Have you taken a look at our map of resources lately? There are so many projects in it that it’s been challenging for our graphic designer to fit some of them in. Over the last year, we’ve been busy adding more impactful Class I projects to our list thanks to the support of Massachusetts and Rhode Island residents, along with small businesses that have taken the initiative to green their electricity through our Green Powered program and Green Municipal Aggregation.

Community Choice Aggregation: Challenges, Opportunities, and Impacts on Renewable Energy Markets is the latest report released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Highlighted in the report are the benefits that aggregation delivers to communities: savings and price stability. But the report also sheds light on how Community Choice Aggregations are reshaping the dynamics of customer electricity supply and demand. Here we summarize NREL’s findings.

The first thing most people do when they walk into a room is to turn the lights on. But most people do not think of how that power got there and where it came from. In reality, electricity is a complex system responsible for the generation, transmission and distribution of electrons. So how do we know if the electricity we’re using came from renewable energy or not? The answer: Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). But in order to understand how RECs work and how they do their part to clean our grid, we must first understand how the grid brings electricity to our homes and businesses, and how it operates as a whole.

Our Climate Change Perspectives mini-blog series is a 3-part series that brings to light the personal impacts of climate change on Green Energy Consumers' staff members' lives. This series aims to clarify what is at stake for people around the world and how those realities influence the choices we make on a daily basis.

Yaima Braga is our Energy Programs Manager.

Solar projects have been popping up all over Rhode Island. This has been due to the enhancement of the Renewable Energy Standard and the Renewable Energy Growth program, as well as a recent call from Governor Gina Raimondo to have 1,000 Megawatts of renewable energy within the state by the end of 2020. We are excited about the possibilities these policy measures create for new, properly-sited projects.

If you’ve looked at our local resources map recently you’ve noticed that Mass Energy/People’s Power & Light is now supporting more renewable energy sources than ever before. This has been made possible thanks to the contribution of our members who made the switch to green electricity, and to the commitment of seven (7) communities that wanted their electricity to come from local, clean energy resources and made it happen through a process called Green Municipal Aggregation.