As the legislative session moves towards a noisy climax, one of the many bills still moving towards possible passage is what the Boston Globe calls “a heavily lobbied bill designed to diversify the state’s energy sources.”
That energy bill builds on prior successes in some ways, but if it is really going to reflect hard-won experience it will need to be improved. The final bill must offer greater competition among energy technologies while rising to the challenge of the essential environmental mandate recently affirmed by the SJC in the landmark Kain case – the decision that made it crystal clear that the mandates in the Global Warming Solutions Act must be taken very seriously.
I worked on legislation of this type across New England during my years at the Conservation Law Foundation. In Massachusetts I was part of the team that worked with the legislature to start building a clean energy future through successful efforts like “clean energy procurements” – a tool created by the Green Communities Act for our utility companies to buy power from facilities like wind farms.
Now that I am working for a wind energy company I am fighting the same battles, with an even better view of how practical efforts to shift our power away from fossil fuels can flourish or fail – and what can make the difference in getting the job done.
One lesson that I have learned through hard experience is the necessity of encouraging competition to drive down cost – and the current energy bill, in the form that passed the House, makes the mistake of excluding low-cost onshore wind resources from participation in the bidding process unless it is “bundled” with hydroelectric power. Such bundling of resources is not inherently wrong – indeed, it might be a fine idea for the states to buy both wind and hydro and build a bundle after getting offers from both kinds of generation – but wind power developers should be able to offer a range of prices and options to the utilities and states buying on behalf of customers. Creating greater competition among electricity sources will inevitably lower energy prices for everyone who pays an electric bill.
As written, the House bill would unnecessarily reduce competition between hydropower and other clean energy sources, including solar and wind energy. Head-to-head competition between land-based renewables, wind and solar energy, and large hydro is the solution to meeting our clean energy needs in the cheapest fashion.
Equally as important is requiring the proposed clean energy procurements in this draft legislation to help ensure compliance with Massachusetts’ rising renewable portfolio standard (RPS) and to meet the greenhouse gas reduction mandate of the Global Warming Solutions Act and the Kain decision.
Massachusetts recently found its RPS, which is designed to tap into more land-based wind and other renewable energy sources to keep costs low for ratepayers while driving private investment into local and state economies, has a three-to-one benefit-to-cost ratio, producing annual net benefits of $217 million.
Delivering clean air in Massachusetts is important, but state lawmakers must encourage the kind of competition needed to do so at the greatest benefit for the state’s electricity customers. The leadership of the State Senate is now in a position to steer the bill in that direction and ensure that we do what we can to help save the planet while saving money.
Seth Kaplan is Board Chair of RENEW Northeast, a coalition organization that brings together renewable energy companies and environmental advocacy organizations.