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BUILDINGS: New state incentives are pushing Mainers to adopt “whole-house” heat pump systems that make efficient electricity the primary home heat source and discourage the secondary use of oil or gas. (Energy News Network)
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TRANSIT: Around $142 million in federal funds will go toward improving public transit and flood mitigation along a Pittsburgh highway. (Trib Live)
SOLAR: More Maine towns are establishing rules and ordinances to limit and shape solar development within their boundaries, including Dixmont, where a recent ordinance requires solar applications to come with a decommissioning plan. (Bangor Daily News)
FOSSIL FUELS: After a more than decade-long ban, a gas driller will be allowed to drill 11 wells in Pennsylvania’s Dimock Township, reviving water contamination concerns. (Associated Press)
HYDROPOWER: In New York, a New Jersey renewable energy developer says it has had its preliminary permit application to build two hydroelectric plants at Sewall’s Island “accepted” by federal regulators. (NNY360)
WORKFORCE:
CLIMATE: In New York City, data from the annual Central Park Christmas Bird Count shows warmer temperatures are allowing more southern, typically migratory species to stick around. (Gothamist)
New state incentives are pushing Mainers to adopt “whole-house” heat pump systems, making efficient electricity the primary home heat source and discouraging the secondary use of oil or gas.
Federal tax credits are still available for a wider range of heat pump installations, and the state offers rebates for low-income households to install a heat pump as a supplemental heat source.
But the latest big rebate for families of any income in Maine, which has become a national leader in heat pump adoption, focuses on using this technology to heat and cool the user’s entire house — or close to it.
“Customers are then able to turn off their old central furnace or boiler, relegating it to an emergency backup system,” said Michael Stoddard, the executive director of the state’s energy incentives agency, Efficiency Maine, in an email. “When that happens, (heat pumps) are able to meet their full potential.”
The agency’s new whole-house rebate program aims to help meet Maine’s climate goals. First rolled out this fall, the rebate was revised in recent weeks in response to criticism and confusion from contractors over its compliance rules.
A whole-house heat pump system — also called whole-home, or whole-facility in a space like a school or business — means that heat pumps are the go-to source of heating in the winter, with any supplemental sources used infrequently or as emergency backups.
To receive Efficiency Maine’s new rebate, which covers 40% of project costs up to a $4,000 cap for people of any income or more for those of lower incomes, a heat pump system must be sized to serve at least 80% of the home’s potential heating load, from shoulder seasons to the coldest day of winter.
Eben Perkins, the chief strategy officer with the Maine-based energy consulting firm Competitive Energy Services, said this is just one way of defining a whole-house heat pump in the grand scheme: For example, his company tends to look at how much heat pumps are serving a client out of the whole year, rather than on a day-to-day basis.
Maine home heat targets are based on modeling of how many heat pumps and weatherization jobs it would take to offset the state’s top-in-the-nation reliance on heating oil and other use of fossil fuels in buildings, with statutory targets of cutting emissions 45% over 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050.
This sector, which includes schools, businesses and more along with homes and apartments, is second only to transportation in contributing to Maine’s emissions.
This past summer, the state hit an initial target of installing 100,000 heat pumps relative to 2019. Now, it’s working toward another 175,000 more units by 2027. Stoddard said the goal is to see 130,000 homes with one or two heat pump units by 2030, and 115,000 more with whole-house systems.
“The efficiency levels of heat pumps can be two-X, three-X, four-X technology compared to a combustion system. So one, it’s just a good technology that keeps on getting better,” said Perkins. “Second, it gives you a pathway to actually fully decarbonize the upstream fuel source… That’s the pathway we need to really deeply cut emissions at the state (level).”
Maine had about 580,000 households in 2022, per the U.S. Census, and about 56% of them use heating oil, according to federal data — slightly lower than in recent years, but still the highest rate in the country.
The state aims to make its energy usage 100% renewable by 2040.
The answer is technically yes, but ideally no, at least under Maine’s new rebate.
As they switch to whole-house heat pumps, eligible customers are asked to turn their oil- or gas-powered furnaces or boilers and connected thermostats off or all the way down, and to cover the systems’ switches. They can still use these systems for hot water heating or in connection with an emergency generator.
This fall, Maine walked back an earlier requirement that old fossil-fired systems be disabled or disconnected from electrical service entirely, with locks on their switches, amid pushback from heat pump installers and fuel oil vendors about reliability and other concerns.
Despite reverting the rebate to more of an honor system, Stoddard said avoiding supplemental fossil fuel use as completely as possible is key to maximizing heat pump benefits.
“Our research shows that the majority of heat pumps installed in Maine will save significantly less money and emissions when they are operated concurrently with a central furnace or boiler than when they operate alone,” he said.
The rebate rules suggest “room heaters, a wood stove, or small space heaters,” Stoddard said, to cover up to 20% of the home’s heating load alongside the whole-house heat pump system.
In theory, a whole-home heat pump system could have a range of configurations. But Efficiency Maine focuses its new rebates on heat pumps with one indoor unit per outdoor unit (which they call “single zone,” though contractors say this can have different meanings). These might be the customer’s first heat pumps, or they might add on to older units to make up that 80% heating overall capacity required by the state.
Dave Ragsdale, the HVAC division manager at Maine-based ReVision Energy, said heat pumps need to be carefully tailored to a home’s needs to maximize their efficiency.
“You really need to have the… capacity of your heat pump system match the heat load of the house as closely as possible,” he said. “To the extent you oversize a heat pump system, you’re creating a situation where it’s beginning to resemble, more and more, an old-fashioned heating system.”
Traditional boilers and furnaces, he said, are almost always far oversized to the house’s heating needs — because they can be. “When you have a call for heat in a room, the thermostat tells the boiler, ‘we need heat,’ (and) turns the boiler on. It doesn’t matter how many (units of heat) that boiler is rated for — it’s only going to run for as long as it needs to to get heat to that room to satisfy that thermostat,” Ragsdale said.
Heat pumps are different, he said: They perform best when they can run pretty much constantly and modulate their output in response to temperature needs. If a heat pump is sized to provide more heat than the house could ever need — or, say, if one outdoor compressor is sized to run heat pump heads in four rooms, though only one or two may be used at a time — it can lead to costly, inefficient “short-cycling.”
“As soon as (the oversized heat pump) turns on, its capacity is way in excess of the load,” Ragsdale said. “So almost immediately, it floods the room with heat and then turns off, and then the room loses heat, and then it turns on again,” much like a traditional fossil fuel-fired system.
Ragsdale said this need for fine-tuning is why Maine’s rebate focuses on those one-indoor, one-outdoor, “single-zone” units — and why he suggests customers choose whole-house systems that meet just a tiny bit less than their home’s peak hypothetical heating load, ideally 99% or 99.6% of it.
“That little adjustment is enough to bring the capacity of your system more in line with what you’re actually going to see throughout the course of the heating season,” Ragsdale said.
If pushed to 100%, the system would be overpowered almost every day of the year, reducing efficiency and driving up costs. In the 99% design, the whole-house system is more efficient year-round and can use its supplemental sources to take the edge off and improve performance in the coldest weather conditions.
Getting the most out of a whole-house system requires careful customer education and for contractors to assess a home’s energy needs in great detail, Ragsdale said. Assessing air leaks and insulation needs with an energy audit can be a key part of this process. Ultimately, he sees houses with a more open floor plan and excellent weatherization as the best candidates for a cost-effective whole-house system.
“One thing is crystal clear… this whole-house model is not going to be applicable to every house you come across,” he said. “If there’s a house that’s broken up into a lot of small rooms, it’s probably going to be difficult to make a (whole-house) heat pump system work really well there.”
The same goes for using existing ducts from a forced hot-air system to run heat pumps, accompanied by an air handler. Those ducts will need new insulation to safely carry cold air in the summer, which is a complex retrofit for an existing house. Even at best, Ragsdale said, “you’re losing a fair amount of (heat) in the distribution” relative to a ductless heat pump delivering its hot air more directly.
But for people who may be unsure or ill-suited for the whole-house switch, Ragsdale emphasized that other heat pump configurations can still help vastly reduce fossil fuel use and costs, especially with state and federal incentives.
“Heat pumps still make sense, even a house that doesn’t have the perfect layout,” he said.
He gave his own home as an example. It was built in the 1940s, with lots of small rooms.
“I put one (heat pump unit) in my living room, which is the single biggest room, so I’m taking a big chunk out of my heat load even before I stop using my boiler altogether,” he said. “Most of that heat, frankly, in the shoulder seasons, managed to get its way around the house enough so that I was perfectly comfortable.
“Only in a couple weeks out of the winter,” he said, “did I have to turn that boiler on to … take the chill off.”
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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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.
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