By Michael Kuser

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — Climate change and the key role of heating and cooling improvements for energy efficiency were the hot topics of discussion among consumer advocates, state regulators and industry professionals attending a meeting of ISO-NE’s Consumer Liaison Group on Thursday.

Combined residential, commercial and industrial building heating accounts for about 40% of CO₂ emissions in New England, followed by transportation at about 35% and the electric sector at 23%.

“Those are the big three wedges when you want to actually achieve the economy-wide greenhouse gas goals that we now have in statute,” said Commissioner Robert Klee of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

The state’s Global Warming Solutions Act calls for reducing GHG emissions to 10% below 1990 levels by January 2020 and 80% below 2001 levels by 2050, and it was recently amended to reduce emissions to 45% below 2001 levels by 2030.

The state’s renewable portfolio standard and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have driven down emissions, “and Connecticut has just doubled down on that with legislation to make our RPS 40% Class I renewables by 2030,” Klee said.

The “new normal” of stronger and more frequent storms is also a challenge for planners and predictors, Klee said. “Those storms would normally happen years or decades apart, but Eversource [Energy] reported in a period of 16 months having four of the company’s 10 most devastating storms ever … [which] translates into [affecting] our rates and how much we’re all going to be paying for this.”

Heating and Cooling

Joseph Rosenthal, principal attorney for Connecticut’s Office of Consumer Counsel, moderated a panel on electrification of heating.

From 2013 to 2015, the state was promoting the use of natural gas “to find the right parameters to give consumers choice about whether to stay with oil or switch to natural gas and what kind of subsidization we would offer for that,” Rosenthal said.

Now Connecticut is moving into a new phase, talking about electrifying of the heating sector, he said.

DEEP Deputy Commissioner for Energy Mary Sotos said climate change drives the move to electrify heating to reduce GHG emissions, but the use of lower carbon content biofuels also provides opportunities to improve energy efficiency.

“One limitation on reaching the state’s GHG emissions target is how we measure biofuel,” Sotos said, noting that the advantages of biofuel lie in reduced emissions over the lifecycle, while the EPA tools her state uses only reduce emissions at the point of combustion.

“In the near term, unless we change those methodologies significantly, we wouldn’t necessarily get to claim credit for any changes made there,” she said.

Sotos’ remarks set the table for Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, a statewide group of fuel oil dealers, who said, “Forget everything you think you know about heating oil.”

On July 1, all New England states mandated the use of ultra-low sulfur heating oil, with a maximum sulfur content of 15 ppm, a 97% reduction from the previous standard, he said. The new fuels, mixed with 7% biodiesel on average, mean particulate emissions are reduced by 80%, nitrous oxide by 10% and CO₂ by 2%.

With biodiesel added, heating oil is no longer the fuel that people are used to, Herb said.

“It’s cleaner than natural gas,” Herb said, showing a slide comparing the 20-year atmospheric lifecycles of natural gas versus ultra-low sulfur heating oil, which his trade group is trying to rebrand as “Bioheat.”

Heat Pumps

Ronald Araujo, energy efficiency manager for Eversource, said heat pumps provide excellent benefits, given the right situation.

“Ground source heat pumps are very efficient,” Araujo said. “It doesn’t generate heat — it moves heat from place to place — but one disadvantage is it needs some external source to work with.”

Ground source heat pumps are more efficient than air source heat pumps because the temperature of the ground is relatively stable (about 50 degrees Fahrenheit), while the air temperature in New England can range from below zero to 100 with high humidity, either of which compromise efficiency.

“The reason heat pumps are so important is that they reduce emissions. They reduce emissions today, and they will also do it as the electricity sector continues to get cleaner,” said Emily Lewis O’Brien, Acadia Center senior policy analyst. “This is an important part of the equation … but you can’t do it with heat pumps alone.”

O’Brien emphasized that in order to meet renewable energy goals, it would be relatively “simple” to bring all six states in New England, plus New York, into matching best practices in every area, from electric vehicle promotion, to solar development, to heating electrification and energy efficiency.

“And it’s important to align state incentive programs across the region, to make sure we’re all swimming in the same direction,” O’Brien said.

Fuel Security

Anne George, ISO-NE vice president for external affairs, highlighted recent developments at the RTO, particularly regarding fuel security and the issue of the difficulty of obtaining natural gas supplies during the region’s winter peak.

FERC in July tentatively accepted a cost-of-service agreement between ISO-NE and Exelon for Mystic Generating Station Units 8 and 9, ordering an expedited hearing process on unresolved issues related to cost justification (ER18-1639). The agreement would allow the gas-fired units in Massachusetts an annual fixed revenue requirement of almost $219 million for capacity commitment period 2022/23 and nearly $187 million for 2023/24. (See FERC Advances Mystic Cost-of-Service Agreement.)

“They did agree with how we were approaching the fuel security risk analysis, but they did not go along with us doing this outside of our typical Tariff language,” George said.

Elizabeth Mahony, of the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, spoke for her boss, Deputy Chief of the Energy and Environment Bureau — and CLG Coordinating Committee Chair — Rebecca Tepper, who was busy dealing with issues related to the multiple gas line explosions in the Merrimack Valley near Boston the previous week.

Mahony highlighted the election of a new Coordinating Committee at the next CLG meeting, to be held in Boston on Dec. 6. “Any CLG member who is an electricity end user, or directly represents ratepayers, or is a member of a consumer organization, or is a government consumer or ratepayer advocate is eligible to serve on the Coordinating Committee,” she said.