The Energy Consumer's Bulletin- a New England energy news blog

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Electricity and the grid

Data Shows: Retail Electricity Suppliers Love to Greenwash

If there's one thing we hate at Green Energy Consumers Alliance, it’s greenwashing. This is the practice of exaggerating or lying about the worthiness of a good or service with respect to environmental impact. Our organization exists to help people find their way to economically and environmentally sound energy solutions. So, it breaks our hearts when we see some companies take advantage of the fact that it’s often easy to make a product sound better than it is. Case in point: Renewable energy in the electricity market.  

Picture of Larry Chretien Larry Chretien

Watch Out for Misinformation About Electricity Suppliers

Green Energy Consumers Alliance has been supporting a bill in the Massachusetts legislature that would stop retail electricity suppliers from signing up new customers on an individual basis. The bill would not affect municipal aggregation. The legislation has been sponsored by Rep. Frank Moran and Senator Brendan Crighton in collaboration with Attorney General Campbell and with the support of Governor Healey. The bill is a common sense reaction to the fact that the Attorney General’s office has solid data showing how consumers receiving power from competitive electricity suppliers have collectively paid over a half billion dollars more over six years than if they received service from their utility. Low-income families and people of color have been disproportionally targeted and harmed.

Picture of Larry Chretien Larry Chretien

Electric Cars & Costs to the Grid

As more and more people switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles (EVs), we hear a lot of questions along the lines of “can the grid handle it?” Sometimes that question is about supply and emissions (i.e. will we have enough clean energy resources to supply all the kilowatt-hours of electricity those EVs will need?), sometimes it’s about reliability (can the infrastructure handle it?), and sometimes it’s about costs. We've written before about how we have time and tools to prepare for this transition. This blog specifically addresses the question of the grid costs of increased EV adoption.

Picture of Anna Vanderspek Anna Vanderspek

Electricity Suppliers: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

Regular readers of our blogs know where we stand on options consumers have for receiving power supply. To recap: For customers of investor-owned utilities, you are better off, and the planet is better off if your community has green municipal aggregation than if you are on the utility’s Basic Service. And more than likely, you are going to pay more than you should if you choose a competitive electricity supplier on your own.

Municipal Aggregation Comes to Rhode Island! Greener power at lower cost.

We're excited to announce the start of something good in Rhode Island. Seven cities and towns have adopted “green municipal aggregation” as a way to add more renewable energy to their electricity supply affordably. Here’s the Magnificent Seven: Barrington, Central Falls, Narragansett, Newport, Portsmouth, Providence, and South Kingstown. Better yet, starting in May, customers enrolled in these aggregations will pay a lower rate than what would be charged by Rhode Island Energy.

Green Energy Consumers Alliance

How on Earth will the grid handle all these heat pumps & EVs?

In the course of our work promoting the electrification of transportation and heating, we are often asked how the grid is going to hold up with the increased demand caused by heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs). Recently, one of our favorite state legislators said he gets that question frequently too. So, here’s our response.

Larry Chretien & Anna Vanderspek

Another Data Point in Favor of Municipal Aggregation: Eversource Rate Hike

Late on Friday afternoon, November 18, Eversource filed its Basic Service power supply rate (excluding delivery rates) for its eastern Massachusetts territory for the period of January 1 through June 30, 2023, with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU). That supply rate came in at 26 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), up from 15.8 cents/kWh for the same period in 2022 and 11.8 cents/kWh in 2021.

Picture of Larry Chretien Larry Chretien