“Everything is built out to serve a couple days of peak energy each year,” said Vickash Mohanka, director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Sierra Club. “Everybody’s bills are paying for those peaks, and I think we need to see a lot more progress in flattening that consumption.”
Energy efficiency and renewable energy progress can also mean cheaper power supply. Electricity supply in New England is so expensive in large part because of the region’s dependence on power plants that run on natural gas, a fuel that is prone to price volatility and which is forecast to get more expensive in coming years. Energy efficiency improvements lower electricity demand, reducing the impact these price fluctuations have on consumers. And replacing this power with renewable energy that gets free fuel from the sun and wind can also reduce and stabilize electric bills.
Cutting support for renewables and efficiency may seem to save money, but the costs just crop up again elsewhere, said Greg Cunningham, vice president of clean energy and climate change for the Conservation Law Foundation.
“It feels like and it looks like we’re eliminating a cost or reducing it, but it’s like Whac-A-Mole,” he said.
How to lower energy bills in the Northeast
Containing costs for supply, distribution, and transmission is challenging but doable and necessary, advocates say.
Though Massachusetts’ cuts to energy efficiency programming disappointed consumer and environmental groups, many praised a plan Gov. Maura Healey announced this month to save residents $5.8 billion in energy costs in coming years. Her proposal includes new discount rates, tighter regulations on competitive electric suppliers, and reviews of every additional fee on utility bills to root out those that are no longer needed.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu this week announced plans to tackle the city’s high energy costs by installing 5,000 heat pumps and weatherizing 10,000 buildings over the next three years in partnership with Mass Save, the state’s energy efficiency administrator. The initiative is expected to use $150 million in incentives and create $300 million in savings for Boston residents.
Connecticut legislators are considering proposals to make appliance energy standards more stringent and to allow cities and towns to aggregate their energy demand, negotiate for lower supply prices, and potentially use the savings to develop their own renewable power projects.
Advocates have also suggested that states adopt a performance-based ratemaking structure, in which utilities make money not just for building and repairing infrastructure but for reaching specific goals, such as equity, emissions reductions, or cost control. Several noted that states could also lower the rate of return utilities are allowed to earn on their infrastructure investments.
Clean energy advocates accept that some programs might need to change. Massachusetts, for example, could reconsider the value of some years-old initiatives paid for by ratepayers, Chretien said. In Maine, it makes more sense to review the solar-incentive program known as net energy billing for possible cost-saving tweaks than to completely repeal it, Cunningham said.
What’s important, advocates say, is that policymakers avoid scapegoating energy efficiency and renewable energy, and start the hard work of solving the real problems.
“It feels to me like every year there is a public outcry, there’s a media outcry, and there’s a reaction,” Cunningham said. “What there is much less of is longer-term planning. We need to do something about this.”
