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

The Massachusetts Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) & Rhode Island Renewable Energy Standard (RES) in Plain English

Updated July 8, 2021

As you may have heard by now, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are 2 out of 28 states that have a state mandate requiring retail electricity suppliers to provide a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable energy sources. And even though the RPS and RES are different as their names suggest, they have a common goal: to increase the amount of renewable energy in the region and to lower greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector. They do so by requiring electric utilities and competitive power suppliers to include increasing amounts of renewable energy in their supply mixes each year. For purely political reasons, municipally-owned utilities are exempt.

There are Three Ways to Buy Green Electricity – Two Are Good and One is Bad

This is an update from previous blogs on the subjects covered here.

Have you recently received salespeople at your door or offers in the mail from competitive electricity suppliers? They lay the pitch on thick with too-good-to be true rates and feel-good energy mixes. It may seem hard to poke holes in the pitch, but under the smiling surface, many of these suppliers use smoke and mirror marketing to get their foot in the door and your signature on a contract.

Puerto Rico Will Rise, Thanks to Renewables, Microgrids and Energy Storage

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.

Are you getting greenwashed by your electricity supplier?

Been hearing from "green electricity" suppliers like CleanChoice Energy? You want to support the generation of electricity from renewable sources, but how do you know if a green power program will use your dollars to speed our transition to clean energy? How would you know whether your purchase of green power is actually contributing to shifting the mix of electricity that powers our electric grid away from fossil fuels?

These are valid questions that we, as a non-profit energy organization working in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and offering a program that allows you to make the switch to renewable energy, get asked every day. So here it is: Green Power Bootcamp, in a blog.

Landfills become solar power zones in northern Rhode Island

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.

Raise the Renewable Portfolio Standard

This piece written by Eugenia Gibbons and Deborah Donovan was originally published by Commonwealth Magazine on July 15, 2018.

Nonprofit review: EnergySage for solar

As a non-profit focused on both climate change and consumers, we have noticed that the complexity of solar contracts and cost of solar panels prohibit some people from moving forward with solar installation.

For years we have helped consumers to install solar by interpreting state programs, teaming up with state and municipal programs like Massachusetts Solar Connect, and even buying solar RECs from projects built before 2010. Now we've vetted an all-in-one solution that we're excited to share with our members and friends: EnergySage. Together, we're helping more and more people install solar.

Is it a good time to install solar in Rhode Island?

In March 2017, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo announced a statewide initiative to increase the amount of clean energy by 10 times by 2020. That means that  Rhode Island is set to achieve a total of 1,000 MW by 2020.  Just in time for these important commitments, we're partnering with EnergySage to make it easier for everyone to install solar. Homeowners and business can contribute to the 1,000MW goal with smart investments in clean energy, like rooftop solar.

Boston’s Renewable Energy Play

Earlier this month, Boston's Mayor Walsh called for cities around the country to explore a group purchase of renewable energy, apparently for municipal buildings and streetlights. The hope is that a lot of purchasing power could support the construction of large-scale and low-cost clean energy. According to news accounts, the cities might jointly buy from one or more facilities that could be located anywhere in the U.S. Boston City Hall plans to finalize a list of partnering cities and issue a request for information to renewable energy developers late in the summer.

More and more renewable energy comes with batteries included

For over a hundred years, the rap on electricity was that you could not store as usefully as you could store oil, gas, coal, and wood. That has made matching power supply with demand a challenge. More recently, we have been told by New England utilities and their ally, the so-called “Independent Operator of New England” (ISO-NE) that increasing amounts of wind and solar, intermittent resources, will make the challenge even harder.