Grid Updates Will Energize The Bay State
The timing is right for Massachusetts to embrace a sustainable energy strategy that focuses on an updated electrical grid.
Any such policy must start with Massachusetts rejecting permits for new fossil fuel-burning power plants. Building new plants represents a three-pronged blunder: first, meeting energy demand by upgrading the grid is far cheaper than meeting demand by building new plants; second, additional fossil fuel-burning plants would further harm our economy, public health, and environment; and third, our continued reliance on fossil fuels would further delay the incorporation of renewable energy sources onto the grid.
Wasted Energy
Currently, 6 to 8 percent of energy is lost when transmitted across the aging grid. A more efficient grid has many benefits, including massive cost savings.
In fact, it costs 65 percent less to “save” a megawatt of electricity through increased efficiency than it does to “make” a megawatt of electricity in a power plant.
A modernized grid will save consumers an average of $500 per year due to increased transmission efficiency and greater availability of renewable energy sources. Compare that to the tens of billions in costs related to new fossil fuel plants that pollute our environment, poison our health, and degrade our economic vitality.
With investments in efficiency alone, New England has the capability to meet 100 percent of its electricity demand over the next 15 years.
The ultimate responsibility for reversing the current strategy of relying on new power plants falls on the Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB), a regulatory entity in Massachusetts chaired by the Secretary for Energy and the Environment.
The EFSB should stop needlessly permitting additional fossil fuel plants and should begin to protect our public health and the Massachusetts economy. Doing so would put the state in line with the energy policies of its neighbors. It would also boost efforts to increase renewable sources of energy, which Gov. Patrick and the legislature have declared as a state priority.
Rejecting new fossil fuel plants will also make Massachusetts a national leader in energy efficiency while insulating us from the security threats and instability associated with fossil fuels.
To ensure the timely implementation of a grid upgrade, Massachusetts must first coordinate with neighboring states and ISO New England — the nonprofit managers of the grid — to establish an upgrade timeline.
Next, the state must stop approving new fossil fuel-burning power plants that generate significant cost burdens and undercut the mandate to ensure improved grid efficiency and greater availability of renewable energy.
Finally, the state must allocate funding where necessary either from federal stimulus resources, state sources such as the Green Communities Act, or via negligible surcharges on consumer’s energy bills ($1/mo) to ensure that a grid upgrade plan is executed quickly.
These actions would save each Massachusetts taxpayer $4,900 in the first decade alone and create stable jobs across the Commonwealth, facilitating a sustainable future for all of us.
Austin Simko is policy researcher for the Massachusetts Slow Growth Initiative and was educated at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. To read the full energy sustainability report, visit: www.slow-growth.org/energy.html.
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