The DPU decision authorizes National Grid to move to a tiered discount approach by June 2025, replacing the 32 percent flat rate with a five-tier system providing discounts ranging from 32 percent to 71 percent depending on income level.
Electricity
Posted inOpinion
Doctors’ diagnosis on retail electricity misses the mark
The op-ed raises valid concerns about some suppliers’ unethical practices and rightly calls for consumer protection. RESA and its members agree. Where we differ is labeling an entire industry as bad actors. Taking away all licenses, rather than taking away the licenses of the bad actors, is overkill. More importantly, it dismisses the value of a competitive market.
Posted inOpinion
Don’t run my retail electricity company out of business
Massachusetts has a competitive energy market with many private market participants driving the state forward offering programs that compete with the utilities.
Posted inOpinion
Protect our patients, ban retail electricity suppliers
The bottom line is that third-party energy suppliers overprice a basic necessity for the poorest and sickest in our state while sowing confusion and mistrust about our urgent need for a clean, decarbonized economy.
Posted inEnergy
Big electricity shift coming: Are we ready?
Demand for power from the grid is expected to grow by more than 17 percent over the next 10 years, as electrification of vehicles and home heating drives up consumption, more than offsetting growth in energy efficiency and solar installations.
Posted inOpinion
Transmission study reaches some hopeful conclusions
ISO New England’s 2050 Transmission Study, finalized last month, is the first the regional grid operator has undertaken examining the region’s transmission system in detail beyond the traditional 10-year planning horizon.
Posted inEnergy
Magical eclipse created temporary solar power void
Officials at ISO New England estimate roughly 4,000 megawatts of electricity, or about a third of total electricity demand at the time, was being generated by solar just prior to the eclipse.
Posted inEnergy
Campbell takes another swipe at electricity retailers
In the eighth year, running from July 2022 through June 2023, the retailers saved their customers a total of $30.4 million, but Campbell’s report said she expected the savings to be much higher.
Posted inOpinion
Preserve choice, retain competitive electricity suppliers
Despite the persistent claims from some regulators and consumer advocates that consumers are filing an excessive number of complaints against competitive retail suppliers, the data released by these same groups do not add up.
Posted inEnergy
New England’s last coal-fired power plant to close
Granite Shore Power said it reached an agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency to close Merrimack Station in Bow, New Hampshire, as well as Schiller Station in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and transform them into what the company called “renewable energy parks.”
Posted inEnergy
Solar changing the way the power grid works
For decades, demand for power from the grid has grown during the afternoon and early evening and then tapered off overnight as people go to sleep. But increasingly, on more and more days, demand for power from the grid is higher at night than it is during the day.
Posted inOpinion
We propose new tiered discounts on electricity
IT’S AN UNWELCOME FACT that far too many utility customers across Massachusetts struggle to afford their monthly bills. While utilities, including National Grid, offer discounted rates and other assistance programs, […]
Posted inOpinion
Avoid beach landings, connect offshore wind at Canal plant
Standing idle more than 98 percent of the year, Canal’s under-utilized interconnection capacity of approximately 1,200 megawatts sits largely untapped.
Posted inEnergy
Retail electricity suppliers accused of greenwashing
Larry Chretien of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance said many of the companies back up their claims of providing 100 percent clean energy by pointing to renewable energy certificates, or RECs, purchased in places like Texas and Iowa, not Massachusetts.
Posted inEnergy
Boston unveils new electricity supply rates
The city of Boston unveiled new, higher rates on Monday for the electricity being offered through its municipal aggregation plan, but the pricing was still below what most other suppliers are charging.
Posted inEnergy
Hydro-Quebec, a key source of power for Mass., outlines decarbonization plan
Hydro-Quebec, which is expected to be a major supplier of renewable energy to Massachusetts, outlines its 2035 decarbonization plan.
Posted inEnvironment
Quebec-New England transmission line gets Biden backing
THE BIDEN ADMINISTATION on Monday pledged financial support for a two-way transmission line capable of carrying hydroelectricity from Quebec into New England and eventually offshore wind and solar power from […]
Posted inOpinion
Power grid most important piece of climate puzzle
IN FIVE OR SO YEARS, many of you will drive a car that you plug in at night rather than fill at the pump. You’ll keep your homes warm with […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment
Healey announces 3-state offshore wind procurement
NERVOUS ABOUT rising prices for offshore wind power, the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are banding together to solicit larger wind farm projects that hopefully will come with […]
Posted inEnergy
DPU approves termination of SouthCoast wind contract
THE MASSACHUSETTS Department of Public Utilities on Monday gave its blessing to an agreement terminating offshore wind contracts between the state’s three utilities and SouthCoast Wind, even as utilities in […]
Posted inEnergy, Opinion
It makes no sense to eliminate the competitive electricity market
THIS PAST YEAR has not been kind to Massachusetts electric ratepayers—at least some of them. For customers who do not shop and choose their own energy provider, the average residential rate […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment
SouthCoast Wind agrees to pay $60m to terminate power purchase agreements
THE DEVELOPER of SouthCoast Wind on Tuesday agreed to pay more than $60 million to the state’s three leading utilities to terminate power purchase agreements the company negotiated last year […]
Posted inEnergy
DPU approves termination of offshore wind contract
THE MASSACHUSETTS Department of Public Utilities on Wednesday approved without comment the termination of an offshore wind power purchase agreement negotiated between Eversource and Commonwealth Wind and approved by the […]
Posted inOpinion
Three steps for turning the power grid around
THE UTTER DEVASTATION of summer flooding in New England and New York and the Canadian wildfire smoke that shrouded the Northeast in an orange haze in June shouts an inescapable […]