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.
In September, it was reported that wholesale electricity prices in Texas were negative during some evenings, largely a result of high wind production. Wind makes up a higher percentage of Texas’ energy mix than in New England, but we want to see more wind here. So what does it mean that there were negative electricity prices? To get a good answer, we asked our expert friends at the Cambridge-based Synapse Energy Economics.
Mass Energy members (and friends) make Solar Connect a huge success!
Mass Solar Connect came to an end on August 31st and we are pleased to report that not only was the program tremendously successful at increasing awareness and access to solar at a discounted price, but thanks to the interest and support of our members and affiliates, Mass Energy surpassed its goal of 200 contracts. A total of 261 contracts were signed, with a total electricity capacity of 1.9 megawatts! That’s the equivalent of removing 361 cars from the road and avoids approximately 1,700 metric tons of CO2 per year.
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