State energy and environmental policy leaders from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine outlined their long-term strategies to achieve decarbonization goals Dec. 15 during a webinar co-hosted by the Connecticut Power and Energy Society and New England Women in Energy and the Environment.

Heather Hunt, executive director of the New England States Committee on Electricity (NESCOE), served as moderator of a panel that examined decarbonization “Plans, Roadmaps and Pathways to 2030 and Beyond.”

Hannah Pingree, director of policy innovation and future for Maine Gov. Janet Mills and co-chair of the Maine Climate Council, said Mills was elected in 2018 with climate and energy policy issues leading the way. The governor signed legislation in 2019 to reduce carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 and 80% by 2050, and create the Climate Council, which recently released its first report. Pingree said decarbonizing transportation “is certainly our biggest nut to crack,” as 54% of the state’s emissions come from that sector. Another major hurdle for Maine is the heating sector, she said, where Mills set a goal of installing 100,000 new heat pumps by 2025.

“For a state with about 500,000 homes, these are fairly aggressive goals, and they get a lot more aggressive as we get out to 2030,” Pingree said.

From top left: Judy Chang, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs; Katie Dykes, Connecticut DEEP; Hannah Pingree, Maine Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future; Heather Hunt, NESCOE; and Carrie Gill, Rhode Island OER | CPES/NEWIEE

Carrie Gill, an administrator in the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, said the electric and thermal sectors are responsible for “about two-thirds of our greenhouse gas emissions.” She noted that Gov. Gina Raimondo issued an executive order tasking her with developing pathways and action steps to meet 100% of the state’s electricity demand with renewable energy resources by 2030, “the fastest pace in the nation.”

Rhode Island consulted with The Brattle Group to conduct an in-depth analysis, which led to a “suite of recommendations that we will act on beginning in 2021.” Gill said some of those recommendations include pursuing a change in the state’s renewable portfolio standard “to ensure that we’re reaching 100% renewables by 2030, and importantly that we maintain 100% renewables past 2030.” The state wants to continue progress on strategically modernizing the electric grid and will start to develop a role for energy storage, which Gill said is “a critical technology to balance renewable energy generation and electricity demand, especially as we green the regional grid.”

Katie Dykes, Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection commissioner, said state statutes require reduced carbon emissions economywide 45% from 2001 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Additionally, last year Gov. Ned Lamont issued an executive order directing Dykes’ agency to evaluate pathways to achieve a 100% carbon-free electric supply for Connecticut by 2040.

“We all have very ambitious goals; some of them are framed slightly differently, but we know that to make progress effectively and get the best value out of the various strategies that we’re all implementing to meet these goals, our participation together in a shared regional grid ties together our fates in meeting these individual state goals,” Dykes said. “Strong regional collaboration is really essential to this effort for our integrated resources plan.”

Dykes said the electrification of the thermal and transportation sectors provides “the clearest pathways, both through procurement mechanisms and technologies that are continuing to come down in cost for reducing carbon emissions affordably.” She said the continued progress in decarbonizing the electric supply pays dividends and ensures that “those measures that we implement to clean up our transportation and thermal sectors will be even more effective in reducing emissions when we plug them in.”

State-by-state carbon dioxide emission-reduction targets for New England | CPES/NEWIEE

Judy Chang, undersecretary of energy for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said her state has committed to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Energy efficiency is the No. 1 “pillar” of its strategy, she said.

“We have to limit the way we leak,” Chang said. “We leak our energy out of our windows and walls.”

Massachusetts will also need about 15 GW of offshore wind and 25 GW of solar “to power our economy,” and those numbers need to roughly double for the rest of New England “for the next 30 years.”

“We can’t do this by piecemeal planning, and we can’t afford to go into this without a long-term view,” Chang said. “We also cannot afford on the wholesale market side to keep going with our current market design and the current way of planning for transmission.”

That requires collaboration, she said, and “not only do we need to collaborate from a regional perspective … but also at the federal level.”

“We cannot actually achieve all the things that we want to achieve in the next 10 years as we set targets for 2030 without a federal government that can also support that,” Chang said.

Collaboration between the states, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or, potentially, the Transportation Climate Initiative, is not going anywhere. Earlier this fall, five of the six New England governors, excluding New Hampshire, signed a joint statement that was later followed by a vision statement from all six states through NESCOE calling on ISO-NE to make changes and reforms to wholesale market design, transmission planning and RTO governance to enable states to better meet their decarbonization goals. (See New England Governors Call for RTO Reform and States Demand’ Central Role’ in ISO-NE Market Design.)

“I think this is acutely needed, not only to ensure that our voices are heard and that there’s responsiveness within the [ISO-NE] board to state public policies, but also transparency and accountability to consumers,” Dykes said.

She added that from her time as chair of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, she recognizes the importance of “transparency and accessibility of the deliberative process that is incredibly important from a governance standpoint.”

“I’m optimistic about where it will take us and the possibilities for real collaboration amongst states, and with the ISO, that I think will be in our future,” Dykes said.

Chang announced an upcoming series of technical conferences in January and February on wholesale market design, transmission planning and governance reform.

“Understanding there are resource constraints on people and organizations, we really cannot afford to just go along and hope that we will land with the right market design and the right transmission pieces that need to be built,” Chang said. “I think that’s the ultimate vision … to really work collaboratively so that we can achieve this future in the least amount of disruption and at the lowest cost.”