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It’s become a biannual tradition.
Since 2021, when North Carolina adopted a law requiring Duke Energy to zero out its carbon pollution, advocates have spent every other year poring over the company’s plans for supplying this state of 11 million with clean electricity.
As of late last month, the first phase of the new ritual is now complete: citizens turned out by the hundreds to public hearings around the state and submitted written comments; and dozens of organizations, businesses, and large customers filed testimony to the state’s Utilities Commission, charged with approving or amending Duke’s plan by year’s end.
A review of these comments shows clear dissatisfaction with Duke’s plan, which critics say is too reliant on gas and unproven technologies and too dismissive of resources like solar and battery storage.
But there are also a few powerful institutions pulling in the opposite direction. And their voices could grow louder in the coming months, as the state enters the next phase of in-person, expert witness hearings.
The law requires Duke to cut its carbon pollution by 70% by 2030 and at least 95% by midcentury, in line with scientists’ recommendations for avoiding catastrophic global warming. The statute directs regulators on the Utilities Commission to develop a plan to make that happen and to update the blueprint every two years.
Even as the popular, bipartisan measure moved through the legislative process, some critics worried it gave too much deference to Duke and did not make clear that regulators — not the utility — would chart the state’s path to a decarbonized electricity sector.
Still, after Duke in 2022 issued its first Carbon Plan proposal — a document covering hundreds of pages and including four different pathways for achieving net zero — a host of outside stakeholders put forward their own plans for the commission to mull, hoping the panel would pick and choose from them or even craft its own blueprint.
But in the end, after months upon months of expert hearings, public input, and thousands of pages of written testimony, the commission adopted Duke’s plan with few edits.
This first Carbon Plan order was largely nonbinding. But after regulators sided with Duke on virtually every major issue — from how much the company should drive energy efficiency to how much solar it can connect annually to the grid — advocates this year are taking a slightly different tack.
Rather than devise their own painstaking models to compete with Duke and its army of lawyers, engineers, and other experts, this time most organizations are starting with the company’s portfolios and critiquing key elements.
As in the lead up to the first Carbon Plan, this year Duke has proposed multiple routes to zero carbon by midcentury, with one clear preference. Offered in January after predicting a steep rise in electricity demand, that pathway is to add over 22 gigawatts of renewable energy and battery storage in the next decade, including from ocean-based wind turbines.
In the same time frame, the company wants to shutter most of its coal plants and add nearly 9 gigawatts of new gas plants, nearly three times the immediate build-out it proffered two years ago and one of the largest such proposals in the country. It also envisions two small nuclear plants of 300 megawatts each, about a seventh the size of the state’s largest nuclear plant outside Charlotte.
The company seeks to exploit exceptions in the state’s law to achieve a 70% cut in carbon emissions by 2035 instead of 2030. And while its plans to zero out its pollution are vague, they rest partially on building more nuclear reactors by 2050 and fueling any remaining gas plants with hydrogen – a technology still under development.
Still, Duke’s focus is on the immediate term. In its January filing, it sought support for “pursuing near-term actions that align with [its preferred pathway] as the most reasonable, least cost, least risk plan to reliably transition the system and prudently plan for the needs of…customers at this time.”
Numerous commenters questioned that assertion, including the company’s premise that ratcheting down emissions more slowly than the law prescribes presents a “lower execution risk.”
Perhaps most notably, the Clean Energy Buyers Association, a group of 400 major corporations from a range of sectors with their own sustainability targets, argued forcefully against delaying the 2030 target.
“The ability of [our] members that are Duke customers to meet their clean energy commitments depends in large part on how clean Duke’s resource mix is,” the association’s Kyle Davis said in written testimony. He went on to say regulators should “only” approve a near-term plan that would allow Duke to cut its pollution 70% by decade’s end.
Similarly, a group of local government Duke customers with climate goals, including major cities Raleigh and Greensboro and small college towns Boone and Davidson, noted that Duke’s energy mix would dictate whether they could meet their aims.
“Due to the urgency of the climate crisis and the implications to the health and well-being of the constituents we serve,” the cities and counties wrote, “it is imperative that the 2030 target be met in the timelines specified in [the law.]”
Testifying for the office of the Attorney General Josh Stein, expert witness Edward Burgess noted that the commission has not yet abandoned the 2030 deadline and that, according to the law, the 70% cut could only slip past 2032 under “very specific conditions” that have not been met.
Regulators haven’t authorized a nuclear or wind project that has been delayed beyond Duke’s control, he asserted, and a delay wasn’t necessary to maintain the “adequacy and reliability of the existing grid.”
Recognizing Duke’s latest increased demand projections, Burgess urged commissioners to “set a clear directive for Duke to achieve the Interim Target by no later than 2032.” Otherwise, said the witness for the attorney general, the public interest would be harmed by the “increase [in] the cumulative tons of CO2 emitted, which would remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years.”
The process by which Duke maps its generation plans over the next decade is complex and time intensive. But it’s aided by a computer modeling program that weighs various factors including costs to produce an optimal generation mix.
This method produces more solar and battery storage each year than Duke thinks is possible or appropriate to connect to the grid, so the company imposes manual limits on the computer program. Critics call that step unnecessary and damaging to the project of curbing carbon emissions in a least-cost manner.
“Solar [photovoltaic] is the cheapest source of carbon-free electrons on the grid now and for the foreseeable future,” testified expert witness John Michael Hagerty on behalf of the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association. “All things being equal, the more generation… that Duke can get from solar PV instead of other resources, the cheaper it will be for Duke to comply with carbon reduction targets.”
Michael Goggin, an expert witness for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association and clean energy groups represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, analyzed other grid operators around the country and estimated that Duke could connect around 4 gigawatts of solar and storage annually, compared to the upper limit of 2.8 gigawatts suggested by the utility.
“Duke’s arbitrary limits on solar and battery interconnection should be greatly increased if not eliminated,” Goggin wrote. “These limits do not reflect reality, and there are many potential solutions to the interconnection challenges Duke claims in its attempt to justify these limits.”
While numerous commenters were happy to see Duke move much more ambitiously toward offshore wind than it did two years ago, they noted the utility’s projected 2.4 gigawatts — enough to power about a million homes — fell significantly short of the near-term potential in ocean wind areas off the state’s coast.
“The Carolina Long Bay projects have the potential to reach more than 2 gigawatts, and the Kitty Hawk Projects have the potential to reach nearly 3.5 gigawatts,” two employees of wind company Avangrid testified. “Therefore, there is additional offshore wind resource beyond the Preferred Portfolio request available to North Carolina.”
The state’s Department of Commerce has taken a keen interest in offshore wind because of its vast potential for economic development. Jennifer Mundt, an assistant secretary at the Department, implored regulators and Duke to “set a path forward… that directs the deployment of at least 6.0 gigawatts of offshore wind by the mid-2030s.”
Such development is achievable with the Carolina Long Bay and Kitty Hawk areas, she said, and “will unlock billions in capital expenditures and tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for North Carolinians, and boost Duke towards its mandate to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century – a true win-win-win scenario.”
A pair of experts testifying for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association noted that Duke would benefit from being a “second mover” on offshore wind in the United States: it could learn from the many other projects underway on the Eastern seaboard without putting ratepayers at risk.
In contrast, John O’Brien and Philip Moor warned that for small modular nuclear reactors, “it is unclear when the Companies will be a second mover… the only approved project design…has been cancelled, and the closest designs… are under development by TerraPower and the Tennessee Valley Authority.”
Indeed, while most clean energy advocates believe large, existing, emissions-free nuclear power plants can play a vital role in curbing carbon pollution, several say Duke’s near-term pursuit of as-yet unproven small modular reactors over more readily available alternatives is a mistake.
“Given the long lead-times, nuclear experts have found that [small modular reactors] will do nothing to address climate change, as the technology is too little, too late,” Grant Smith, senior energy policy advisor with Environmental Working Group, testified on behalf of his group, Durham nonprofit NC WARN, and others.
Numerous stakeholders criticized Duke’s plan to build 10 new gas plants in the next decade, half of which would be large baseload plants forced by new federal rules to run 40% of the time or less. Not only would Duke customers be on the hook for these underutilized plants, critics argued, they’d also be subject to erratic fuel prices.
“In North Carolina, this volatility was at the heart of hundreds of millions of dollars of recent fuel cost increases approved by the commission,” expert witness Evan Hansen testified on behalf of Appalachian Voices. “The Companies’ proposed aggressive build-out of natural gas-fired power plants will only increase their exposure, and their ratepayers’ exposure, to the future volatility of natural gas prices.”
The company’s strategy of converting gas plants to run on hydrogen molecules separated from other compounds as late as 2049 also strains credulity for some.
“Duke’s general plan to build new natural gas-firing facilities and then transition those facilities to 100% hydrogen-firing faces significant technical uncertainty, infrastructure hurdles and costs,” testified William McAleb for the Environmental Defense Fund. The plants, he said, “are not necessary to maintain grid reliability, may never be co-fired with hydrogen, and will likely raise rates.”
The Clean Energy Buyers Association also suggested that Duke’s plan to supply its members with gas-fired electricity could backfire, causing the state to lose economic development projects and the utility to lose new customers.
“Some of the new load that Duke is forecasting may not materialize if Duke increases the carbon intensity of its resource mix as it has proposed to do in this docket, since some of the customers bringing new load… have clean energy targets,” the association’s Davis wrote.
If that happens, he said, “and Duke overbuilds with fossil fuel capacity, it would result in higher costs for existing customers and make it more difficult for existing customers to meet their sustainability targets.”
Amid all this criticism, support for Duke’s approach stood out, especially where the timeline is concerned.
Testifying for the Carolina Industrial Group for Fair Industrial Rates, a powerful consortium of manufacturers and other large Duke customers, Brian Collins asserted, “there is increased cost and risk in reliably meeting the interim 70% target by 2030. As a result, I recommend that the Commission not require Duke to meet the 70% emission reductions target by 2030.”
Public Staff, the state-sanctioned ratepayer advocate, believes that compliance with the interim pollution cut is possible by 2034 but not before. And the state’s 26 electric cooperatives, which buy electricity wholesale from Duke, expressed some concern about the speed of transmission upgrades necessary to add renewable energy to the grid fast enough.
A technical conference is scheduled for next week in Raleigh, and what is likely to be weeks of expert-witness hearings begin July 22.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: U.S. electric vehicle buyers have received more than $1 billion in point-of-sale rebates since the Treasury Department launched the instant incentives in January, discounting an estimated quarter of the 600,000 EVs sold so far this year. (E&E News)
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CLIMATE: Researchers expect average U.S. electric bills to be 8% higher this year than last due in part to warming temperatures, and urge governments to bar electricity shutoffs during extreme heat. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIFICATION: California lawmakers introduce legislation that would allow utilities to voluntarily pay to electrify entire neighborhoods one by one instead of maintaining and replacing aging natural gas distribution networks. (Canary Media)
EMISSIONS: North Carolina regulators receive hundreds of comments complaining Duke Energy’s plan to meet state emission goals arbitrarily limits solar and battery storage and relies on unproven hydrogen technology to justify building new gas plants. (Energy News Network)
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GRID: An organization pushing to build transmission lines along highways recently scored a legislative win in Minnesota, and now looks to expand the policy to other states. (Canary Media)
ALSO: Consumers Energy is burying 2 miles of overhead power lines in eastern Michigan to improve grid reliability in an area prone to outages. (WJRT)
OVERSIGHT: An Ohio bill that surfaced after the HB 6 scandal and would require consumer representation on the state’s Public Utilities Commission is up for a first hearing today. (WOSU)
CLIMATE: Climate change-related severe storms have caused losses for insurers in Minnesota for six of the last seven years, likely driving higher insurance premiums and home prices for buyers. (MPR News)
UTILITIES: Indiana consumer and environmental advocates oppose a proposed Duke Energy rate increase that they contend would further the utility’s reliance on coal and volatile fuel costs. (Herald-Times)
OIL & GAS: Residents are ordered to evacuate a 16-story Youngstown, Ohio apartment building that neighbors a building that was structurally damaged from a natural gas explosion and is at risk of collapsing. (Associated Press)
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TRANSPORTATION: The city of Detroit is piloting a public transportation program that will use on-demand, self-driving shuttles in portions of the city to benefit older or disabled residents. (Model D)
EFFICIENCY: Ohio awards $5.6 million in energy efficiency grants for six projects across the state that aim to cut buildings’ energy use. (Cleveland.com)
POWER PLANTS: Ameren Missouri seeks permission to build a $900 million, 800 MW natural gas-fired peaking plant that would run during periods of high demand. (Daily Energy Insider)
COMMENTARY: A GOP state representative from Michigan says new federal tailpipe emissions regulations that accommodate an influx of electric vehicles would disrupt the state’s primary industry. (Bridge)
EMISSIONS: North Carolina regulators receive hundreds of comments complaining Duke Energy’s plan to meet state emission goals arbitrarily limits solar and battery storage and relies too much on unproven hydrogen technology to justify building nearly 9 GW of new gas plants. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: Researchers measure levels of carcinogenic ethylene oxide up to 20 times higher than previously estimated in Louisiana’s industrialized “Cancer Alley.” (Associated Press)
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GRID: Duke Energy power equipment in North Carolina is struck by gunfire, causing an oil leak, sparking a fire and prompting an FBI investigation a year and a half after a shooting attack on substations elsewhere in the state. (WRAL)
COAL ASH: The U.S. EPA’s recent update to its coal ash rules still relies on companies to self-report and propose fixes for ash storage sites, which could lead to inconsistent enforcement. (E&E News)
STORAGE: A Texas startup looks to sell distributed battery storage systems to customers with the intention of boosting the grid while providing customers a source of backup power. (San Antonio Express-News)
UTILITIES: A Florida municipal utility board votes down a motion to fire its general manager after a debate over reducing its capital and operating expenses. (Alachua Chronicle)
CLIMATE: A North Carolina researchers links intense heat and drought with a spike in emergency room visits by young people reporting mood disorders and suicide risks. (Inside Climate News)
POLITICS: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin questions whether a $21 million solar installation at the Pentagon might incorporate Chinese technology, despite Biden administration assurances the panels adhere to an executive order and “Made in America” laws. (WRIC)
COMMENTARY: Virginia regulators’ consideration of mitigation rules for certain solar farms ignores the development of new practices and technology, suggesting an eventual proposal won’t benefit anyone, writes an energy columnist. (Virginia Mercury)
FOSSIL FUELS: Fracking work in the Pittsburgh area is turning local residents’ water from drinkable to nonpotable and laden with chemicals, but a nearby driller is offering to provide water in exchange for signing an agreement with non-disclosure terms. (Public Source)
ALSO: Federal energy regulators authorize operations on the Mountain Valley pipeline, which will carry gas from fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio to points in the mid-Atlantic and further south. (Associated Press)
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POLICY: Maine environmental officials say the state is already 91% of the way to achieving its carbon neutrality by 2045 goal by slashing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sequestration, but many buildings still rely on petroleum. (Portland Press Herald)
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Illinois’s carbon dioxide pipeline and sequestration law passed May 26 is being described as among the nation’s strictest. It is only the second carbon dioxide pipeline moratorium in the U.S., after California, and it creates a significant permitting process once the moratorium is lifted.
But landowners and advocates are still unhappy with several key provisions left out of the law, and said they are exploring options to end the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines and protect landowners from carbon being sequestered in their underground pore space against their will.
“There’s a lot of good in there, but it definitely is a work in progress in terms of guard rails,” said Jennifer Cassel, a senior attorney for Earthjustice who worked with the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition that endorsed the new law after members previously worked with lawmakers on a stronger bill. “The federal uncertainty was part of the push, and there’s so much of a gold rush already happening,” with applications for 22 carbon dioxide injection wells pending in the state, plus various pipeline proposals.
SB 1289, or the SAFE Act, allows a company seeking to sequester carbon to move forward if the owners of 75% of the affected land agree to the plan, which provides them compensation. That means, critics note, that owners of 25% of the land cannot stop a project, even if they are opposed. Owners of small several-acre parcels would have few rights compared to large landowners, noted Pam Richart, co-founder of the Coalition to Stop CO2 Pipelines.
The coalition had worked with lawmakers on a much more stringent bill, which would have limited the use of eminent domain to acquire land for pipelines and sequestration. It would also have banned the injection of carbon dioxide through the Mahomet Aquifer. The Farm Bureau opposed the SAFE Act in part because it didn’t address eminent domain, though the new law includes some protections regarding compensation for land damage.
“Landowners are profoundly disappointed that the act was approved without eminent domain [limits],” Richart said. “The landowner protections weren’t as strong as we hoped.”
The coalition’s preferred bill would not have allowed forced integration of pore space against landowners’ will. Richart said they expected some compromise on that front, but not to the extent enshrined in the SAFE Act.
“That’s not how this is supposed to work,” she said. “If a project is in the public interest, you wouldn’t expect landowners of 25% of the land to hold out.”
The SAFE Act stands for Safety and Aid for the Environment in Carbon Capture and Sequestration. It still awaits signature by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has indicated he will sign it, and bills become law after 60 days in Illinois if the governor takes no action.
Richart said advocates don’t plan to “reopen the whole process” around legislation, but hope to work with legislators on a trailer bill that could increase protections for landowners.
“A lot of legislators expressed serious concern about the aquifer, I wouldn’t be surprised if those issues and potentially others come back up in some form,” Cassel said.
The new law places a moratorium on new carbon dioxide pipelines for two years or until the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issues regulations for carbon dioxide pipelines, which are in the works. The previous bill advocates backed included a moratorium of four years or until the federal regulations are adopted. Cassel said labor unions felt that moratorium was too long.
Richart said the Illinois law is only a “quasi-moratorium” since companies can begin the application process for new pipelines even before the PHMSA regulations come out.
Meanwhile the SAFE Act does not include setbacks from properties for carbon dioxide pipelines. If the PHMSA regulations do not include setbacks, which is likely, Illinois advocates could push for setbacks under the permitting process created by the SAFE Act, since it allows for additional safety measures to be developed provided they are not in conflict with federal regulations.
Advocates say county governments, which have in multiple cases refused to approve sequestration sites connected to pipelines, could work together to push for setback policy.
Advocates are grateful for a robust public engagement process created by the new law.
“Before there was no requirement to notify anybody about a carbon dioxide pipeline except when the Illinois Commerce Commission was ready to begin its application process,” said Richart, citing two recent controversial proposals. “Wolf never notified anybody, One Earth never notified anybody. The commerce commission just said, ‘You better come to this hearing, it might be subject to eminent domain.’”
The Illinois Commerce Commission decides whether a given proposal is in the public interest and able to invoke eminent domain, but previously the commission had no authority over carbon sequestration sites and its consideration of pipelines was largely limited to property values.
The SAFE Act creates a permitting process that requires companies hold two public meetings in each affected county and post materials about the proposal and public comment process. Under the new law, the Illinois Commerce Commission can consider safety and other information in deciding whether to grant eminent domain powers.
Under the new law, companies must also pay into an emergency response fund and create an emergency plan, which entails modeling about possible risks and the expected distribution of carbon dioxide plumes in case of a leak.
“They have to do computational fluid dynamics modeling, and they have to make it public, at a time when there is a definite movement by pipeline developers to make their modeling proprietary, confidential,” said Richart. “So this is huge.”
Companies doing carbon injection and sequestration must also put up money for future environmental mitigation, so future costs don’t fall on the state. The law does not allow self-bonding, a controversial financing mechanism used by coal companies in the past that ultimately forced the state to foot the bill for mine cleanup.
The SAFE Act also enshrines safeguards to make sure that carbon capture and sequestration doesn’t ultimately lead to an increase in air pollution by allowing coal plants to keep operating, and it prohibits the use of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery.
These protections gained approval from environmental justice organizations like the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, a member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition.
The Illinois Corn Growers Association and Illinois Renewable Fuels Association also backed the new law. Their members stand to benefit from the expansion of the ethanol industry, which depends on carbon sequestration to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. While carbon capture and sequestration was launched in Illinois in relation to coal plants, recent pipeline proposals have focused primarily on connecting ethanol plants to sequestration sites.
State Rep. Ann Williams, a sponsor of the law, said in a statement that:
“Illinois is a national leader on climate and energy policy, and SB 1289 ensures that if companies are going to use CCS as a climate mitigation strategy, they will need to meet some of the strongest standards in the nation. The CCS protections bill ensures critical guardrails are in place to protect Illinois taxpayers, landowners and our environment.”
OIL & GAS: A New Mexico court rejects an industry request to toss out an environmentalists’ lawsuit accusing the state of failing to meet its constitutional obligation to protect citizens from oil and gas pollution. (Associated Press)
ALSO: Environmentalists sue to block federal Bureau of Land Management oil and gas drilling permit approvals in and around an eastern Colorado national grassland, saying the agency didn’t adequately consider impacts. (news release)
CLIMATE:
GRID: Amazon scraps a plan to power its eastern Oregon data centers with natural gas-powered fuel cells after advocates protest its reliance on methane. (Oregonian)
NUCLEAR: Bill Gates attends his company’s liquid sodium testing facility groundbreaking ceremony at the site of an advanced nuclear reactor planned for a Wyoming coal community. (WyoFile)
OVERSIGHT: Arizona advocates push back on a company’s bid to exempt its proposed 200 MW natural gas plant expansion from environmental review, saying it would undermine regulators’ oversight. (KJZZ)
UTILITIES: San Diego’s city council votes to reject a bid that would allow voters to decide whether to replace SDG&E with a municipal utility. (KUSI)
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SYNTHETIC FUELS: A Nevada startup working to convert solid landfill waste into synthetic petroleum lays off most of its staff and shutters its Reno facility following permitting and operational setbacks. (Chemical & Engineering News)
HYDROGEN: An Oregon startup says it has successfully produced green hydrogen using power from a wind turbine mounted on a ship. (Power)
COAL: Utah energy experts predict lawmakers’ push to block federal regulations and keep coal plants running may hamper energy innovation and ultimately lead to more expensive, dirtier and less reliable power generation. (Utah News Dispatch)
MINING: Nevada environmental and Indigenous advocates slam the federal Bureau of Land Management’s review of the proposed Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine, saying it imperils endangered species and fails to include a groundwater mitigation plan. (Nevada Current)
METHANE: Washington state implements rules aimed at reducing solid waste landfills’ methane emissions by requiring them to monitor and repair leaks and install equipment to capture the potent greenhouse gas. (Washington State Standard)
COMMENTARY: An Indigenous advocate calls on the federal Bureau of Land Management to avoid perpetuating energy injustice by engaging with tribal nations as it develops its new Western solar plan. (Santa Fe New Mexican)
OIL & GAS: A consumer advocacy group files a lawsuit claiming GE failed to warn consumers about the dangers of its gas stoves, hoping Washington, D.C.’s consumer protection law could make all gas stove manufacturers disclose their products’ indoor air pollution risks. (E&E News)
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EQUITY: A study shows electricity shutoffs disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic families in Minnesota, but advocates lack data to make a similar case nationwide. (Grist)
PIPELINES: A Mountain Valley Pipeline official tells federal regulators that, after six years of delays and cost overruns, the project finally is “mechanically complete” and requests authorization to begin transporting natural gas this week. (Roanoke Times)
GRID: A federal energy regulator says new transmission regulations are modeled off long-term modeling underway by regional grid operator MISO. (Star Tribune)
WIND: New York officials break ground on an $861 million facility on Brooklyn’s waterfront to support construction of the Empire Wind project. (Spectrum News)
SOLAR:
CARBON CAPTURE: Landowners and advocates say Illinois’ new restrictions on carbon capture and storage don’t go far enough and should end the use of eminent domain for pipelines and give more protection to landowners. (Energy News Network)
NUCLEAR:
HYDROGEN: An Oregon startup says it has successfully produced green hydrogen using power from a wind turbine mounted on a ship. (Power)
WIND: New York officials break ground on an $861 million facility on Brooklyn’s waterfront to support construction of the Empire Wind project. (Spectrum News)
ALSO: Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey touts the state’s efforts to help students prepare for careers in the clean energy sector. (MV Times)
GRID: In a report released last week, New York’s grid operator warns of reliability concerns as fossil fuel retirements outpace new clean energy development, and data centers and other energy-intensive projects increase demand. (Reuters)
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CARBON CAPTURE: A Pennsylvania bill would allow development of underground carbon capture with consent of 60% of landowners, which advocates say is “setting the bar very low.” (Capital and Main)
HYDROPOWER: Industries push back on a proposal to remove four dams in Maine, which collectively could support nearly 47 MW of electricity, according to the company that owns them. (Bangor Daily News)
CLIMATE:
COMMENTARY: An editorial praises Maryland’s progress on reducing emissions, but says lawmakers need to do more to ensure the transition is affordable. (Baltimore Sun)
Massachusetts environmental justice advocates say the $5 billion statewide energy efficiency plan that could take effect next year needs to do even more to reach low-income residents, renters, and other populations who have traditionally received fewer benefits.
The plan, which will guide efficiency programming from 2025 through 2027, outlines wide-ranging initiatives that would support weatherization and heat pumps for homes and small businesses, improve the customer experience with more timely rebate processing and increased multilingual support, and expand the energy efficiency workforce. The proposed plan calls out equity as a major priority.
“There have certainly been some changes in this latest draft we’re pleased to see, but there is definitely a lot more that needs to be done, especially in the realms of equity and affordability and justice,” said Priya Gandbhir, senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation. “The good news is we’re still working on this, so there’s some time for improvement.”
Massachusetts has long been considered a leader in energy efficiency, ranking at or near the top of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s annual State Energy Efficiency Scorecard for more than 10 years. The core of the state’s efficiency efforts is Mass Save, a partnership between gas and electric utilities, created in 2008, that provides education, energy audits, rebates on efficient appliances, low and no-cost weatherization services, and financing for efficiency projects.
Mass Save programming is guided by the three-year energy efficiency plans put forth by the major utilities in collaboration with the state Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, and approved by state public utilities regulators. Over the past several years, legislation has required that Mass Save prioritize reducing greenhouse gas emissions, rather than focusing only on using less energy.
“Mass Save needs to be a tool not just for energy efficiency but also for decarbonization,” said Hessann Farooqi, executive director of the Boston Climate Action Network.
In recent years, there has also been an effort to ensure the benefits of Mass Save programs are distributed equitably. A 2020 study by the utilities found that communities with lower incomes, higher proportions of residents of color, and more renters were far less likely to have used Mass Save services.
Following this report, the three-year plan covering 2022 to 2024 included several provisions intended to address these disparities, including a 50% higher budget for income-eligible services, financial incentives for utilities to serve lower-income households, and grants to community organizations that can help connect residents to information about Mass Save benefits.
The plan’s focus on equity was hailed by advocates.
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in production and service and savings because of the increased budget,” said Brian Beote, an Energy Efficiency Advisory Council member and director of energy efficiency operations for housing security nonprofit Action Inc. “We’ve been able to bring on more contractors and serve more households.”
This latest plan continues the focus on equity for underserved populations in several ways. The draft plan increases the budget for services to income-eligible households, defined as those with incomes below 80% of the area median, from roughly $600 million to nearly $1 billion, the highest number ever proposed.
The draft plan also attempts to simplify the process of obtaining benefits for residents in areas that have been marginalized in the past. The plan identifies 21 “equity communities” – municipalities in which more than 35% of residents are renters and more than half of households qualify as low or moderate income. Residents in these communities would be eligible for no-cost weatherization and electrification, often without income verification, and rental properties would be able to receive low-cost weatherization and electrification services.
This approach might mean higher-income customers receive no-cost services they might otherwise have had to pay for, but supporters say the likely benefits outweigh this possibility.
“On balance, we’re going to get more of those low- to moderate-income customers and that is really a key goal,” Farooqi said.
In addition, the proposed plan would expand the Community First Partnership program, which provides funding to nonprofits and municipalities to target outreach and education about Mass Save’s offerings, using their knowledge of their communities and populations.
Still, the plan misses several opportunities to make even greater strides toward equity, advocates said. At the heart of their argument are funding levels: The budget for low- and moderate-income services is about 19% of the total budget, even as nearly half of the state’s households fall into that category.
“We just need to be making sure that we are distributing the benefits of this program proportionally to where people are actually at in the population,” Farooqi said.
The plan’s targets for heat pump installations are another point of contention. The plan calls for installing 115,000 heat pumps during the plan period, with 16,000 of these going to low- and moderate-income households. This target is not nearly high enough, advocates said.
“That’s a major failure,” said Mary Wambui-Ekop, an energy justice activist and co-chair of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee’s equity working group. “They definitely need to increase that target to 30,000, and even that is really low.”
Switching from gas heating to heat pumps at current high electricity rates could increase costs for customers, so it is also important that the push to electrify heating for lower-income residents focus on households currently using higher-emissions, higher-cost fuels like heating oil or propane, Wambui-Ekop said.
In Massachusetts, some 800,000 households use heating oil and propane; more than 151,000 of these households fall within the plan’s designated equity communities.
“If they switch to heat pumps, they will see their energy bills go down, their energy burdens will go down, they will have good indoor air quality, and the commonwealth will benefit because of the greenhouse gas reductions,” Wambui-Ekop said.
Advocates are also waiting to see the details for the plans to expand the Community First Partnership program. At current levels, the funding can pay a part-time energy staffer at a modest rate, which can make it difficult to find and keep qualified employees, said Susan Olshuff, a town liaison with Ener-G-Save, a Community First Partner organization in western Massachusetts. She’s gone through six different staffers since the program began and is anxiously waiting to see the final funding that comes out of the new plan.
“I like to think it will be enough,” she said, “but I am nervous to see what numbers they come down on.”
The final plan will be submitted to the state in October. Public utilities regulators will then be able to approve the plan as a whole, or to suggest modifications. Advocates are hoping to see an even more equitable plan filed and approved.
“The people who can afford to do it will do it on their own,” Gandbhir said. “We need to make sure that people who are renting or who aren’t able to afford the upfront costs are provided with the assistance that’s needed.”
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