The Northeast Clean Energy Council (NECEC) commends the passage of An Act to Advance Clean Energy, which includes a number of actions  that will support the clean energy industry in Massachusetts. With nearly unanimous votes in the House and Senate, NECEC calls upon Governor Charlie Baker to sign the legislation into law and looks forward to working with lawmakers to resolve issues such as net metering, not included in the bill.

"The final bill represents a continued commitment to clean energy leadership in Massachusetts," said NECEC President Peter Rothstein. "We are at a pivotal point where key policy changes are needed to ensure that markets here continue to flourish and accelerate clean energy, including solar, wind, advanced energy storage, energy efficiency, peak demand reduction and more. This legislation is a step in the right direction and we look forward to continued collaboration with lawmakers to ensure that Massachusetts remains a leader in this sector."

"We are pleased to see that this bill targets some of our top clean energy priorities: increasing the Renewable Portfolio Standard, expanding energy efficiency and spurring development of energy storage," said NECEC Executive Vice President Janet Gail Besser. "However, while it helpfully clarifies the structure for new charges for solar customers, there remains uncertainty in the Commonwealth's solar market due to caps on net metering that have been hit. Overall this legislation is a positive step forward and will spark more growth in the clean energy economy Massachusetts has built over the last decade."

The following clean energy policies were passed as part of today's An Act to Advance Clean Energy are:

Renewable Portfolio Standard - Raises the RPS by increasing the annual RPS growth rate to 2% until 2029 and then to 1% thereafter, increasing the requirements from 25% to 35% in 2030 and from 35% to 45% in 2040.

Solar - Addresses the unfair and inefficient mandatory residential demand charge approved in Eversource's recent rate case. 

Energy Storage - Establishes a stronger 1,000 MWh deployment target for utility, third-party and customer owned systems in 2025. 

Modernize the Grid - Requires utilities to file annual resiliency reports with the DPU and hold competitive solicitations for non-wires alternatives from third party developers as a solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, replacing aging infrastructure, benefitting stressed, congested or severe weather-prone areas of the electric grid.

Buildings - Promotes energy efficiency by enabling more technologies to qualify within the Mass Save efficiency programs. 

Offshore Wind - Allows DOER, after studying the needs, benefits and costs, to conduct additional offshore wind procurements of up to 1,600 more megawatts by 2035. 

NECEC | www.necec.org