Massachusetts residents’ rights to opt-in to electricity suppliers that provide renewable energy may be stripped away in the newly-introduced S.2842, which is pitched as a climate change focused bill.
Buried in the bill in section 54 is the language, “beginning on January 1, 2023, no supplier… shall execute a new contract or renew an existing contract for generation services with any individual residential retail customer.”
The provision is viewed as an anti-competitive move that re-establishes monopoly utility control in the state. The ban would take a significant amount of renewables off the market, forcing customers back to their default electricity supplier, such as utilities National Grid and Eversource. This comes just as the two are scheduled to increase their retail electricity rates.
More than three-quarters of the competitive electricity supply contracts available to Massachusetts residents are 100% renewable energy products. Nearly 20% of renewable generation is already under contract and will be removed if this language is included in the final draft of the bill. Utilities are only mandated to supply 51% renewable energy in Massachusetts, meaning the bill could jeopardize clean energy goals for the state.
An online survey of 800 Massachusetts residents conducted on behalf of Clean Choice Energy found that residents overwhelmingly support the option to choose alternative suppliers. The survey found 83% of respondents want the freedom to choose clean energy for their homes, 79% want to be able to choose their supplier, and 73% would be interested in 100% clean energy contracts if given the option. Alternative energy suppliers are more popular than rooftop solar, with 74% of respondents voicing interest in the option, versus 50% of respondents saying they are interested in rooftop residential solar.
In 2021 alone, nearly half a million Massachusetts residents, about 7% of the state’s population, chose a different energy source than their default utility. Many shop for competitive clean energy on the state website Energy Switch Massachusetts.
“Nearly 500,000 Massachusetts households already voted with their wallets, and most are accelerating the purchase of renewable energy – an option that Senate Bill 2842 (S. 2842) would take away,” said Christopher Ercoli, president and chief executive officer of the Retail Energy Advancement League. “When retail energy suppliers compete for your business, they have the incentive to offer better rates and service – not treat you like a captive ratepayer who pays whatever the utility mandates.”
Though the bill is pitched as a climate-change combatant, the anti-competitive provision removes a market for solar and wind energy developers, thereby potentially slowing the buildout of clean energy in the state. It goes in direct contrast with the will of Massachusetts residents, who have overwhelmingly supported the freedom to choose.
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S-2842 = “Bait and switch”.
Too bad nuclear hasn’t done as much for New England and other states as it has for Illinois. Small modular reactors sited near high population centers would provide 90% capacity factors 24/7 and allow smaller throttlable peakers to balance irregular sources like wind and solar, and reduce transmission losses from distant windmills and solar farms to city centers.
Plus, Nuclear is Green since it glows in the smdark.
This government attack on solar is not unique to Massachusetts. Here in California, the PUC is determined to tax rooftop solar out of existence. The big utilities say that they can’t afford to maintain the grid unless they also control production, and the PUC has bought that argument.
CA has more rooftop solar than any state and more folks living in dry wooded areas making it difficult to manage controlled burns of underbrush. So transmission and distribution grid elements are more vulnerable than in the damper northeast.
Six years ago it already had too much solar to manage.
https://cleanenergygrid.org/california-has-too-much-solar-power-it-needs-another-grid-to-share-with/
It’s abandoning nuclear and needs more CGS plants to manage irregular loads and sources, including wheeling hydro from Washington/Oregon to Los Angeles whenCA has more rooftop solar than any state and more folks living in dry wooded areas making it difficult to manage controlled burns of underbrush. So transmission and distribution grid elements are more vulnerable than in the damper northeast.
Six years ago it already had too much solar to manage.
https://cleanenergygrid.org/california-has-too-much-solar-power-it-needs-another-grid-to-share-with/
It’s abandoning nuclear and needs more CGS plants to manage irregular loads and sources, including wheeling hydro from Washington/Oregon to Los Angeles when brownout season hits.
https://www.kcra.com/article/california-prepares-for-energy-shortfalls-in-hot-dry-summer-these-are-the-tools-to-avoid-blackouts/39931543#
Glad I left SillyCon Valley for Florida in 2004…got a 10% raise with no state income tax and 10-cents/kWh electric rates that have only gone up 10% since.
And our governor just vetoed FPL’s anti-net metering bill, so my 9.5kW rooftop PV is good for the foreseeable future. brownout season hits.
https://www.kcra.com/article/california-prepares-for-energy-shortfalls-in-hot-dry-summer-these-are-the-tools-to-avoid-blackouts/39931543#
Glad I left SillyCon Valley for Florida in 2004…got a 10% raise with no state income tax and 10-cents/kWh electric rates that have only gone up 10% since. And our governor just vetoed FPL’s anti-net metering bill, so my 9 5kW rooftop PV is good for the foreseeable future.
This article gives the false impression that section 54 will slow down “greening the grid” that provides electricity to Massachusetts. It does so using the same sort of true but misleading statements that Clean Choice Energy, mentioned in the article, has used in its direct mail campaigns in MA.
All these “renewable energy” supply contracts are based on buying Renewable Energy Credits (“RECs”). If you buy what MA calls Class 1 RECs, you thereby take off the market the Class 1 RECs that the state otherwise requires the electricity suppliers to include in their supply mix (currently 20% and steadily increasing through state mandate). That therefore creates a hard demand for more solar, wind, and other projects that qualify as Class 1, which therefore get financed and built, and which thereby increase the % of our grid that’s based on clean renewable energy. That’s what people concerned about climate change should care about and use their consumer dollars to support.
In contrast, I believe the great majority of so-called renewable energy sold by the members of the
Retail Energy Advancement League is not backed by Class I RECs. Experts tell me that at least for many of these RECs (e.g., RECs generated by wind farms in Texas), buying them doesn’t actually speed new construction, because they already are so economically advantageous that they don’t need any more demand pull and they don’t thereby get built any faster. (That’s one reason those RECs are so inexpensive – they aren’t doing anything.) If your motive for buying “renewable energy” is to mitigate climate change (as it should be), buying Class 1 RECs will make the change you want in the world; in contrast, and buying other RECs will often (and I would guess usually?) be a waste of your money.
This article ignore the above crucial distinction between impactful RECs and meaningless RECs. That omission is consistent with the misleading marketing materials mass-mailed by Clean Choice Energy, mentioned in the article, which fooled me for a while.
A press release from our Attorney General Maura Healy on 3/29/2018 called for “Shut Down of Individual Residential Competitive Supply Industry to Protect Electric Customers”. Her office’s two-year investigation found that, due to misleading advertising and sharp practices (by the kinds of companies that presumably are members of the Retail Energy Advancement League) “Massachusetts electric customers who switched to a competitive electric supplier paid $176.8 million more than if they had stayed with their utility company during the two-year period from July 2015 to June 2017.”
My personal experience is consistent with our AG’s findings. Clean Choice Energy provided (1) misleading information about the environmental benefits of signing up with them and (2) low initial “teaser” low rates that they later jack up above market rates. Their business model is fundamentally based on greenwashing. This article uses the same techniques. Buyer and reader beware.
This article is incredibly misleading. Mr. Shorb is correct on all counts. If the bill passes, consumers in Massachusetts will still be able to benefit from municipal aggregation which is responsible for bringing about 1 million megawatt hours of “Class 1” renewable energy onto the grid above and beyond the Massachusetts Renewable Portfolio Standard. Class 1 basically means wind and solar generated in New England.
Aside from aggregation, I challenge the competitive power supply industry to produce figures on how much Class 1 power they’ve brought onto the grid for Massachusetts consumers beyond the RPS.
Mr Ryan omits from his story the exemption for community aggregation in S.2842 (line 709 of section 54):
“This section shall not apply to, or otherwise affect, any government body that aggregates the load of residential retail customers as part of a municipal aggregation energy plan pursuant to section 134 of chapter 164 of the General Laws.”
In many municipalities, municipal aggregation provides a higher percentage of Class 1 renewable electricity at a lower price than the standard offer of the incumbent utility, Eversource.
Thus, despite what the headline says, bill S.2842 would not ban residents from choosing clean energy suppliers. It would hopefully stop predatory suppliers claiming to provide clean energy from stuffing my mailbox with misleading advertising.