Power to the Households

by  Glenn C. Koenig, webmaster at Town Wide Mall

Maynard, MA - Residents of Maynard may soon be offered a deal that may sound too good to be true: An option to have their electricity come from more renewable sources and yet pay for it at rates similar to, or even lower than what they are paying now.

Although this may seem far fetched at first, this is exactly what 200 cities and towns in Massachusetts have already done, starting as far back as 2012. That’s well over half of the total of 351 municipalities in the Commonwealth.  Those that have already created such plans are listed on the state's web site:
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/municipal-aggregation

Maynard is now in the process of creating such a plan, known as “Maynard Power Choice.” The town has a dedicated web page with more details here:
https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/511/Maynard-Power-Choice

Maynard’s Select Board will host a presentation about the plan on Tuesday, June 4th at 7:00 PM.  Residents can attend the meeting in person at town hall (195 Main Street), or online by copying and pasting the link provided in the agenda.  Following the meeting, there will be a public comment period, extending from June 4th through July 8th.  The notice for the meeting and the agenda is here:
https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_06042024-1147
(Maynard Power Choice is listed under item #9)

This process is known officially as "Community Choice Aggregation" or “Municipal Aggregation.”
• Aggregation means that a town can gather thousands of households into a single group, giving it bargaining power, in order to obtain electricity at a “bulk rate,” or a quantity discount, on behalf of electric customers in town who have joined the program.  The result can be a better deal when compared to an individual homeowner choosing an alternative electric supplier on their own instead.
Local governments are free to create these plans under the existing state Department of Public Utilities program mentioned on the web site linked above.
• Choice means that, under the program, participation for individual households is voluntary.  That is, residents in a given town are free to choose to join in or say “no thank you” (opt out).  Those who opt out remain with the same standard electric supplier they now have (see item #3 in the “Overview” section on the state's web page).

Most Municipal Aggregation programs typically provide different “tiers” of electric rates, depending on the percentage of renewable sources providing the electricity.  For example, those willing to pay a slightly higher rate can obtain “100% renewable” power, eliminating their dependence on fossil fuels altogether.  Other tiers may provide a mix of renewable sources and others, such as fossil fuels, or nuclear.

If the plan goes forward in Maynard, resident’s electric bills will still come from Eversource, and the “delivery” section on the bill will remain as it is now; just the “supply” section will change.  Utility lines along the public streets in town, along with wiring connected to homes, will not change, regardless of how many households join the program.

Back in 2018, I interviewed the consultant who helped create the plan implemented in the town of Arlington prior to that time.  In this video, he describes how it was done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC1VfxsGgqY
I have other videos about saving energy, water, etc. on my site https://energystories.org

Recently, I contacted the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities while researching this story.  Alanna Kelly, official spokesperson for the DPU, provided the following statement on behalf of the department:
"Municipal aggregation is an important tool for communities to utilize clean energy while providing flexibility to ratepayers. The DPU continues to work through pending applications to ensure provision of electric service for aggregated customers is compliant and consistent with its focus to protect all ratepayers."

Background

• There is an article on Wikipedia that gives more details on how this all works, and what's being done in other states:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation

The electric power system faces an inherent conflict:  On the one hand, it exists in a free market economy, where competition is supposed to help control prices and quality.  On the other hand, having multiple competing companies each install their own utility poles and string wires along our streets proved to be quite impractical, early in the last century.  With only one set of wires leading to our homes, competition is out of the question, so we were stuck with a monopoly, initially.

Over decades, the federal government, along with state governments, enacted laws to regulate the industry.  Unfortunately, this approach suffered from a variety of problems.  

Government regulation, as well as industry infrastructure, is typically slow to change, whereas market conditions can fluctuate rapidly.  The “oil crisis” of the early 1970s is a prime example.  Fuel prices rose rapidly, squeezing utility companies, who fought for permission to raise rates substantially.  Customers were stuck on the sidelines; regardless of the result of the struggle between the companies and the government agencies, customers were left paying the bills each month.

In the 1990s, a new approach was developed.  The electric companies were made to “break up” into two parts: generation (supply) and distribution (delivery).

• Delivery: The existing company would handle distribution - as monopoly, yes, but as a regulated utility (the government controls the rates). That’s Eversource, here in Maynard.  They install and maintain the poles and wires, but this infrastructure changes slowly and predictably, so regulation is relatively practical.

• Supply: Customers could now choose who generated the electricity at the other end.  At first this seemed impossible; How could one choose a supplier without another set of wires to deliver the electricity?  The answer is based on where the money you pay goes. The portion of what you pay on the bill, designated as “supply,” is ultimately paid to the company that you chose to generate the electricity you use.  That supply company is connected to the same electric grid as all the others, which is how the electricity they generate reaches you, even though the electricity is "mixed in" with the electricity added to the grid by all the other suppliers.

For example, if you choose electricity generated by wind, then your money goes to the owners of the wind turbines.  Eversource is required to send the supply portion of what you pay to the wind farm owners.  That means less money goes to the companies using fossil fuels, which, in turn, means that they need to burn less fossil fuel, or operate fewer fossil fuel generating plants.

The reality is a bit more complicated.  Fossil fuel generating plants can’t just be shut down or started back up quickly. Nor can they be demolished and later replaced by new ones without an extraordinary lead time, spanning many years. Wind and solar generation depend on the availability of wind and sunlight, which varies throughout the day.  Of course, new ways are being developed to store energy when the wind is strong or the sun is bright, and send that energy back out to the grid during other times.  Some of that technology (to store energy) is already in place, but we have a ways to go before more of that is implemented.  Research is ongoing to find more commonly available materials with which to build better batteries, for example.  Meanwhile, we are in a transition period where we still have a variety of energy sources.  To give generating companies a bit more income stability, contracts are often set up for a period of a few years.

The other problem has been with the variety of supply companies to choose from, all with different multi-page contracts so sign.  Buried in the fine print there have often been guarantees for stable prices, but only for six months or so, after which the price can vary widely.  These companies add these provisions because nobody can predict the cost of generating in the future, base on fuel prices, or how many wind or solar panels go online, etc.  However, there were so many companies, operating in various states, that trying to manage them became an regulatory nightmare over the last decade or so.

Finally, we got to a point where the market was almost completely dominated by companies attempting to cheat customers.
This recent press release by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provides some details:
https://tinyurl.com/TWMLink08

There is another report on this situation from WBUR radio, just this past March:
https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/03/28/massachusetts-third-party-energy-competitive-suppliers-electricity-regulators

The issue boils down to this:  Individual electric customers don’t have the resources for a legal team to evaluate contracts and compel companies to provide a fair deal.  But towns are big enough and have enough resources that, together with state oversight, can execute fair contracts and keep prices reasonable.  And, in turn, towns can give customers a real choice, including better access to electricity generated with renewable resources.

Comment

Having direct experience with community choice aggregation when I lived in Arlington, I wholeheartedly support Maynard's efforts to implement a plan here.  When I first moved to Maynard, back in 2019, one of the first things I did was to visit town hall to inquire about creating a similar program in Maynard.  I'm glad to see that we're finally on the way.
Although there are pros and cons to renewable energy sources (aka "Green" energy) right now, I fully support moving forward with plans to transition away from fossil fuels as soon as we can.  This is an effort that will take years of work, and yet is urgent at the same time.
Although there is currently political turmoil regarding energy sources, I don't see much use in pointing the finger of blame, back and forth.

As I see it, the fossil fuel industry was well established before anyone alive today was born!  Although a few people, decades ago, warned that we were well on the way to harming the atmosphere, widespread awareness of the problem, world wide, is relatively recent.  This has all been exacerbated by the massive increase in world population during our lifetimes, resulting in a dramatic demand for more energy and resources.
The fossil fuel industry is not just a few CEOs and a publicity department (along with a significant lobbying arm).  It is also a massive infrastructure, along  with millions of employees, all of whom are concerned about losing their jobs.

That infrastructure also includes we, the customers, who benefit from using it's products, from the cars we drive, to the heating systems in our homes, as well as  the generating plants that produce our electric power.
At the same time, we must do what we can to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels as quickly and efficiently as possible.  As far as I am concerned, the evidence is clear - we are endangering all life on our planet, including our own.
Yes, we will have to help all those employees in the fossil fuel industry find new jobs elsewhere.  We will have to do our best to retire the old infrastructure and replace it with something new.  This will not happen all at once - some jobs will end when employees retire; some infrastructure will reach the end of its operational life over time.

Fortunately, we are already making the changes necessary.  Adding rooftop solar panels to our homes is one way.


For those without good access to the sun, we are contracting for solar electricity from nearby "solar farms."

In other communities, municipal aggregation has connected thousands of customers with wind generation.

We are also finding ways to reduce our energy use, through conservation measures, often with very little in the way of sacrifice in our daily lives.

In my opinion, we will have to do what we can to help each other make the transition away from fossil use and toward renewable sources, as we go forward.  But I have complete confidence that we can do this if we stay on task.

Town Wide Mall is primarily supported by your donations.  Please consider contributing by clicking the Donate button.

Donate