Energy promise faces barriers
Goal for state to use only renewable sources for power by 2040
Connecticut has set an aggressive goal for generating all of the state’s electrical power from renewable sources, but without a big assist from neighboring states and the federal agency that acquires and distributes power in New England, achieving Gov. Ned Lamont’s recent promise to address climate change will be difficult.
Lamont signed an executive order this month calling for a joint approach to the climate crisis: one side aimed at eliminating carbon from the power grid by 2040, and one aimed at strengthening coastal protections at the local level.
“Connecticut is actually ahead of the game in various respects, and this action by the governor is incredibly timely,” said Greg Cunningham, vice president of the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. He’s also the group’s program director for clean energy and climate change.
Cunningham said Lamont’s goal for a zero-carbon power grid by 2040 is worthwhile, but will require Connecticut and its neighboring states to pressure the region’s federally controlled energy distributor, ISO-New England, to clean up its power sources.
“One of the major challenges ought to be going after ISO-New England and its approach to paying for power and providing incentives for the building of power producers,
and bringing that in line with a goal like Gov. Lamont’s so it becomes more achievable on a regional basis,” Cunningham said.
The New England States Committee on Electricity, a coalition representing the region’s six states in electricity matters, requested that ISO-New England take a new approach toward climate change this past July.
The committee asked ISO-New England to “dedicate market development and planning resources in 2020 to support states and stakeholders in analyzing and discussing potential future market frameworks” that work within states’ climate laws. An ISO-New England representative said the organization has explored options for adopting states’ goals previously, such as putting a price on carbon, but regional stakeholders didn’t support those options.
“We saw this coming. About five years ago, we started having some of these discussions with the states and with our stakeholders,” said Anne George, ISO-New England vice president of external affairs and corporate communications.
But while Connecticut has strengthened its push for a clean energy grid in recent years, ISONew England’s policies have not moved as quickly.
“We hope that this is the beginning of the next phase of ISO-New England seriously considering how it will factor in state public climate policies into its market,” Cunningham said.
A fuel-blind approach
Much of the problem lies in the fact that the system for acquiring and distributing power looks for the best deal for states — and not for the most environmentally friendly source of power.
ISO-New England takes a “fuel blind” approach to working with providers to distribute affordable and efficient energy to its sector, said Katie Dykes, DEEP Commissioner and the Connecticut manager for the New England States Commission on Electricity. That approach has created a market that favors natural gas power plants over green energy options such as solar or wind, she said.
ISO-New England is part of a North American network of 10 regional energy sectors governed by the Federal Power Act, which does not allow discrimination on the basis of type of energy sources.
From 2000 to 2018, the percentage of the region’s electrical energy provided by natural gas rose from 15 percent to 49 percent. In that same period, energy sourced from oil fell from 22 percent to 1 percent, and coal power dropped from 18 percent to 1 percent of the regional grid. Renewable energy grew from 8 percent to 10 percent of regional power production.
“The market designs that (ISONew England) have chosen have driven investment exclusively in new natural gas fired power plants,” Dykes said. “Weighing their legal interpretation vs. what they’ve actually designed and the results of their market performance, it’s hard to see that what they’ve come up with is truly neutral.”
George said ISO-New England is happy to have those talks with state leaders in 2020. She said those conversations would have to include stakeholders such as plant owners, environmental advocates, transmission owners and largescale energy users.
She said that ISO-New England is meant to provide the “most cost effective set of resources to meet the reliability needs in the region.” ISO-New England was established in 1997 and designated as a regional transmission organization in 2005.
“The states were on board with that in the first decade and a half, and then they started looking more to find ways to get specific types of resources built,” George said.
Running out of time
Plans for a new natural gasfueled power plant in Killingly set to open in 2022 highlight a gap between Connecticut’s zero-carbon goal and regional energy needs. Dykes has said the plant is necessary to the region’s mission of providing power to residents and moving away from dirtier fuels like coal. Cunningham said the need for reliable regional energy still drives a lot of energy sector development in New England.
“That regional approach is by far the most cost effective way (to provide electrical energy). It’s why it was created to begin with,” Cunningham said. “What it requires though, is bringing some change to an organization that historically changes very slowly, which is ISO-New England.”
Dykes said states are moving more aggressively than the wholesale market in terms of developing a strategy to create a clean energy grid.
“Frankly, the science on climate change is instructing us that we have less time than we thought to make these reductions,” Dykes said.
She said ISO-New England has promised to bring forward permanent solutions to the struggle between maintaining reliable energy networks and producing clean energy.
“There’s both an urgency and an opportunity, and so we’re continuing with our progress and we’re hopeful that the ISO will become a partner with us in helping to address how we can exercise our duties and how we can make our markets work compatibly for the good of the stakeholders invested in those ISO markets, as well as the families and businesses across states like Connecticut,” Dykes said.
When he announced the new goal, Lamont said the 2040 deadline for a clean power grid is necessary because climate change is accelerating, and Connecticut needs to keep up pace.
“What’s happening to our environment is happening faster than anybody had anticipated,” he said.
Slade Rand can be reached at krand@courant.com.