Category: Energy

CT Green Energy News Sept. 13, 2024

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Excerpts from CT Green Energy News, a publication of People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE). Visit their website to get the latest CT-focused energy news delivered to your inbox each Friday: pacecleanenergy.org.

As tri-state offshore wind auction moves forward, CT decides to delay decision
Connecticut Public.​ Connecticut surprised some environ-mentalists on Friday, when Massachusetts and Rhode Island were the only states to announce which new offshore wind turbine projects they would buy electricity from, if the projects are constructed. “The evaluation of project bids remains underway in Connecticut and we will announce a final decision in our solicitation at a future date,” a CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection spokesperson said in a statement.

CT was no-show at wind energy auction it helped organize.
Hartford Courant. Massachusetts has signaled it is recep-tive to an agreement, proposed by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, that could put Connecticut back into offshore wind procurement. Under the plan, according to industry and government officials, Massachusetts would join Connecticut in a long-term agreement to buy energy from the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford. Connecticut, in return, would partner with Massachusetts on buying power from the offshore wind project Vineyard Wind 2, planned for a tract of ocean about 25 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Opponents of proposed Brookfield gas compressor expansion bolstered by new study on health risks
NewsTimes. Bolstered by new research outlining the potential dangers of the project, town and state officials are engaged in an all-out effort to pull the plug on plans to expand a natural gas compressor station located near many homes and just 1,900 feet from Whisconier Middle School. The expansion would result in increased emissions of and exposure of local residents to toxins, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides….The study says the facility “should be over a mile away from residents,” [said Nick Katevich from the Sierra Club]…. “But in the Brookfield facility, there’s hundreds of residents that live within a half a mile of the facility…” Brookfield needs Gov. Ned Lamont and state Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes to take a stand against the expansion, he said.

Waterbury schools set for solar panel expansion
CT Examiner. The city school district aims to lead the region in solar power, with the Board of Aldermen set to approve bonding next week for panel installations at five more schools….“There is money available to get this done and the technology is further advanced today. [Solar panels] are much more efficient and they are more accepted than they once were.” Although there is bonding for the project, local leaders said the city would ultimately pay nothing for the installations…. “Essentially, we are getting these solar panels at zero cost to us,” said Board of Education Chief Operating Officer Nick Albini, noting that Waterbury will see $4.6 million in savings over 20 years.​

Opinion: CT leaders must address gas system ‘death spiral’
Kat Burnham, CT Mirror. Connecticut suffers from some of the highest electricity rates in the country, and these challenges need to be addressed urgently. But the conversation in the state about how to combat the growing cost of energy for households and businesses has so far been incomplete, focusing on only one half of the equation. Left entirely undiscussed: the gas utility sector and looming crisis of affordable heat…households and businesses are moving away from the direct use of gas, either for cost, comfort, climate, health, or safety reasons. The state’s natural gas utilities risk diminishing customer enrollment and demand per customer, spread over the same – or growing – infrastructure costs. This lethal confluence of trends is bound to send gas bills skyrocketing. Called the “gas utility death spiral,” this process will hit vulnerable communities (e.g. renters, low-income residents, fixed-income seniors) the hardest.

Opinion: Everyone in Connecticut has the right to clean air
Quanishe Flippen, Hartford Courant.  The Capitol Area System​ [CAS], which has a decades-long history of polluting our air, needs to be replaced. We have the opportunity to choose 100% clean, renewable energy solutions, such as ground-source electric heat pumps, that will significantly reduce harmful emissions and improve our air quality. These solutions are not just about cleaner air; they represent a commitment to the future of our children and our community…[So] it is disappointing to see that the ​[CAS] study still includes fossil fuel options. This is not just a step backward for Hartford; it’s a step backward for our entire state. Governor Lamont and our leaders must act on their commitments to clean energy and reject any fossil fuel alternatives. Our health, our environment, and our future depend on it.

CT Green Energy News May 17, 2024

News and events for advocates of clean energy, energy efficiency and climate action at the state and local levels, focusing on Connecticut. Brought to you by People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE), www.pacecleanenergy.org.

Some Connecticut Towns Are Banning Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers. Will More Join In?
New Haven Register. “Connecticut has seen a handful of communities taking action against the noisy and often environmentally-unfriendly equipment. In January, Greenwich adopted a new ordinance to ban the use of internal-combustion leaf blowers during the summer months…Norwalk will require landscapers to shelve gas-powered leaf blowers eight months of the year…The California Air Resources Board estimates that running a gas-powered leaf blower for an hour produces pollution equal to a car that is driven from Los Angeles to Denver, which at just over 1,000 miles is the rough equivalent of the distance from Hartford to Jacksonville, Fla.”

OP-ED | Environmental Justice
CT News Junkie. “Power plants, highways, and other pollution sources in Connecticut disproportionately impact the health of Black and brown communities and low-income communities in our state. Here in Hart-ford, polluting energy facilities and two highways are key drivers of air pollution that make people sick. … This truth makes it all the more important that the State of Connecticut seize an unmissable opportunity to rectify the historic harm caused by one of our city’s highest polluting sources, the Capitol Area System. … For the Hartford community, exposure to pollution from the Capitol Area System and other fossil fuel combustion, has been a long-term environmental injustice that must be healed. … Hartford residents deserve a 100% clean and renewable Capitol Area System and job opportunities in the green economy, and we’re counting on Governor Lamont to ensure that it happens.”

A Steep Rate Hike for Electricity Due to Increased Cost of Government Mandates

by Francisco Uranga, CT Examiner, April 19, 2024

Connecticut customers will pay significantly higher electric bills starting July 1, after a rate hike of more than 12 percent to pay for a doubling of charges stemming from government mandates including energy assistance, a shut-off moratorium and the Millstone purchase agreement. The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) approved a rate increase on Wednesday for Eversource and United Illuminating. Together, the utilities serve 80 percent of the state’s residential customers. The hike resulted from the so-called Rate Adjustment Mechanism, an annual adjustment by which utilities request rate changes based on the cost of mandated public programs.

United Illuminating estimates that the rate increase will average $30 a month, depending on each user’s consumption, a 12 percent increase. Eversource had not yet estimated the impact, according to a company spokeswoman. The new rates will apply starting July 1 and will be in effect for 10 months or until a review in September.

PURA commissioners voted 2-1 in favor of the increase. The negative vote came from the agency’s chairwoman, Marissa Gillett. She suggested that the cost recovery should be staggered over two to three years rather than 10 months to soften the impact on consumers.

“Unfortunately, though, today’s decision by PURA is likely to place further financial strain on those that can least afford it, and it will also hit the pocketbooks of our business community in a particularly challenging way,” Gillett said in her defense.

Connecticut has one of the most expensive electric rates in the country. Among the reasons are high generation costs, a segment that is deregulated and where Connecticut has the disadvantage of being at the end of the natural gas pipeline, driving up prices, and public charges, which range from programs to encourage renewable energy to bill payment assistance for people with economic hardship, and the power purchase agreement with Dominion Energy’s Millstone nuclear power plant.
[Read the complete article at: https://ctexaminer.com/2024/04/19/state-regulators-approve-a-steep-rate-hike-for-electricity-due-to-a-doubling-cost-of-government-mandates]

CT Green Energy News

March 15, 2024

News and events for advocates of clean energy, energy efficiency and climate action at the state and local levels, focusing on Connecticut. Brought to you by People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE), www.pacecleanergy.org

CT Mirror: Debate over Electric Vehicles in CT “Republicans and Democrats staged a dress rehearsal
Wed. for debates expected on the state House floor next month and in campaigns this fall over how aggressively CT should push zero-emission vehicles to mitigate air pollution and climate change. The venue was a public hearing on House Bill 5485, which would create a 40-member Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Coordinating Council to assess the readiness of the auto market, electric grid and charging infrastructure for a shift to electric vehicles, while not mandating any targets or deadlines.
The Republican minority leaders, Rep. Candelora of North Branford and Sen. Harding of Brookfield opposed the bill in live testimony before the Transportation Committee as a step towards something the measure does not authorize — an eventual ban on gas-powered vehicles.”

Frontier Group: In Praise of Rooftop Solar “Because solar power and other forms of renewable energy supply electricity at near-zero marginal cost, they tend to reduce wholesale electricity prices for consumers. A 2020 study by Synapse Energy Economics estimated that distributed (behind-the-meter) solar reduced wholesale electricity costs by $1.1 billion between 2014 and 2019. Adding in the public health benefits of reduced power plant emissions and the reduced need for electricity generating capacity, they estimated that behind-the-meter solar delivered benefits ranging from 20.5 to 37 cents per kilowatt-hour In New England. That savings figure – which rivals retail electricity prices in the region – is an understatement, since it does not include savings from avoided investments in transmission and distribution infratructure, to which Synapse did not assign a dollar value.

Connecticut Using More Fracked Methane Gas to Power the State

by Sierra Club Connecticut 

Connecticut has been actively expanding the use and transport of methane or “natural” gas in the state for over ten years, and the results are not good. We pay the highest price for electricity of anybody in the continental U.S., we have the worst air pollution in New England, and the state continues to release greenhouse gas emissions at unsustainably high levels. While emissions from transportation constitute a large percentage of the air pollution released in our state, approximately 40 percent, pollution from energy generation is the next largest source at about 39 percent.

At the same time as the state invested public funds to construct corporate-owned methane infrastructure, it also passed laws and regulations that put up barriers to solar development. Although more solar energy on the grid is associated with improved reliability and fewer greenhouse gas emissions, state agencies and legislators have actively blocked the solar industry. There is only one benefit of reducing people’s ability to access clean energy: it ensures larger profits for Connecticut’s gas and electric monopolies Eversource and UI/Avangrid.

Sierra Club Connecticut is leading the fight to stop fossil gas expansion and to demand that the state convert to a renewable energy-powered economy. There are multiple gas expansion projects we are opposing: the Enbridge gas pipeline expansion from New York to Massachusetts that will cut across the entire state of Connecticut; the Milford and Brookfield gas compressor station expansions that will bring additional methane to NYC, which recently passed a law to phase methane out of new construction; and a brand new Eversource pipeline in Wilton to connect houses to fracked gas rather than to clean, efficient and affordable renewable thermal technology. For more information, see our website: connecticut.sierraclub.org. To get involved, contact Nick at [email protected] or Martha at [email protected].

Southern CT Gas Proposed Rate Increase

The Southern Connecticut Gas Company wants to raise its rates. The average monthly residential bill will be approximately $10 to $13.50 more per month.

Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) has scheduled Public Comment Hearings for this application (Docket 23-11-02) on Wednesday, January 17, at the West Haven Library, 300 Elm St., West Haven, at 5:30 p.m. Testify in person about what this rate hike will mean to you! You can also write to PURA at 10 Franklin Square, New Britain, CT 06051, or send an email to [email protected].

There will also be a Zoom hearing on Friday, Feb. 16 at noon. The schedule for the docket is available on PURA’s website portal.ct.gov/pura. For additional public hearings on the proposed rate hike, call 800-382-4586 or email [email protected].

For questions about the proposed rates, the public hearing, or how to submit comments on the application, contact PURA at 800-382-4586 or [email protected].

PACE Green Energy News

News and events for advocates of clean energy, energy efficiency and climate action at the state and local levels, focusing on Connecticut. Brought to you by People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE), www.pacecleanergy.org.

Connecticut’s failure to act on climate hurts in more ways than one. CT Mirror. “In my conversations with other young activists, it has long been abundantly clear that we know and care — acutely, often painfully — about these issues, and that we’re actively seeking ways to change them. Yet despite all of our action and concern, we’re often unsure if elected officials, in their inaction, care nearly as much. It’s for this reason…that I’ve witnessed the greatest shifts towards hopelessness in my few years as a young advocate. It comes from feeling like despite our megaphones, we’re speaking to a brick wall; it comes when we watch climate legislation like the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) used as take-it-or-leave-it bargaining chips or punted by leaders at the drop of a hat when the political stars no longer align, rather than built upon and improved as the critical climate measures we need. Plainly, it comes when young people exhaust their capacity to yell.”

Study: Business lobbying a major barrier to clean energy legislation in Connecticut  Energy News Network. “Brown University researchers found that utility and business interests outspend environmental organizations on lobbying 8-to-1, though an industry group says the study overstates its spending and influence on energy…’Environmental groups and ordinary citizens will never have the money or resources to match what Ever-source and the CBIA spend to influence lawmakers. But broad majorities of Americans see climate change as a serious problem and are demanding action from their elected leaders. So the real power is at the polls.’ ”

New England’s power system is at ‘heightened risk’ heading into winter.  Hartford Courant. “If the risks materialize and threaten the reliability of New England’s power system, the ISO said it will turn to several operating procedures to manage the grid, “up to and including controlled power outages.” Outages are a “last resort,” the ISO said. It wants to “educate the public that if this step were required, it would be used to protect the region’s power grid from an overall collapse.”…the ISO will urge conservation, asking customers to “turn down the thermostat, use appliances less frequently and minimize cooking.”

CT Green Energy News

News and events for advocates of clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate action at the state and local levels, focusing on Connecticut. Brought to you by People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE). Visit www.pacecleanergy.org.

CT energy assistance needs more state funding, advocates say:
CT Mirror. “With federal heating assistance projected to drop and oil prices rising, advocates say CT officials should use state funds for heating aid. Energy assistance advocates are renewing their call for Connecticut to tap its robust coffers to help keep poor families warm this winter. The alarm intensified after a Hartford-based nonprofit closed its summer/fall energy assistance program one month early due to high demand. With projected federal heating assistance projected to drop as much as $970 per household this winter—and with home heating oil prices rising steadily since mid-June—advocates say things could turn ugly this winter unless state officials end their reluctance to use state funds.”

No hydrogen hub for CT and the Northeast:
CT Mirror. “Connecticut and the Northeast came up losers Friday in the high-stakes competition for regional hydrogen hubs—part of the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infra-structure Law’s focus on hydrogen as an important clean energy source to fight climate change. A seven-state consortium of Connecticut and the rest of New England, except New Hampshire, plus New York and New Jersey, were not among seven hubs selected to share $7 billion … Among the hubs selected were several in swing presidential race states as well as ones with difficult senate races for Democrats looking to maintain control, including West Virginia and Montana. And many of them are in heavy fossil fuel-producing areas that face potential negative economic impacts as the country transitions towards clean energy.”

Blumenthal urges increased LIHEAP funding as CT families face chilly winter:
CT News Junkie. “The winter heating season has already started, Operation Fuel has stopped taking applications, and Congress level funded the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program… ‘Applications for heating assistance are up by about 20%,’ Blumenthal said. However, the funding is still only about $4 billion nationwide. … Operation Fuel’s Gannon Long said, ‘the affordability gap between what people can pay for their energy needs and what they’re being asked to pay has increased 37% in just two years.’ … Last year, the nonprofit approved around 3,900 applications during its Summer/Fall application period. Two years ago, the program received only around 2,000 applications during that same period.”

Evergrow completes first IRA tax credit transfer through solar project in Connecticut:
Solar World. “Evergrow, a clean energy finance company, has successfully completed the funding of a clean energy tax credit transfer on its platform, the first of its kind to be announced … Under the IRA, developers and owners of clean energy projects can sell their tax credits to raise funding. With demand for clean energy tax financing expected to exceed $80 billion by 2031, this funding helps pay for the cost of building clean energy projects, such as solar power, battery storage, electric vehicle chargers and more … Developers of clean energy projects often struggle to access tax credit funding, particularly for projects on the smaller end of the scale. By using technology to build a modern platform for clean energy finance, Evergrow is unlocking greater access to funding for developers of all sizes.”

For a complete listing of clean energy events, visit the on-line Calendar: www.pacecleanenergy.org/calendar. You can submit an event to the PACE Calendar and also subscribe to it.

WATT ELSE?
Updates to Furnace Efficiency Standards for First Time in 16 Years:
Last updated in 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy has announced final rules for residential gas furnaces to go into effect in late 2028. Non-weatherized gas furnaces and those used in mobile homes will require 95% efficiency. Read more: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-finalizes-gas-furnace-efficiency-rule/695330.

Rules for electric vehicle instant rebates at dealerships are here:
Treasury lays out rules for instant EV rebate – E&E News by POLITICO (eenews.net). Starting Jan. 1, 2024, EV buyers can transfer their Inflation Reduction Act electric vehicle credits to dealerships and receive cash or apply the credit toward the cost of the car. The IRA provides a tax credit of up to $7,500 for certain electric vehicles and used EVs are eligible for a $4,000 credit.

Outrageously High GAS RATE HIKES Proposed by CNG and SCG

by Kathleen Fay, Neighborhood Housing Services

Please see the email below from Thomas Wiehl. Then,

  • Respond directly to Tom if you would like to be part of the discussion.
  • Share widely to members of your task forces and other networks including other municipal staff.
  • Consider drafting letters for your group to sign onto and submit to the media and/or to Office of Consumer Council or Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA). Or individual letters.
  • If you or your organization wish to be interveners in the PURA docket, please note the deadline for filing is Nov. 15.

For additional details or support: Kathleen Fay, Director of Community Sustainability, Neighborhood Housing Services, 203-562-0598, Ext. 225, www.nhsofnewhaven.org, 333 Sherman Ave, New Haven.

Hello all,

 

CT Natural Gas and Southern CT Gas have filed their notices of intent in their pending rate cases, seeking ten percent and TWENTY PERCENT increases to delivery revenues, respectively. You can see the notices here: www.dpuc.state.ct.us/dockcurr.nsf/8e6fc37a54110e3e852576190052b64d/f65a98e3aa41173585258a390072492d?OpenDocument

OCC will be directly engaging in this proceedings and would certainly welcome collaborative discussions with anyone with an interest in critically analyzing these upcom-ing rate applications. Contact: Thomas Wiehl, Director of Utility Oversight & Regulatory Reform, State of CT, Office of Consumer Counsel, 860-827-2906, [email protected], www.ct.gov/occ.

CT Green Energy News

Number 340, Sept. 15, 2023

News and events for advocates of clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate action at the state and local levels, focusing on Connecticut. Brought to you by People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE). For more information, visit www.pacecleanenergy.org.

Lawmakers: What’s the hullabaloo on electric rates and what does it mean for you?

Hartford Courant. Many folks have been watching with rapt attention as a Connecticut public utility company and its surrogates tried to undermine the current electric rate case, suggesting it is “punitive,” “an overreach,” or “lacking constitutionality.”…We would argue that for decades utility companies have benefited from opacity caused by the complexity of ratemaking…Throughout the recent conversation, pundits have tried to impugn the credibility or competence of Public Utility Regulatory Authority leadership, with surrogates suggesting, without citation, that PURA is the worst-ranked regulatory authority in the nation. But – worse for whom? Certainly not the ratepayers. …As pundits, surrogates, and talking heads try to suggest that what is happening under PURA in current pending dockets will have negative effects, we’re reading something different between those lines. They are scared. Scared of lost profits. Scared of accountability. And scared of what this ruling’s success will mean not if, but when, it is replicated nationally.”

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