Climate activists managed to successfully take over a small piece of ISO-NE last week, winning control of a significant portion of the committee that controls the grid operator’s official platform for interacting with the public.
Six activists organized by the anti-fossil fuel group No Coal No Gas were elected to two-year terms on the Consumer Liaison Group’s (CLG) Coordinating Committee on Wednesday, securing a say in how the group operates, as ISO-NE officials looked on with what one attendee described as “grim” faces.
While the CLG carries little formal power, it’s an important (and FERC-mandated) piece of how the grid operator communicates with the public. CLG holds four meetings a year, which provide a rare opportunity for the public to hear from and interact with high-level officials at ISO-NE and other key energy policymakers in the region.
Climate advocacy groups in New England have criticized how ISO-NE conducts its work, calling out the organization for policies they say are maintaining the grip of fossil fuels on the region’s grid and hampering the clean energy transition.
No Coal No Gas built support for a slate of candidates and encouraged its members to attend last week’s meeting and vote. More than 100 members of the advocacy group attended the meeting.
Nathan Phillips, a Boston University ecologist from Newton, Massachusetts, was one of the activists who was elected.
“It was the incredible feeling of being in the belly of the beast but having a hundred friends who had your back,” he told RTO Insider. “It felt like democracy. It felt like people power.”
No Coal No Gas laid out its plan in the weeks before the meeting in emails to members.
“We believe that the CLG could be a more productive forum and a space to build power among communities and ratepayers from across New England who are advocating for themselves regarding electricity (how it is generated, the cost, how the markets are structured),” the group wrote.
The group’s priorities include more closely connecting CLG’s work to people in New England who are, for example, struggling to pay their energy bills.
If they have their way, the forum’s name might also change.
“I think it should be called the Ratepayer Liaison Group,” said Phillips “It became apparent to me in the meeting, the words and the language matter.”
To him, the term “ratepayers” gives more agency and power to the people it’s describing than “consumers.”
“Until now, the CLG has mostly been a space where ISO-NE presents to the public about what they are doing. There has been little actual input from the public, and even less from everyday ratepayers and environmental justice communities,” No Coal No Gas told its members ahead of the meeting.
The other activists elected were Sonja Birthisel, a University of Maine researcher and nonprofit director; Kendra Ford, a Unitarian Universalist minister from New Hampshire who recently made a strong impression at ISO-NE’s public board meeting; Regine Spector, an associate political science director at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Ian McDonald, an activist from Killingly, Conn.; and Jacob Powsner, co-owner of a farm in Rutland, Vt.
Two incumbents were ousted from the committee: Associated Industries of Massachusetts executive Robert Rio and former Harvard University energy supply official Mary Smith.
Along with allies from state consumer advocacy offices and environmental groups who make up several incumbents on the committee, the group pushing for change has gained a majority.
“It will now be much harder for ISO New England to keep the CLG from getting feisty,” wrote Donald Kreis, New Hampshire Consumer Advocate and an incumbent who was re-elected. (Kreis has called for the CLG to be abolished altogether.)
ISO-NE spokesperson Matt Kakley said in an email to RTO Insider that the grid operator is “pleased to see the increased interest in the Consumer Liaison Group and hope people continue to attend meetings, gain insight into the regional energy landscape, and engage in the discussions.”