2P car-sharing market and the environment as a whole.

The story of renewable energy development in the United States has included many important moments in which the states have provided leadership – most notably through fostering the shaping and building of new markets for renewable energy markets through programs like Renewable Energy Standards (also known “Renewable Portfolio Standards”).  These efforts have been of great value to the states who put them in place and have complemented and reinforced the incentives and programs to build up renewable energy resources like wind and solar by the Federal Government.

We are at a critical moment in the history of renewable energy development.  The collapse of coherent federal renewable energy policy, due to congressional inaction, in the form of failed attempts to put in place a Renewable Energy Standard and renew the Production Tax Credit, has created a greater need for state action – especially when clean renewable energy is an essential puzzle piece in solving the fundamental climate crisis that we face.

An interesting new element in this story is the quest by the New England States, working through a variety of vehicles, to develop a new “regional procurement” strategy that will allow the states to minimize the cost and maximize the benefits of renewable energy development for the region. This idea, also being discussed by leading scholars, could be a way to move forward smart and effective energy and climate policy, producing great value for a very reasonable investment.

This is far from a theoretical question.  Last year, in July 2011, the New England Governors directed their staff and the New England States Committee on Electricity who work with that staff, to continue to develop and build a mechanism for regional procurement. On July 29-30, 2012 the Governors meet again in Burlington Vermont and will hear a report on how that work has gone.  Will they take the critical step of moving beyond study and consideration of this idea and take action?

CLF is pushing the ISO-NE to fully and properly account for all of the valuable energy-efficiency programs that the six New England states are already operating.

Energy efficiency is the cleanest and cheapest way for New England to meet its energy needs. We can save money and create jobs while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. To learn more about what CLF is doing to promote energy efficiency, click here.

“ISO-NE” stands for Independent System Operator-New England; this is the organization of engineers and technical experts that runs New England’s electricity grid. To learn more about CLF’s work with ISO-NE, click here.

Together, the six New England states are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on energy efficiency programs. In 2011, the ISO created an “Energy Efficiency Forecast Working Group” to forecast how much energy efficiency was actually going to get bought for all that money. CLF has been participating in this ISO-NE Working Group since its inception.

The first report of this Working Group, published in April 2012, was very exciting, because it predicted that more than 100% of projected electricity load increases for New England over the next three years could and would be achieved  through energy efficiency, not from new generating plants. This is good news for the environment because it means lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, CLF thought that there were some mistakes in the forecast, mainly from under-counting the energy efficiency expenditures of those states (Massachusetts and Rhode Island) that had made the most enthusiastic commitments to energy efficiency.

On July 11, 2012, CLF sent a letter to the ISO-NE’s Energy Efficiency Forecast Working Group, urging it not to repeat those same under-counting mistakes in its work on the 2013 energy efficiency forecast. You can see the full text of CLF’s letter, here.

Ultimately, energy efficiency is paid for by electricity customers. In order for ratepayers to get all they efficiency they are paying for, the ISO-NE needs to count all the money that is being spent.

If CLF’s recommendations are adopted by the Working Group, it will benefit ratepayers by reducing electricity bills; and it will benefit the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a classic win-win!

photo courtesy of Department of Energy @ flickr.com

In the past 25 years, our lives have become increasingly “plugged in.” We have an ever-increasing number of devices in our lives, our homes, and our offices that use electricity. What is amazing is that with our foresight and work during this same time period, our region now uses energy efficiently more than ever – reducing pollution, saving money, growing jobs, and cutting through partisan politics to succeed.

That’s a regional legacy to be proud of and one highlighted in the recent op-ed co-authored by former CLF President Douglas Foy. 

With the publication of “Power to Spare”  in 1987, CLF and others set forth the effective “out of the box” thinking that allows for reduced energy consumption while increasing economic growth. As the op-ed recounts:

“Our proposition was unique: To shift incentives that encouraged utilities to sell more power, to a new model that would reward them for promoting conservation. By putting efficiency on a level playing field with coal, gas, oil and nuclear, we would be able to lower demand, cut consumption, decrease total use and reduce pollution. We promised to boost the local economy at the same time through the job intensive investments in efficiency and by reaping the economic benefits of lower energy costs.”

And it’s been a success that continues.

Massachusetts passed the “Green Communities Act” and has grown energy efficiency jobs and lowered electric costs, with average rates for residential consumers dropping from the 4^th highest to 11^th highest place.

Rhode Island recently approved an aggressive efficiency budget and is expected to meet more than 100% of its anticipated load growth with energy efficiency, not through additional polluting electricity generation.

In New Hampshire, CLF Ventures recently managed a statewide project helping communities throughout the state identify ways to reduce energy consumption and costs through greater efficiency.

Vermont has its own efficiency utility that works statewide providing one-stop-shopping for businesses and residents to reduce costs and energy use with a budget designed to achieve over 2% annual savings.

Maine now has an independent energy efficiency authority which, in 2011, obtained state-wide energy savings equivalent to the output of a 110MW power plant by obtaining $3 of savings for every $1 invested by the program.

The transformation begun 25 years ago – that we are all a part of – continues. It provides a model for the country, and a model for further action to tackle climate change.

Today marks the launch of the Coal Free Massachusetts Coalition Campaign to Phase Out Coal, Protect Public Health, and Transition to 21st Century Clean Energy. Across the state, in communities where the remaining coal plants operate, local residents and supporters have joined to call for the end of coal. The campaign issued the following statement:

It’s time to end reliance on coal-fired power plants in Massachusetts according to a new state-wide coalition of environmental, public health, faith and community groups, and elected officials. Citizens gathered in coordinated events across the state in Somerset, Holyoke, and Salem to announce a new Massachusetts campaign to protect public health and communities, renew efforts to make the transition to energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources, and revitalize local economies to create more jobs.

Coal Free Massachusetts announced the following platform:

• Phase out all of Massachusetts’ coal-fired power plants by 2020;
• Advance energy efficiency and clean renewable energy like responsibly sited wind and solar to
  support the transition from coal electricity generation in Massachusetts
• Partner with and empower community leadership and vision for clean energy and clean-tech
  development for our host communities, including:
• Robust transition plans focused on the long-term health of the community
• Innovative opportunities for growing the green economy
• Support for workers and municipal revenues

Coal burning is highly polluting and devastating from a public health perspective. The coal burning plants in Massachusetts – Salem Harbor Station, Mount Tom (Holyoke), and Brayton Point Station (Somerset) – are the largest air polluters in the Commonwealth. In 2011, coal only provided 8% of the total energy in New England but still emitted more than 8 million tons of CO2 in Massachusetts alone. One in 10 New Englanders suffer from asthma and MA ranks 20th in mortality linked to coal plants. A 2010 Clean Air Task Force report showed that pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 251 deaths, 211 hospital admissions, and 471 heart attacks in Massachusetts every year. Nationwide more than 112 coal plants have announced retirement under pressure from local communities and efforts to protect public health. MA spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually – $252 million in 2008 alone – importing coal from other states and countries, including some places that are hostile to the US.

CLF has long worked to clean up dirty, polluting power plants, and is proud to be part of this continued effort to move Massachusetts away from reliance on coal and towards clean energy resources such as efficiency, conservation and renewable generation.  Click on the links to find out more about what CLF and the Coal Free Massachusetts coalition are doing and how you can join!

Last week the development of wind energy offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts moved one step closer with the publication of an environmental assessment (EA) by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM) regarding commercial wind lease issuance and site assessment activities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The purpose of the EA is to determine whether or not issuance of leases and approval of site assessment plans within a designated area offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts would lead to reasonably foreseeable and significant impacts on the environment. The EA is available online here.

BOEM will accept public comments on the EA and then will determine whether or not to issue a finding of No Significant Impact or conduct additional analysis under NEPA. The deadline for public comments is August 2.  CLF is reviewing the 379-page EA, with a particular focus on the impact to sensitive marine habitats, fish populations and fishing activities, water quality, and marine mammals – particularly the endangered right whale – and sea turtles. CLF will submit comments. CLF believes that offshore wind deployment is a critical clean energy supply resource which must be deployed expeditiously and in significant quantities, in a manner that protects ocean wildlife and sensitive seafloor habitats.

BOEM is hosting two public information sessions to provide an overview of the EA and the next steps in the leasing process. At these sessions, BOEM will accept comments and address questions, so CLF encourages interested members to attend.

Public Information Sessions:

Monday, July 16, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
University of Rhode Island
Coastal Institute – Hazard’s Room
218 South Ferry Road
Narragansett, Rhode Island 02874

Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Fairfield Inn & Suites
185 MacArthur Drive
New Bedford, Massachusetts 02740

As the nation continues to move beyond coal as a fuel for electricity generation, PSNH continues to cling to its obsolete, uneconomic coal plants that need massive subsidies from ratepayers to operate. Conservation Law Foundation recently filed a brief with the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission that blows the whistle on PSNH’s failure to meet its obligations under New Hampshire law to engage in responsible – or in some cases any — planning regarding the future operation of these plants.

New Hampshire requires that every electric utility file a biannual “least cost integrated resource plan,” which demonstrates that the utility has assessed its supply options and analyzed both the long and short term environmental, economic, and energy impacts it will have on the State. Instead, PSNH has filed a deficient plan that, by its own admission, has “very limited value” for decision-making purposes (Pg 115-116). CLF’s full brief in PDF format can be downloaded here. An excerpt:

PSNH’s business model is broken. PSNH’s energy supply cost structure is rapidly exceeding the ability and means of its ratepayers to pay, in what is now an intractable death spiral as customers migrate to competitive suppliers. The company over-relies on and has over invested in aging and uneconomic generating facilities at the expense of ratepayers and the environment. PSNH energy service customers are paying 40% or more above prevailing retail rates of other New Hampshire utility providers and the discrepancy is growing. The consequence is that hundreds of millions of dollars in above market payments are being extracted from New Hampshire ratepayers, while PSNH and its shareholders continue to benefit as if they are a low cost supplier, which the company clearly is not. The question before the Commission is whether the excessive costs being imposed by PSNH on its ratepayers and New Hampshire reflect, in some measure, the quality of PSNH’s 2010 least cost integrated resource plan (the “Plan”) and thus inform the adequacy of such planning as required by [New Hampshire law]. The Commission must decide whether lapses in PSNH’s planning materially contributed to adverse and avoidable ratepayer outcomes and the unsustainable rate spiral which will apparently require legislatively mandated cost shifting and/or lead to PSNH’s bankruptcy.

The evidence in this proceeding unequivocally demonstrates that PSNH’s planning failed to consider a multitude of material planning elements that are crucial to least cost planning. Without limitation, these include: 1) the Plan’s failure to include or consider forward price curves for natural gas which would dictate projected economic dispatch and margins; 2) the Plan’s failure to forecast customer migration which substantially informs the need for and cost-effectiveness of PSNH’s owned generation and entitlements; 3) the Plan’s failure to address or consider future environmental costs for PSNH’s generation fleet; and 4) the Plan’s failure to project forward energy service rates during the five year planning period. At the core of these planning lapses lies the question of whether and the extent to which it is in the ratepayers’ interests for PSNH to continue to own or operate its aging fossil fuel generation fleet, including the 1950’s vintage, small uneconomic coal units at Schiller Station. PSNH’s planning completely ignored the market trends which, beginning in 2008, reduced the capacity factors of Merrimack and Schiller Station to the point of being coal-fired peakers, notwithstanding the Plan’s assertion that they will remain baseload generators.

PSNH is continuing to ignore market realities, which is reflected by their failure to adequately plan for the future costs of continuing to operate its fleet of antiquated power plants. As we noted earlier this month, PSNH ratepayers are stuck subsidizing these uneconomic and dirty power plants through above-market energy costs.

Schiller Station, in Portsmouth, NH (photo credit: flickr/Jim Richmond)

If you’re looking for the most egregious example of PSNH’s poor planning, look no further than the continued operation of the two coal units at Schiller Station in Portsmouth. These two 1950’s era units operated at a loss of over $40 million between 2009 and 2010. An analysis conducted by the consulting firm Synapse Energy Economics predicted that this grim trend will only continue, and likely worsen, in the foreseeable future. These units are operating less each year, yet the cost to PSNH customers for the limited power they do produce is increasing. The report concluded that the continued operation of these units will result in future net losses and PSNH ratepayers should not be forced to pay for these shortfalls. PSNH needs to engage in a rigorous review of continuing to operate the coal-fired units at Schiller Station, as “given their age, operating costs, low reliability, and high heat rates, there is not likely to be any economic future for these units” (Pg 14).  Similarly, Connecticut’s integrated resource plan has predicted that the Schiller coal units should retire by 2015 for economic reasons (Pg B-21). Furthermore ISO-NE, the regional energy overseer, is also planning for the retirement of antiquated coal power plants, noting that these resources are facing economic challenges (Pg 9-10).

The operation of uneconomic units, coupled with PSNH’s ongoing attempt to recoup the cost of installing a $422 million scrubber at its half-century-old coal-fired Merrimack Station, boils down to increasing the energy rates for PSNH customers – already the highest in New Hampshire. This cost recovery charge, along with charges for above-market supply contracts, has led PSNH to propose a rate structure that will exceed 10 cents per kWh! As other companies enter New Hampshire to provide lower cost alternatives, the migration away from PSNH’s above-market rates has continued, worsening PSNH’s economic “death spiral.”

Why is PSNH acting this way? It’s pretty clear – like other dinosaur fossil fuel companies that have failed to anticipate the contours of a clean energy future, PSNH wants to preserve its subsidies to boost near-term corporate profits, virtually all of which are the above-market costs of PSNH power plants (including the 10% rate of return that New Hampshire guarantees). The New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission is taking note.  On June 27 it ordered PSNH “to undertake a systematic review of operation, materials and capital costs, including personnel costs, associated with the operations of its fossil fuel plants given the low capacity factors of these units.”

CLF is calling for PSNH to conduct a rigorous planning analysis to investigate whether continued operation of its antiquated coal units is in the best interests of New Hampshire. All the evidence suggests that, if credible, any such analysis would show, unequivocally, that it is (long past) time for PSNH to stop asking ratepayers to subsidize uneconomic and dirty coal power.