Tag: PACE

Get the latest in Connecticut-focused energy news delivered to your inbox each Friday. For a free subscription to this weekly online resource, please visit www.pacecleanenergy.org.

Since 1973, People’s Action for Clean Energy has been working throughout Connecticut to promote the development of alternative, renewable energy sources and encourage others to join the conversation.

CT Green Energy News is a free weekly online newsletter.
To subscribe, please visit https://www.pacecleanenergy.org.

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.”

Newsletter about clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate action, focusing on Connecticut. To subscribe, send an email to peter.millman7@gmail.com. To find out more about People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE), go to www.pacecleanenergy.org.

CT legislators vow harder look at utilities, and a regulator applauds

CT Mirror. “Frustrations over Connecticut’s high cost of electricity and concerns over its ability to adequately regu-late Eversource, the state’s largest distributor of electricity, are fueling a bipartisan effort to revise the complex rules of utility regulation for the second time in three years… Eversource officials sat stone-faced as [PURA Chairman Marissa] Gillett recently told lawmakers that a $103 million settlement the company negotiated with the Lamont administration in 2021, which was hailed by the governor who hired her, was instead another missed opportunity to examine Connecticut’s largest utility…“The fact that I’m going into my fourth year or fifth year here before you and have not seen a rate case from our largest utility in the state is a travesty. I honestly believe that,” Gillett told lawmakers.”

Gov. Lamont wants more CT options to buy power: ‘A clear public need’

CT Insider. “Connecticut is considering more alternatives to obtain power independent of the market exchange created during the deregulation of the electric industry a quarter century ago, amid continuing frustration with high rates this winter… [T]he Connecticut General Assembly’s Environment Committee will examine the state’s alternatives… Under the bill, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection would be able to “issue multiple solicitations for long-term contracts from providers of resources,” sidestepping the central market for electricity overseen by ISO New England, the region’s independent system operator based in Holyoke, Mass… The Connecticut bill would allow DEEP to consider a broader range of factors in making any independent purchase of power, to include whether adequate amounts of natural gas are available for the generation of electricity; reducing pollution; and infrastructure costs.”