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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Maryland is now officially the tenth state to adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, phasing in zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles between model year 2027 and 2035. (news release)
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OFFSHORE WIND:
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COAL: Residents of Baltimore’s Curtis Bay community want Maryland not to renew a rail company’s air permit because of the neighborhood pollution caused by its coal dust pile. (Baltimore Sun)
FINANCE: A Washington, D.C. property assessed clean energy loan program surpasses $100 million in financed projects following the close of a $6.1 million financing of efficiency and renewable energy measures at a Georgetown hotel. (news release)
AFFORDABILITY: Eversource proposes a significant electric supply rate drop that should reduce power bills by around 35% starting in February. (WMUR)
CLIMATE: In Maine, some Portland residents say plans to cut down trees to expand a surface parking lot at the airport are entirely out-of-step with the region’s climate goals. (Portland Press Herald, Maine Public Radio)
The following story is the third in a series produced in collaboration with KAXE/KBXE, an independent, nonprofit community radio station that tells the stories of northern Minnesota.
A Minnesota taconite mining company and its electric utility are seeking federal funding for a demonstration project aimed at slashing diesel fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.
After an unsuccessful attempt to secure money this spring from the state Legislature, U.S. Steel and Minnesota Power have applied for a U.S. Department of Energy grant in hopes of kickstarting the project, which seeks to test a system to partially power mining trucks with electricity.
Once loaded, the enormous vehicles would connect to overhead power lines for the steepest part of their climb from the open pit mine. Running on electricity for that portion could reduce diesel fuel use by 70% per trip, according to the companies’ presentation to legislators earlier this year.
That also means a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. A new Minnesota law requires power companies to only sell clean electricity by 2040, a target that Minnesota Power is making progress toward. If powered by carbon-free electricity, one mine trolley in the U.S. Steel demonstration project would equate to replacing 520 gas-powered vehicles with electric on Minnesota’s roads, each year.
David Chura, manager of emerging initiatives for Minnesota Power’s parent company ALLETE, said the pilot project would provide insight into whether trolley systems could be scaled across the industry. The steel industry is seeing growing pressure from government, investors, and customers to lower its climate impact. U.S. Steel has committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
With the corporate green energy goals of Minnesota Power and U.S. Steel in mind, Chura said exploring applications of electrification in industrial settings was a natural step.
“We developed some model mines based on characteristics of actual mines here on the on the Iron Range,” Chura said. “That really helped inform our understanding of mine truck electrification and the opportunities here.”
Chura said energy savings are site-specific, meaning it depends on the steepness of the grade, the length of the haul and other factors. But this project’s anticipated fuel savings are 1.4 million gallons of diesel each year, amounting to 14,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. With those figures, mine trolleys could be a key approach to climate-friendly practices.
“That’s a very significant reduction of emissions as well as criteria pollutants in a key area of the state,” Chura said, noting the area’s proximity to the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs National Park, and state-designated environmental justice communities.
The idea of electric-powered mining trucks isn’t new. The 1970s oil crisis prompted numerous studies exploring benefits, according to mining electrification and automation company ABB. Despite this history, adoption has been slow. But ABB, which produces mine trolley systems, said recent projects demonstrating positive impacts show demand is on the rise. This includes in an open pit copper mine in Sweden operated by mining company Boliden.
Battery-powered electric mining trucks — which wouldn’t require hitching to a trolley line for hauling — are also moving closer to viability. In 2022, Caterpillar announced it successfully demonstrated a prototype of its first battery-powered truck at the company’s Tuscon, Arizona, proving grounds. The facility is set up to test sustainable solutions mining companies can use in their operations, offering firsthand experience with what it takes to run an electrified mining site.
Other types of clean fuel options are emerging, too. According to Caterpillar, green hydrogen production, fuel cell power generation and energy storage systems are all part of the equation.
“The site will also leverage a variety of renewable power sources, including wind, solar and hydrogen, capable of powering the facility and its products as they become electrified,” a news release stated. “The transformation of the facility will also serve as a learning platform for optimizing charging and energy management integration.”
The project in Minnesota would focus on converting existing trucks that operate on a diesel-electric hybrid system, similar to rail locomotives. Chura says some of these trucks, which have electric motors on each wheel, are already in use on the Iron Range.
Converting a truck to utilize overhead power lines to run the motors costs about $1.1 million, according to a presentation prepared for the Minnesota Legislature. The infrastructure costs would run $5 million-$8 million per mile, according to Chura. But the lines would be installed on the steepest parts of the trucks’ route, where the diesel engine works the hardest, resulting in substantial fuel savings.
“Just as the state has helped incentivize residential and commercial electric vehicle service, funding from either the state or the feds would help achieve those same benefits, but yet, at an industrial scale,” Chura said. “And those benefits really benefit all taxpayers.”
Bills were introduced in the state House and Senate this year to provide a $10 million grant, but they didn’t make it out of committee.
John Arbogast, District 11 staff representative for the United Steelworkers, testified in committee on behalf of the bill.
“Even some of the people that you thought might have been opposed to it were like, ‘Holy cow, is this interesting,’” Arbogast said.
Arbogast spent 26 years working at U.S. Steel’s MinnTac mine in Mountain Iron and is now the co-chair of the Iron Ore Alliance, a partnership between U.S. Steel and the United Steelworkers. He said environmental policy issues are one subject on which the union and the company often find agreement.
The trolley system would also increase the speed of the trucks as they travel up the incline, an aspect Arbogast said he thinks will appeal to the mining truck drivers.
“I think our members, the men and women who drive the trucks, will really like that,” he said. “Because they’re really good at what they do, and they have a lot of pride in hauling the ore to the crusher and getting as many loads as they can in their 12-hour shifts.”
Chura noted that the faster speeds mean a site could potentially get by with fewer trucks, which can cost millions of dollars each.
State Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, was chief author of the bill. He said he’s committed to fighting for the project into the future as part of an overall approach to a cleaner energy economy.
“Our mines are a critical part of that effort, and so why don’t we look for opportunities to move towards a cleaner industry, while also providing the very minerals and resources that we need in order to transition?” Hauschild said. “I think it’s a really a perfect putting-together of the puzzle pieces that make our region so strong and vital.”
The project partners turned their sights toward the federal government, applying for funds through the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. About $6 billion will fund projects aimed at reducing emissions in industrial subsectors, with award announcements expected early next year.
ELECTRIFICATION: A new Massachusetts policy aims to push the state away from natural gas heating, and at least 11 other states — including four in the Northeast — could take similar action. (Inside Climate News)
OIL & GAS: Exxon settles a 2016 lawsuit over the climate preparedness of a Boston-area petroleum storage terminal, agreeing to confidential terms that intervening environmentalists say protect the community. (E&E News)
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TRANSPORTATION: New York City’s council passes a new measure to accelerate protected bike lane development by changing the public comment process required. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
AFFORDABILITY: A Connecticut nonprofit’s new report shows the state’s energy affordability gap has grown 37% since last year, finding almost 250,000 households paid more than 6% of their income on energy bills. (CT Examiner)
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BUILDINGS: The developers of a community of solar-powered homes in Ellicott City, Maryland, say the new houses will be certified by the U.S. Department of Energy to be up to 50% more energy efficient than a typical new home. (Washington Post)
SOLAR: After over a decade of discussion, a Pennsylvania farming family finally adds a solar roof to one of their barns with the help of a roughly $229,000 federal rural energy grant. (Lancaster Farming)
A year after the war in Ukraine drove record-high fossil fuel prices for winter heating in oil-dependent Maine, demand for efficient electric heat pumps remains steady despite new challenges.
Spikes in fuel prices don’t tend to immediately translate to increased heat pump demand, officials said, but rather may spark new interest in oil and gas alternatives and other ways to cut back on heating costs.
“We do see a lot more visits (after a price spike) to the Efficiency Maine website and call center, looking for information about rebates and how to find a contractor,” said Michael Stoddard, the executive director of the quasi-governmental agency, which provides rebates for energy-saving upgrades.
In the months after such a spike, he said, heat pump contractors may start to get busier with new jobs.
“Traditionally these consumers were curious to learn if they could save money by switching to propane or natural gas, or burning firewood or pellets,” he said. “But now it seems they are mostly interested in switching to heat pumps because they cost less to operate and deliver air conditioning in the summer.”
Many Maine contractors say summer is their busiest time for this reason, and have been booked out months on heat pump installations since well before heating oil prices neared $7 a gallon a year ago.
“I am busy all year round,” said Sam Black, the owner and operator of Blacks Heat Pumps in Glenburn. He said he’s already had a few prospective customers ask about new rebates expected from the Inflation Reduction Act in 2024. Maine is still deciding on how it will allocate billions in funding from that package.
A note on the website of Midcoast Energy Systems, an HVAC contractor based in Damariscotta, Maine, says “manufacturer and distribution supply chain issues” have been making it tough to maintain a consistent heat pump inventory.
“Unfortunately, this does delay our ability to schedule installs as quickly and regularly as we’d like,” the company’s website says. “We are, however, doing the best we can with these market restrictions to work with customers as efficiently as possible.”
In the year since last winter’s fuel price crisis, Black has also heard “a lot of complaining” from his heat pump customers about high electricity rates. Already among the highest in the contiguous U.S., these rates increased sharply in Maine in January 2023.
The increase was largely due to the same geopolitical factors that made heating oil so expensive last winter — constrained global fossil fuel supplies and high prices, especially for fracked gas, which powers much of the New England grid and also supplies far more heating in most of the region outside Maine.
By the same token, Maine regulators announced this week that electric rates will be reduced in 2024. “This is a much different scenario than we saw last year at this time, with natural gas prices coming down significantly since then,” said state Public Utilities Commission chair Phil Bartlett in a statement.
People who installed a heat pump in summer 2022, Black said, may have been caught off guard by a high electric bill after the new rates took effect at the height of the cold season — though an electric bill for one or two home heat pumps would still be far less than a typical oil bill, even at more average prices.
The Maine Governor’s Energy Office tracks heating fuel prices on a weekly basis. They reported that the high heating oil price in the state was $4.65 per gallon as of Nov. 13, 2023, compared to $6.74 in the same week in 2022. In that week, even the low-end oil price was higher than the current highest price in the state.
Kerosene prices were above $7 per gallon last November and now stand at $4.99 on average in Maine. Propane for home heating has decreased in price by about a quarter, down to just over $3 a gallon to end November.
“As we approach winter, energy prices are expected to be lower than the prior two years,” said energy office director Dan Burgess in a Nov. 9 press release announcing a state guide to saving money on home heat. “However, volatile energy markets around the world continue to impact heating bills here at home.”
Maine relies more on oil for home heat than any other state, but this is slowly changing. The state said in its press release that about 56% of Mainers used heating oil in 2022, down from more than 60% in much of the past decade, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Electric heat users increased from about 6% of the state’s population to nearly 11% in the same period.
“From 2018-2022, Maine saw a 10 percent decrease in heating oil as a primary fuel for home heating with an increase in households utilizing electricity during that time,” the state energy office said in its release. “The period coincides with record adoption of high efficiency air source heat pumps in Maine.”
Efficiency Maine did not have data immediately available to illustrate the relationship between heat pump demand and fossil fuel prices. But the agency told The New York Times that as of early November, they’d given rebates for more than 32,000 new heat pumps so far in 2023, compared to 28,000 last year.
The state announced this past summer that it had surpassed a target of installing 100,000 new heat pumps by 2025. Gov. Janet Mills upped the goal to 175,000 more heat pumps by 2027.
The state climate plan, due for its first four-year update at the end of next year, seeks to encourage more multi-unit or “whole home” heat pump systems as total fossil fuel replacements by 2030. Officials have said these goals are directly based on modeled reductions in carbon emissions.
A 128-year-old Cleveland-area industrial equipment manufacturer is among the newest makers of fast chargers for the growing electric vehicle market.
Lincoln Electric’s new Velion DC fast charger adapts and adds to technology the company has used for its welding machines and other heavy-duty power equipment.
The innovation is an example of how more U.S. manufacturers outside of the energy sector are beginning to find sometimes unexpected opportunities to participate in the country’s growing clean energy economy.
It all started almost two years ago when a group of senior engineers walked into president and CEO Chris Mapes’ office and explained the similarities between direct-current electric vehicle chargers and the plasma and electronics equipment the company has long manufactured, adding: “We think we can make these.”
“If you were to open up a welding machine or a plasma cutting machine, you would see power electronics,” Mapes explained, following a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Euclid, Ohio, last week for the company’s new fast charger product. Software engineering works with printed circuit boards to manage power, similar to what happens in a DC fast charger.
The company already has its own printed circuit board manufacturing facility. The innovation challenge was developing software to let a charger interface with any electric vehicle. When people plug in a vehicle, it and the charger go through a series of electronic messages and “handshakes.” Those share information about the car and the charger, as well as details about how much electricity is needed, signals and feedback for a precharge test, and then the actual charge.
Reliability has been a challenge for electric vehicle charging. Drivers can plan trips to stop at charging stations along the way, but out-of-order chargers can cause frustration and derail trips. That all adds to range anxiety.
Steve Sumner, vice president for corporate innovation, said some other EV chargers “were born out of designs and manufacturing strategies that were more appropriate for lab-grade equipment — something that would see its whole life inside in perfect conditions.” In the real world, rain, snow, cold temperatures, hot temperatures, wind, dust and other factors can mess with electronics.
“What Lincoln Electric’s really known for, besides being a very good power conversion company, is making devices that last and live their whole lives outside,” Sumner said, noting that the company’s industrial products have been used on ships, in deserts and even in Antarctica. Likewise, the new charger is “purpose-built for ruggedness in the field.”
One reason for that reliability is that the company coats its printed circuit boards with a clear plastic epoxy. Two circuit boards go together in a metal casing to make 50-kilowatt modules.
Three of those modules make up the heart of the charger’s power tower, which typically sits behind a fence near a grid connection. The relatively few electrical connections between the modules and other parts of the equipment also provide protection from the elements.
“Because it’s so ‘simple’ and clean in design, and well protected, that’s where we believe the inherent reliability comes from,” Sumner said.
As an established company that began in the United States, Lincoln Electric was already compliant with Federal Highway Administration’s Buy America standards, levy standards and other regulatory programs, said Sheila Cockburn, who works with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation that advises on those standards.
“They’re leveraging their current technology to enter a newer market,” Cockburn said. “And they’ve been smart in being able to see the vision of where things are going and being able to pivot to use what they have to supply the new market.”
The move is an example of how companies can play a role in the clean energy economy, even if they aren’t currently part of the energy sector, said Rick Stockburger, president and CEO of BRITE Energy Innovators, based in Warren, Ohio. The organization acts as a hub to provide business and technical expertise to entrepreneurs looking to serve the energy sector.
“It’s exactly the type of leadership we need to see from all of our legacy manufacturers in developing new products,” Stockburger said.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other recent federal policies and funding programs can help private manufacturers make that transition.
“If you look at what came down in legislation from the past three years, we’re not leaving behind American manufacturing like we did with the solar tax credits in the Obama administration,” Stockburger said. “We put American-made caveats in all of these bills.” And he looks forward to seeing what comes next from other companies.
“The one thing I’ll never underestimate is the power of American innovation,” Stockburger said. “There are just really, really smart people that look at opportunity and frankly are interested in seizing it.”
The following commentary was written by Alli Gold Roberts, state policy director, and Zach Friedman, federal policy director, at Ceres. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
We are at a crucial period in the shift to electric vehicles. A growing number of companies are moving to electrify their corporate fleets to reduce costs on fuel and maintenance, and the auto industry is making significant investments into battery and vehicle production in the United States — recognizing they need to stay competitive in a changing global market toward clean cars and trucks.
Ambitious public policy — from federal tax credits to the clean vehicle standards adopted by a growing number of states — is helping to grow the market for electric vehicles. Still, there is more work to be done to create the strong, advanced domestic auto and trucking industries we need to meet the growing demand. Achieving that vision will require more collaboration, investments, and policy action. And much of that must go toward building out the infrastructure to support electric vehicles — the charging stations, the supply chains, the workforces, and more.
That is why Congress rightly included strategic investments in domestic electric vehicle and charging infrastructure manufacturing and deployment in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, a historic investment in U.S. competitiveness that was signed into law two years ago this week.
The law delivered on a generation of urgent calls to invest in U.S. infrastructure, and has already begun delivering billions upon billions of dollars to upgrade and modernize bridges, roads, tunnels, railways, airports, electric grids, water pipes, and much more. Widely supported by the public and private sectors alike, the bipartisan achievement is a testament to the virtue of good-faith collaboration to address a long-term challenge. And that includes building the infrastructure we need to create a more sustainable and forward-looking transportation system by supporting the growth of electric vehicles.
The law’s investments include programs designed to increase ease of electric vehicle charging. Most prominently is the creation of the first-ever national electric vehicle charging network, a $7.5 billion partnership between the federal and state governments. By helping to fund a half-million new chargers across the nation’s highways, the National Electric Vehicle Initiative will provide predictability to motorists that they will be able to charge up on the interstate system every 50 miles or so. Every state submitted a plan to participate in the program, with Ohio as the first to break ground at a charging station near Columbus in October and more states quickly following suit.
The package also brought a $7 billion investment to U.S. electric vehicle supply chains, helping to ensure the most crucial electric vehicle components are made, processed, and assembled here in the U.S. These programs will bolster U.S. energy security by reducing our dependency on international markets as electric vehicles grow in popularity.
And the law’s electric vehicle investments provide a robust foundation for the market to build upon. Manufacturers like Siemens, for example, have expanded their footprint in the U.S. to support the build-out of the charging network, including at a new manufacturing hub in Texas. And through their strike this fall, the United Auto Workers won union representation at battery plants that received investments under the bipartisan infrastructure law — including at Ultium Cells, a joint venture from General Motors that received a $2.5 billion Department of Energy loan for facilities in Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. This victory supports the creation of good-paying jobs and ensures workers and communities benefit from the clean vehicle transition.
At Ceres, the sustainability nonprofit where we each work with companies to support public policies that are good for the climate and the economy, we have seen firsthand as businesses increasingly prioritize technology and solutions that are good for the climate and for their bottom lines. That is why they are increasingly vocal advocates for public policies that help expand electric vehicle growth and reduce vehicle miles traveled.
In 2022, they pushed for passage of the nation’s largest-ever federal climate and clean energy investment, the Inflation Reduction Act and its tax credits designed to encourage both manufacturing and sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. — leading to even greater private investment in electric vehicle manufacturing and infrastructure. And this year, leading businesses are pushing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to finalize strong anti-pollution standards that would further accelerate the widespread adoption of electric and other clean vehicles, while also providing certainty for their investments, and strengthening the competitiveness of the U.S. auto and trucking industries.
Businesses have long been among the strongest champions of upgrades to the infrastructure the economy depends on, as seen in the strong corporate support for the 2021 infrastructure bill. And just like roads and bridges are key drivers of economic activity, electric vehicle growth and the ambitious policies to encourage it are only possible with the right infrastructure in place. Two years in, thanks to continued partnership between the public and private sectors, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is now beginning to deliver it.
This commentary was submitted by Holly Caggiano, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia, and Sara Constantino, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Psychology Department and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
After paying our monthly utility bills, most of us take for granted the complex network of infrastructure and institutions that keep the lights on. This is changing. The average monthly electricity bill for residential customers nationally increased 13% from 2021 to 2022, rising from $121 to $137 a month, while climate change and aging and mismanaged electrical infrastructure have contributed to a string of disastrous wildfires. Confronted with rising costs of living and the urgent need to protect the environment, people across the country are taking a serious look at how their utilities are owned and operated.
Electric utilities, which can act as generators, distributors and/or service providers, play a key role in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. For decades, a small number of for-profit, investor-owned utilities (IOUs) have powered most of the country. On November 7th, Maine challenged this model with Ballot Question 3, The Pine Tree Power initiative, proposing a transformation of the state’s two largest IOUs into a non-profit, democratically-managed public utility.
Before the vote, the Washington Post dubbed Maine the “epicenter” of the nation’s growing anger with electric utilities. Customer approval ratings of Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant–the state’s two largest IOUs, owned by parent companies in Spain and Canada–are among the lowest in the country, but Maine is just one of an increasing number of states where people are raising concerns. Groups across the country have called for public takeover of IOUs, claiming investors prioritize profit over system maintenance, disregard consumer safety, and delay climate action.
While many IOUs have embraced climate action on paper, their actions say otherwise. One recent study found that electric utilities have pushed climate delay, doubt, and denial over multiple decades, promoting messaging explicitly designed to absolve inaction. Reporting also reveals widespread corruption and attempts to halt regulation to encourage clean energy and reduce ratepayer costs. Climate activism group 350.org labeled CMP one of the biggest anti-climate lobbyists in Maine.
IOUs have also been implicated in destructive and deadly wildfires. Hawaiian Electric Company recently acknowledged responsibility for the Maui wildfires—they failed to shut off power despite high winds and dry conditions. California’s PG&E narrowly avoided a trial on manslaughter charges for their role in the 2020 Zogg fire that killed four. IOUs know that the public is worried by their questionable safety records, responding with expensive PR campaigns. These tactics come from an old playbook. In The Big Myth, Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes describe 1920s propaganda campaigns to push privatization that ushered in higher rates for homeowners and bigger profits for corporations. A century later, we’re back to questioning this model.
Private utilities in Maine spent millions lobbying against the ballot initiative and the governor was vocally opposed. We ran a survey with the Climate and Community Project to learn more about how Mainers were feeling in the lead up to the vote. We found that Mainers are overwhelmingly concerned about keeping the lights on, with 88% of respondents very or somewhat worried about current and future energy costs. And despite the lobbying efforts of the private utilities, most respondents believe that their utilities should be locally owned and operated (55%) and not-for-profit (66%).
While these sentiments weren’t reflected in the election results, the reasons are nuanced. Our data suggests that many Mainers weren’t rejecting public-ownership itself, but were looking for a more fully realized plan, citing ambiguities about how the takeover would be financed, if costs would be passed to consumers, and if it would hold up in court—67% of our respondents thought it was somewhat or very likely that Pine Tree would face legal and regulatory challenges.
Despite investor-owned utilities pouring money into campaigns to oppose public power, there is growing momentum to reconsider how our power systems are owned and operated. One recent success is New York’s Build Public Renewables Act, which passed into law in May. After four years of organizing by Public Power NY, a coalition of more than twenty community organizations, the law authorizes the New York Power Authority to build renewable energy projects that help meet the state’s climate goals and include strong labor standards. Municipalization of utilities is also a hot topic in Western states, with ongoing organizing in California and Texas.
Some supporters of the Pine Tree Power campaign hoped that a win would fuel more initiatives across the country. In our poll, 41% of respondents thought it was somewhat or very likely that if passed, Pine Tree Power would spark a larger cross-state movement towards public ownership of energy resources. Despite Mainers choosing to stick with their current model for now, the ballot initiative brought national attention to the issue and has encouraged many to question the status quo. Rather than signaling the end of the road for public power in Maine, this vote could be the beginning of a sustained conversation about transforming our utilities. The research, organizing and discussions that went into the Pine Tree campaign provide a foundation for future efforts to improve the service, safety and sustainability of our energy infrastructure—and start to shift the energy narrative about what is possible, and desirable.
In Maine, we saw how the movement for public power united people across demographic and party lines. Rural or urban, Democrat or Republican, we all deserve access to clean, affordable, and reliable electricity. Climate change is forcing us to reconsider how we produce energy but it doesn’t need to stop there. This is an opportunity to reimagine who owns energy infrastructure and whose interests it serves.
Maine is drafting plans for its share of nearly $9 billion in home energy and efficiency rebate funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, with a straw proposal due out by the end of the year for input from contractors and other professionals who will be on the front lines of promoting new and expanded incentives to the public.
The landmark 2022 climate legislation known as the IRA included two programs focused on household rebates for weatherization, electrification and more, aiming to reduce energy use, costs and emissions for low-income families in particular.
Maine and other states are crafting applications to the U.S. Department of Energy that detail how they hope to use the funding on new and expanded incentives. States will have to balance offering larger rebates with ensuring more availability, while navigating overlaps with existing programs and considering new goals.
The IRA programs at issue include $4.3 billion across all states for “energy-saving retrofits” and another $4.5 billion across states and tribes for efficient electric appliances and equipment.
“It’s an unprecedented amount of money to be going to this particular thing of helping people make their homes more modern, cleaner, healthier and cheaper to operate,” said Kristin Eberhard, the senior director of state and local policy with the electrification advocacy group Rewiring America.
Maine, for its part, can get about $36 million from each program — and, under each, must direct a minimum of about $11.5 million to low-income households and another $2.8 million or more to low-income people who live in multifamily housing.
“It’s really transformative,” Eberhard said. “It’s going to have a much bigger impact than anything we’ve seen up to date on those harder-to-reach households.”
Maine energy officials say these groups are already a priority for growing the impact of existing rebates, and will be top of mind in their IRA plans.
“We’re trying to figure out where the gaps are and how we could deploy these funds to fill some of those gaps,” said Efficiency Maine Executive Director Michael Stoddard, whose quasi-governmental agency oversees state energy incentives.
Through rebates, loans, aggressive marketing and coordination throughout the supply chain, Maine has emerged as a national leader in deploying electric heat pumps, which provide high-efficiency space heating, cooling and water heating.
Buildings are an entrenched source of planet-warming carbon emissions in Maine, where a greater share of households rely on home heating oil than any other state. That dependence declined from 70% to 56% in 2022, the state reported on Nov. 9.
Maine has already met the initial 2025 heat pump target in its climate action plan, but lags behind on its goal for getting the technology into lower-income homes.
The state already offers hundreds of dollars off heat pumps for people of any income. Lower-income families can get $2,000 off their first unit. For those who qualify for government assistance, both equipment and installation may be free.
This 100% coverage is essential for the lowest-income families, Eberhard said — those who “can’t put up anything.” But Maine’s existing program “only has so much funding,” she said. “It can only reach so many households.”
“So some of that is where these rebates are going to come in and … give an infusion where they will be able to reach a lot more low-income households,” Eberhard said. “They know how to do it now. It’s just the money to do it.”
Efficiency Maine, working with MaineHousing and the Governor’s Energy Office — the federal designee for receiving this IRA money — is contemplating new income tiers to help make higher rebate amounts more accessible, according to Stoddard.
People with the lowest income might qualify for the highest rebates — $8,000 or 100% of project costs for heat pumps, under IRA rules. And the state might split the moderate-income category, which will receive lower rebates, into two tiers, offering more flexibility for people at different income levels than under current programs.
People in multifamily buildings are able to qualify alone or collectively, based on their income or the share of tenants in the building in each bracket. The IRA also includes rules that would allow renters to request rebates for their apartments.
Stoddard expects IRA funding will be especially useful for moderate-income households to move toward “whole-home” heat pump systems, which are a key part of Maine’s long-term electrification goals.
But just as important, he said, is what Maine doesn’t plan to do with its IRA funds.
“What these IRA rebate programs enable us to do is expand and extend the number of customers that we can serve — but it’s not likely that it’s going to dramatically change the amount of incentive on any individual project,” Stoddard said. “That may be true in other states … where they’ve had no programs until this money came along, but that’s not the case in Maine.”
Several kinds of heat pump hot water heaters, for example, are basically free under current incentives, so Stoddard doesn’t expect to emphasize those for IRA funding.
Likewise, he doesn’t expect Maine’s single-family home insulation rebates will change. He said the IRA’s rules for modeling energy savings for these rebates could be onerous or too costly for individual customers.
Instead, Stoddard expects Maine to focus this pool of money again on multifamily buildings, where the IRA’s requirements may be easier to accommodate in bulk.
These rebates come from the efficiency portion of IRA, and will vary depending on how much energy the user will save — hence the need for modeling. But weatherization isn’t the only allowable path to achieving those savings, Stoddard said, meaning that multifamily buildings could also use this money for heat pumps.
State applications for this IRA funding have to include consumer education and outreach plans and other strategies, including a “market transformation plan” on how the use of this money will help lead to ongoing home energy investments.
Eberhard said Maine has already set a standard for this kind of transformation with its approach to heat pumps — working “upstream” with suppliers, distributors, contractors and retailers to make savings and resources as accessible as possible.
“If we had that in every state in the country, where you walked into Lowe’s [and heat pumps were front and center], and your contractor knew how to do it, and your distributor could take care of the rebate — that’s a real game-changer,” she said.
There’s no hard deadline for states to apply for the IRA rebate funds, and the money is available through the fall of 2031. But Dan Burgess, who heads the Maine Governor’s Energy Office, said efforts like those that Maine has already established should make its IRA rollout easier.
“I think we’re in a good place to put these funds to good use and to hopefully be one of the early states moving forward with a rebate program,” he said.
Maine is considering new kinds of electric rates to encourage more widespread home adoption of electric vehicle chargers and heat pumps while easing the strain these technologies add to the power grid.
Central Maine Power, the larger of the state’s two investor-owned utilities, is working with regulators and advocacy groups on designs for time-of-use rates, which charge customers more for electricity use at times of day when demand on the grid is at its peak.
But these rates are only one piece of the puzzle, stakeholders say. They anticipate more planning work to come on complementary technologies that will make it easier for customers to change their energy use.
Time-of-use and related tools to limit and shift electricity demand are currently most common among larger commercial and industrial customers, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. But as home electrification accelerates, some utilities have begun trying out similar programs for residential ratepayers.
Central Maine Power is currently piloting seasonal heating and electrification-focused rates, and the smaller Maine utility, Versant Power, has its own time-of-use programs for heat pumps and electric vehicle charging already in place.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission is working to expand time-of-use rates on multiple fronts, including in one proceeding that was required as part of the June settlement in Central Maine Power’s latest rate case. The utility, which is owned by Connecticut-based Avangrid, is due to file a proposal on the issue Dec. 1.
“I personally believe that there’s a great opportunity here for all of our policy goals to be advanced,” said deputy Maine public advocate Drew Landry, whose office acts as an ombudsperson for residential utility customers. “But if we do it wrong, there’s a chance that we could undermine all of them.”
Transportation and buildings are Maine’s top sources of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. This underlies the state climate plan’s ambitious goals for expanding the use of electric vehicles and heat pumps, which use electricity for high-efficiency water and space heating as well as air conditioning.
Maine relies more than any other state on home heating oil but has made strong progress on switching to heat pumps, already meeting its initial target of installing 100,000 new units by 2025. The large, rural state is also hoping to accelerate its so-far slow progress on electric vehicle adoption.
The utilities commission’s goals for its ongoing time-of-use work with Central Maine Power and other stakeholders are to “incentivize customers to shift usage away from the summer peak,” encourage wintertime use of heat pumps and other efficient systems, and complement state rebate and discount programs for this kind of technology.
In its upcoming proposal, the utility must consider at least four alternative rate designs specific to electric vehicles and heat pumps and consider a rebate program for customers who successfully reduce their electricity usage at peak times. The utility is also asked to propose a “customer education and communication plan” on these initiatives, and will have to draft data-gathering plans to aid in future, similar rate design processes.
Rates in this particular proceeding would fit under the distribution charge on customers’ bills. A separate ongoing docket looks at tying similar rates to the supply charge, which is a larger part of ratepayers’ costs.
Landry, the deputy public advocate, said more use of heat pumps and electric vehicles is sure to drive up New England’s peak demand, which typically falls between 5 and 9 p.m. in summer and, increasingly, winter.
Absent large-scale energy storage, Landry said, this increased demand could exceed available renewable power supplies, potentially adding to emissions. New England’s grid remains largely reliant on natural gas and, in recent years’ cold snaps, has tended to burn oil and coal as its backup fuels.
Widespread electrification will require significant and costly investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure, stakeholders say, no matter how rates are designed.
But they see time-of-use as a way to moderate that impact. These rates, Landry said, send a price signal that encourages electricity use at “off-peak” times when it will be easier and cheaper on the grid — nudging people, for example, to wait to charge their cars until near bedtime as opposed to right after work.
The solution is less straightforward for heat pumps, but Landry said pre-heating with a smart thermostat or using an electric thermal storage system could help limit the need for intensive heating during peak hours.
Landry and others agreed that helping customers access technology to manage their electricity use — and making it extremely simple to navigate related rate changes — will be vital to success.
“There needs to be careful consideration and effective implementation of consumer protections to make sure that it doesn’t create financial hardships for customers who are either low-income and/or have high energy burdens, in this time of high electricity prices,” said Phelps Turner, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, which is an intervenor in the distribution-focused utilities commission proceeding.
Landry said he feels customers need “an action they can take in response to the price signal.” Otherwise, the rates “may simply penalize customers for using electricity when they have limited options,” he said, or “may be perceived as being burdensome,” creating a potential backlash.
Efficiency Maine, the quasi-governmental agency that runs energy rebate programs for the state, already offers a “load management” incentive of $50 upfront plus $50 a year for electric vehicle drivers who give the agency permission and electronic access to set their cars to charge automatically overnight by default.
“Study after study shows that the cost of our transition, very broadly — like the amount of generation, transmission, distribution that we need to fully electrify our economy — is dramatically lower the more load control you have associated with it,” said Ian Burnes, the agency’s director of strategic initiatives. He referenced a recently published draft study from ISO-New England, the regional grid manager, showing that transmission costs to accommodate increased load rise sharply with higher peak demand.
This means programs like Maine’s existing electric vehicle incentive will be important pairings to any future time-of-use rates, he said. “What we’re trying to build off of is to have devices that can respond to prices,” he said, “so the customer just has to say, ‘I’m just going to set this up once,’ and then the device does the work for them.”
With Central Maine Power’s initial time-of-use plans still in progress, there are open questions remaining around whether participation should be “opt-in,” and whether and how these rates might apply only to people who use relevant technologies or to all ratepayers.
Either way, customer education will be key, said the Conservation Law Foundation’s Turner — either ensuring that ratepayers understand the benefits of signing up if the rates are voluntary, or offering easy steps they can take to avoid penalties and achieve cost savings if the rates are automatically applied.
Burnes said he also hopes that more data-gathering by the utilities and agencies like his will help assess the “fairness” of current and future electrification-focused rates.
Smart meters will be one tool to achieve this, he said, with a goal of determining whether new rates only make power cheaper for some more than for others, or whether they create savings across the system.
Wisconsin will lose out on millions of federal dollars for electric vehicle charging infrastructure if the state does not pass legislation to allow stores or other owners of EV chargers to bill drivers for the amount of electricity they get when they plug in.
Billing by the kilowatt-hour is a requirement to participate in the federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which has promised Wisconsin $78.6 million and the chance to apply for a pot of $2.5 billion in competitive funding if it meets the program requirements.
The goal of NEVI is to develop charging corridors along highways, with chargers available every 50 miles.
Advocates are hoping for legislation that would make the change needed for federal funding, by enshrining in law that billing for electricity at an EV charger is allowed and would not make the owner a public utility.
The legislature takes a break from Nov. 16 to January 16, hence advocates say time is of the essence to meet the March 2024 deadline for federal funding.
Legislation allowing billing by the kilowatt-hour was introduced in 2021 but didn’t pass. Advocates say they are expecting Republican state Sen. Howard Marklein to introduce a bill this fall. A spokesperson for Marklein’s office said they expect the bill to be circulated for co-sponsors next week.
“We have a sense of urgency we didn’t have last year,” said Francisco Sayu, director of emerging technology for RENEW Wisconsin. “That limitation on electric vehicle charging stations has slowed down the Wisconsin market. We don’t have as many EV charging providers in the state as we could.”
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has a plan for deploying charging stations in keeping with the NEVI requirements, but the law change is needed to receive the funds.
Currently in Wisconsin, entities from municipal governments to convenience stores that host chargers can only collect a parking fee or bill for the amount of time a vehicle is plugged in.
“We may be the only state left in jeopardy of losing federal funding for EV corridors,” said Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin (CUB).
The consulting firm EVAdoption reported that in fall 2021, there were 2,251 charging stations in Illinois, 1,226 in Minnesota and 881 in Wisconsin, including level one and two and fast-charging stations. There are 15,700 electric vehicles registered in Wisconsin, compared to 66,880 in Illinois and 24,330 in Minnesota, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Even adjusting for Illinois’ larger population, Wisconsin still lags on both fronts.
Electric vehicle advocates and owners say Wisconsin’s charging network is woefully lacking, making it harder to rely on an electric vehicle in the state.
Corey Singletary, utility analyst for CUB, testified before the Public Service Commission about a road trip he took with his family in their electric Ford 150 Lightning pickup, from Madison to Minneapolis along Interstate 94.
This heavily-traveled corridor proved difficult to traverse with an electric vehicle: at one Electrify America charging station, two out of four chargers were inoperable, there was a half-hour wait for the remaining chargers, and they delivered less power than expected. The family had a similar experience at a different charging station on the return journey.
Singletary’s testimony came in a rate case for Xcel Energy, which is seeking the commission’s permission for its subsidiary Northern States Power Company to operate two fast-charging hubs. Singletary said CUB is in favor of the move. Ideally, he said, the state needs more chargers operated both by utilities and by public and private entities.
“One of the questions is whether or not it’s appropriate for monopoly companies like the public utilities to own and operate EV charging stations,” Singletary said. “There is a concern or belief that utilities will be able to leverage their monopoly position to disadvantage other third parties.”
But since the EV charging market is so nascent, more utility participation could actually jumpstart private investment.
“If things can be provided more efficiently and effectively by a competitive provider, that’s great,” Singletary said. “But right now, there’s not really effective competition in the EV charging space, so the bar is very low. If you allow utilities like Xcel and MGE to kickstart this space and get some utility-owned chargers out there, and if they are all subject to regulation, you set a minimum bar for everyone else to clear, and that helps all consumers.”
In a rate case before the commission, MGE is proposing to change to billing by the kilowatt-hour. Utilities are allowed to bill by the kilowatt-hour without legislation but still need commission approval for changes.
MGE owns 53 EV chargers. That includes 13 DC Fast Chargers – eight of those at a fast-charging hub in downtown Madison – and 40 Level 2 chargers around the area. The utility charges $5 an hour for fast-chargers and $2 an hour for slow chargers.
In testimony before the Public Service Commission, MGE rates director Brian Pennington noted that in 2017 most chargers could deliver about 50 kilowatts, and now many deliver 350 kilowatts.
“This is a seven‐fold increase in power,” Pennington testified. “Likewise, auto manufacturers are increasingly rolling out EV models capable of charging at these higher DC currents. This equates to much more energy being transferred from the grid to the EV’s battery than was possible in previous EV models. Because the MGE public charging tariff has been based on the time spent charging instead of the energy delivered, newer and often more expensive models are able to take advantage of the existing billing structure.”
MGE spokesperson Steve Schultz said that the utility wants to make sure ratepayers who don’t have EVs are not paying unfair amounts to subsidize the utility’s investments in EV charging infrastructure. The current billing model allows vehicles to get a lot of energy for a small fee, and MGE ratepayers are picking up the slack.
“Energy-based public charging will better reflect the costs and benefits of the energy being delivered from the charger to the EV, and thereby reduce cost inequities among customers,” said Schultz.
The EV charging issue in Wisconsin has dovetailed with an ongoing larger debate related to utilities protecting their turf as the energy landscape shifts.
Wisconsin utilities have stridently opposed third-party ownership of solar installations, since — they argue — a company owning a solar installation and providing the energy to the homeowner, church, municipal agency or other entity means the developer is acting like a utility. Solar advocates have long asked the legislature, the Public Service Commission and the courts to provide clarity on the legality of third-party ownership of rooftop solar, so far to no avail.
Meanwhile a bill that would allow third-party ownership of community solar is pending in the legislature.
Utilities have similarly argued that a government or business charging by the kilowatt-hour at EV chargers means they are acting like a utility, selling electricity. That issue and the fact that charging a set fee is likely less lucrative makes it relatively unattractive for companies to develop EV chargers in the state.
“It’s a very risky proposition to come to Wisconsin and risk being labeled a public utility,” said Sayu. “If I was a private investor looking to get into EV charging, I wouldn’t want to run the risk of becoming a public utility. Basically we just want an exception for EV charging, that you can sell electricity to the public [through chargers] without being regulated as a public utility, and that’s it.”
Utilities still stand to benefit from privately-run EV chargers in their territory, since the entity running the charger ultimately needs to buy their electricity from the utility.
Previously, utilities pushed for proposed legislation to ban EV charging hubs powered by on-site renewable energy, since that could disconnect them completely from the utility. This provision was unpopular with clean energy advocates.
Sayu said that realistically an off-grid, renewable-powered EV charging station would not be a good financial proposition, and developers are unlikely to undertake such projects. Among other issues, NEVI funding requires that four vehicles be able to charge at once.
“In order to do that from an off-grid EV charging station you’d have to have a significant amount of solar or wind and a significant amount of storage,” Sayu said. “If you were to build one of those stations today attached to the grid, you’re looking at spending between $700,000 to a million dollars. If you did it off-grid, you’re looking at $15-17 million. No one would build that in a state that has less than 1% EVs.”
In other states, non-utility entities that operate charging stations generally can set their own prices.
“Companies like EVGo and Electrify America have moved away from postage stamp pricing where all rates are the same, making it more locational,” said Singletary. “There is a move in the EV charging industry to have rates more reflective of cost of providing electricity to a particular charging station.”
Such entities could theoretically charge different rates based on time of day too, to encourage charging at low-demand times, which could be seen as “economics 101,” Singletary said.
But “if you are using a DC fast charger on a road trip to Chicago or Minneapolis, you really don’t have a choice — you need to charge when you need to charge,” hence a time-of-day rate would not be an incentive.
“Now in the state of Wisconsin we don’t even have that opportunity to engage in that discussion,” Singletary said, “because everyone but public utilities is relegated to charging essentially a parking fee.”
Correction: Francisco Sayu of Renew Wisconsin estimated that building an off-grid electric vehicle charging station would cost between $15 million and $17 million. A previous version of this story misquoted the number.
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