ESG & Industry Updates

Brayton Point in Somerset was once the largest coal-fired plant in Massachusetts, and was the last to be decommissioned in 2017.

The plan for the site has been to develop it into Massachusetts' first major offshore wind manufacturing facility, as an integral part of the Commonwealth's approach to its renewable energy portfolio. 

This February, Governor Baker and State Officials announced that a 47 acre parcel of the property would be sold to Prysmian Group, who will manufacture high tech subsea transmission cables on the site that will be used to  bring offshore wind generated electricity back on site and into the grid. 

Prysmian is looking to invest up to $300 million dollars in the Brayton Point facility, and would create a projected 250 high paying jobs on site. Part of the enticement to the project for Prysmian was assurance from Avangrid Renewables that the manufactured cables would be used for the Commonwealth Wind projects, as well as the parallel project in Connecticut (Park City Wind). Avangrid is also the joint partner with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners on the Vineyard Wind Project. 

Vineyard Wind (off Martha's Vineyard) is set to be the first large-scale offshore wind project in the country. Approved by the Biden Administration last year, the Vineyard Wind project will consist of up to 84 wind turbines and expected to produce 800 megawatts of power, or enough to power 400,000 homes. 

Back to Brayton Point - Mayflower Wind (also off Martha's Vineyard) will generate 400 megawatts, and feed into the Brayton Point site.  Mayflower will also be building a converter station at Brayton Point to facilitate movement of wind generated electricity into the grid. Mayflower also has said its proposal includes $42 million additional dollars in on-shore development and have proposed establishing an operations and maintenance facility at a former industrial site in Fall River and plan to utilize a Somerset based company for a crew transfer vessel for employees as well.  

This investment on local infrastructure and the tax revenue that involved facilities will generate, not to mention the creation of plentiful higher paying jobs for the area is a huge positive for Southeastern MA, an area that has been impacted over the decades by phase outs of manufacturing and changes in the fishing industries that were once the lifeblood of the area.  

Overall, Massachusetts looks poised to really be in the lead when it comes to offshore wind generation as we watch multiple projects come together. As the Governor said at the gathering in February "One of the biggest challenges we will all face as we go forward from here is figuring out how to get the generation where it needs to go" - that is a problem that the development of Brayton Point seeks to help alleviate. 

I wrote an article for the March issue of Oil & Energy Magazine on the Brayton Point site redevelopment, you can read that article in its entirety here: Revisiting Brayton Point: Offshore Wind Brings New Life to Closed Coal Site 

(Below: Brayton Point Currently (left), and to the right, a rendering of the proposed redevelopment)

The Biden Administation has the ambitious goal of bringing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind online by 2030, and 1.4 of those gigawatts are slated to come from the New England coast. 

The move toward more offshore wind is part of the goal of reducing US carbon emissions in half by 2030, a goal that dovetails nicely with goals set by the New England region's member states on climate action. ISO New England's 2021 outlook report released in April outlines some of the anticipated advances, including both the 1.4 gigawatts of offshore wind, 3.5 gigawatts of solar power, and 800 transmission project to connect clean energy projects by 2030. 

All of the New England region's states have set specific carbon goals that line up with (or exceed in some cases) the Federal Government's goals.  These include:

• Connecticut: zero-carbon electricity by 2040
• Maine: Carbon Neutral by 2045
• Massachusetts: 80% renewable energy by 2050 (more details on MA here: MA Climate Change & Environmental Justice Bill)
• New Hampshire: 25% renewable energy by 2025 (no specific zero carbon goal outlined)
• Vermont: 90% renewable energy by 2050
• Rhode Island: zero-carbon electricity by 2050 

On the wind front specifically, Rhode Island is the only New England state with a currently operational wind farm, but the Vineyard Wind Project set to bring offshore wind online in Massachusetts received federal approval in March, and is projected, upon completion, bring 800 megawatts of power to businesses and homes throughout the state. 

I wrote an article for Oil & Energy Magazine detailing some more of the specific goals for the Wind push - you can read it in its entirety here:  Wind Ho! Biden's Offshore Wind Plan Bolster's New England's Clean Energy Goals 

This April, the New England Ratepayer's Association (NERA) filed a petition asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to "declare exclusive federal jurisdiction over wholesale energy sales from generation sources located on the customer side of the retail meter (rooftop solar), and order that the rates for such sales be priced in accordance with public law.”

In a nutshell, this would change how the market works for residential solar panels completely. Currently, with net metering, panels generate energy that offsets use by the residence/building and the excess energy produced is "bought back" by the utility - usually via credits to a home/business owner's utility bill at a retail rate. 

The NERA petition basically objects to the "buyback" being a retail transaction and believes any utility transaction is a wholesale energy sale and should be regulated and governed in the same manner, including being processed at the same prices. The argument against this of course being that net metering is advantageous to the residential customer, and that has been a large factor in the increase in consumer level proliferation of solar panels. The flip side of that argument, which is the NERA petition's point, is that the transactions being equivalent in terms of energy transfer, but priced such that they are distinctly advantageous to residential customers means they are fundamentally disadvantageous to other players in the field. 

It's a little complicated as an issue, if you want more info, I wrote an article for Oil & Energy magazine that delves a little more into the specifics- you can read that article here: "Net Metering Under Threat"

The United States' largest privately owned coal company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in late October. Murray Energy joins at least 7 other major companies as casualties in the move toward cleaner and more sustainable energy.

2018 saw the lowest demand level for coal since 1978, so the bankruptcy filings are not very surprising - it is becoming more a matter of when companies either change focus to add in non-coal sources, or slowly dwindle on earnings. The major looming question will be how workers and other supply chain members are compensated for wages, contracts, etc as this sector of the industry reorganizes.

I wrote an article for Oil & Energy Magazine that goes into a little more detail on the subject and potential outcomes going forward. You can read that article in its' entirety here: Coal Companies Seek Bankruptcy Protection 

May 31st 2019, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power station in Plymouth, MA shut down for the last time. Now the lengthy process to fully decommission the plant and return the site to its former condition begins. 

Pilgrim has been operational for 47 years, producing approximately 15% of the State's energy needs through nuclear power generation. The loss of power generation from the Pilgrim closure should be offset by increases from new plants, as well as a continued decline in demand, particularly during peak periods. The forecast for this years usage for example, is down 600 megawatts as compared to the prior year. 

Not everyone is on board with seeing the Pilgrim closure as a positive though. Nuclear is a reliable, zero emission power source, and market conditions mean new nuclear plants are unlikely, so the shuttering of existing plants versus running repairs and safety/regulatory upgrades essentially means Massachusetts is most likely permanently out of nuclear power generation. 

I wrote an article for Oil & Energy magazine detailing some of the cited impacts the closure will have, the decommissioning timeline, regulatory concerns, and concerns about withdrawing from nuclear in general.

You can read that article here: Massachusetts' Only Nuclear Power Plant is Retired  

Holyoke MA, the site of the last coal fired plant in MA, this year will see the smokestacks of the now closed plant taken down. The site is now home to the largest solar farm in the state, and the first large scale renewables battery storage system. By 2017, the Mount Tom site housed over 17,000 solar panels, and in 2018 Engie (formerly GDF Suez) installed 3 megawatts of battery storage on site to keep supply to the grid consistent. 

Holyoke Gas & Electric, which is the city owned utility, supplies roughly 90% of its power from carbon-free sources, including nuclear, about 2/3 of which comes from wind and solar. 

I've written a few articles for Oil & Energy magazine about the project in Holyoke, which has become essentially a template for communities moving toward more renewable power, as well as looking at workforce shifts, equitable pay outs, and job training for the changes brought by moving power sources, which Engie and Holyoke did a fantastic job with. You can read them here: Holyoke's Path Away from Coal and here Massachusetts Envisions Huge Growth in Energy Storage

Grid Resilience is top of mind for utility companies, the DOE, and the general public these days, as we see increasingly destructive storms hit the United States. Over the past two years we had five major impact hurricanes (Irma, Harvey, Maria, Florence & Michael) and the consensus is that these will continue, or worsen, over the coming years due to Climate Change. 

The goal of resiliency is to have the power grid for an area diversified and upgraded such that it can handle extreme demands. The DOE outlines the major concepts that underlie resilience planning as: Robustness, Resourcefulness, Rapid Recovery & Adaptability. These separate but connected aims allow the grid to both better absorb shocks and more rapidly adjust different factors to respond to risks & outages. 

We got a decent look back on how upgrades and risk management planning played out in some of the storms in the past two years. I wrote an article for Oil & Energy magazine detailing each storms responses & issues, as well as more information on resiliency goals in general. You can read that article here: Hurricane Resilience 

2018 has been a busy and effective year for Massachusetts' quest to advance Clean Energy within the State. Here are some highlights:

• Massachusetts surpassed 2,000 megawatts of installed solar capacity throughout the state (78,646 projects), almost half of which was installed in just the past two years. 
• Residential energy storage increases accounted for 72% of all megawatt hours in the 2nd quarter. 
• Community Solar projects have been gaining traction - these programs let people subscribe to solar farms and receive credits based on their share of the solar energy generated. 
• The SMART (Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target) incentive program is now active, and is expected to generate 1,600 megawatt hours of new solar.
• The Clean Energy Bill was signed into law by Governor Baker in August. The bill is a compromise measure that raises the renewable portfolio standard, imposes a minimum percentage of clean energy required for peak demand usage, and increases energy storage goals and requirements. 
• SJC ruled in September that the state can enforce the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions related in a 2008 law. 

I wrote an article for Oil & Energy Magazine that gets further into detail on the SJC ruling, Clean Energy Bill, the advancements in energy storage, and changes in Solar Energy regulations. If you would like to get a more thorough picture of where Massachusetts is at the end of 2018 and what the next few years are looking like, you can read that article here:

Massachusetts Accelerates Clean Energy Agenda