https://www.greenenergyconsumers.org/aggregation15 years ago our non-profit organization stepped into the voluntary green power market, hoping to speed up pace of wind & solar development. A lot has changed for the better since then, but we’ve still got a long way to go. To get there, we need to speed up development of onshore wind power.
In the wee hours of the morning stretching the final day of the 2016 legislative session, the Renewable Energy Standard (RES) extension bills passed in both the Senate and the House.
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.
In April, Mass Energy and People's Power & Light's Executive Director Larry Chretien spoke in front of a group from the Boston Area Sustainable Investment Consortium (BASIC). Larry spoke about policies that stimulate investment in renewable energy and how they can pay off. Below is a recap written by a BASIC member, Dan Saccardi from Synapse Energy Economics.
Some of the unique and, for us, most exciting aspects of our work at Mass Energy and People’s Power & Light are our site visits to local sources of renewable energy.
Since we only buy renewable energy from New England projects on behalf of our members, it’s not hard to bring them right to the source of their electricity. And not only that, but many developers and owners are keen to share their particular story.
Thanks to New England’s relatively strong solar policies, many of our members have gone solar – by owning panels, leasing panels, or participating in community solar programs. To those of you who have gone solar – congrats! However, even though you’re generating solar power, you’re probably not consuming the solar power you generate. In other words, even if you have solar panels or are participating in community solar, you cannot necessarily make the claim that you’ve reduced your personal greenhouse gas emissions as a result.
Updated: August 10, 2017.
Compared to many years ago, the last few heating seasons have shown moderate prices and very little fluctuations. According to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA), the inventory of distillate oil (which covers heating oil and diesel fuel) is high. As a result, the likelihood of a price spike is quite low. However, the EIA does project a modest price increase of about 20 cents per gallon on average in the US between now and mid-winter.
2016 is looking good for solar in Rhode Island. People’s Power & Light (PP&L) is still looking into options to launch our own solar program, but in the meantime we want to share some resources that you can use to install solar this year.
The average home uses electricity all day long and most of us don’t even think about it. You may have heard that you can use your energy dollar to demand 100% clean renewable electricity instead of your utility’s dirty resource mix. Programs aimed at helping you green up the grid are numerous in this country, but many don’t deliver the intended results. However, in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, there is one way to ensure that your green power payments are making a difference: by purchasing Class I or “new” Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).
The subject matter in this blog is still relevant in 2019, but for a more current blog on the same topic, click here.
Guest blog originally posted on ReNewable Now's website about our tour of the Pawtucket Hydro Facility on Nov 7, 2015.
.jpg?width=30&name=larry%20(1).jpg){kind=small}