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New England Grid Reform Initiative aligns governors with ISO New England to reshape market design, boost grid reliability, accelerate renewable energy and offshore wind, explore carbon pricing and forward clean energy markets, and bolster accountability.

Key Points

Five states aim to reform ISO New England markets, prioritize renewables and reliability, and test carbon pricing.

✅ Governors seek market design aligned with clean energy mandates

✅ ISO-NE accountability and stakeholder engagement prioritized

✅ Explore carbon pricing and forward clean energy market options

Weeks after initiating a broad overhaul of utility regulation within its borders, Connecticut has recruited four New England states, as Maine debates a 145-mile transmission line project to rework the regional grid that is overseen by ISO New England, the independent system operator charged with ensuring a reliable supply of electricity from power plants.

In a written statement Thursday morning, Gov. Ned Lamont said the current structure “has actively hindered” states’ efforts to phase out polluting power plants in favor of renewable sources like wind turbines and solar panels, while increasing costs “to fix market design failures” in his words. Lamont’s energy policy chief Katie Dykes has emerged as a vocal critic of ISO New England’s structure and priorities, in her role as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

“When Connecticut opted to deregulate our electricity market, we wanted the benefits of competition — to achieve lower-cost energy, compatible with meeting our clean-energy goals,” Dykes said in a telephone interview Thursday afternoon. “We have a partner [in] ISO New England, to manage this grid and design a market that is not thwarting our clean-energy goals, but achieving them; and not ignoring consumers’ concerns. ... That’s really what we are looking to do — reclaim the benefits of competition and regional cooperation.”

Lamont and his counterparts in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and Maine plan to release a “vision document” in their words on Friday through the New England States Committee on Electricity, after New Hampshire rejected a Quebec-Massachusetts transmission proposal that sought to import Canadian hydropower.

The initial documents made no mention of New Hampshire, which likewise obtains electricity through the wholesale markets managed by ISO New England and has seen clashes over the Northern Pass hydropower project in recent years; and whose Seabrook Station is one two nuclear power plants in New England alongside Dominion Energy’s Millstone Power Station in Waterford. Gov. Chris Sununu’s office did not respond immediately to a query on why New Hampshire is not participating.

Connecticut and the four other states outlined a few broad goals that they will hone over the coming months. Those include creating a better market structure and planning process supporting the conversion to renewables; improving grid reliability, with measures such as an emergency fuel stock program considered; and increasing the accountability of ISO New England to the states and by extension their ratepayer households and businesses.

ISO New England spokesperson Matt Kakley indicated the Holyoke, Mass.-based nonprofit will “engage with the states and our stakeholders” on the governors’ proposal, in an email response to a query. He did not elaborate on any immediate opportunities or challenges inherent in the governors’ proposal.

“Maintaining reliable, competitively-priced electricity through the clean energy transition will require broad collaboration,” Kakley stated. “The common vision of the New England governors will play an important role in the discussions currently underway on the future of the grid.”

Renewable revolution
ISO New England launched operations in 1999, running auctions through which power plant operators bid to supply electricity, including against long-term projections for future needs that can only be met through the construction or installation of new generation capacity.

ISO New England falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rather than the states whose electricity supplies it is tasked with ensuring. That has led to pointed criticism from Dykes and Connecticut legislators that ISO New England is out of touch with the state’s push to switch to renewable sources of electricity.

Entering October, ISO New England published an updated outlook that revealed 60 percent of proposed power generators in the region’s future “queue” are wind farms, primarily offshore installations like the proposed Park City Wind project of Avangrid and Revolution Wind from Eversource. But Dykes recently criticized as unnecessary an NTE Energy plant approved already by ISO New England for eastern Connecticut, which will be fueled by natural gas if all other regulatory approvals are granted.

The six New England states participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that caps carbon emissions by individual power plants, while allowing them to purchase unused allowances from each other with that revenue funneled to the states to support renewable energy and conservation programs. FERC is now considering the concept of carbon pricing, which would levy a tax on power plants based on their emissions, and it also faces pressure to act on aggregated DERs from lawmakers.

ISO New England is investigating the concepts of net carbon pricing and a “forward clean energy market” that would borrow elements of the existing forward capacity market, but designed to meet individual state objectives for the percentage of renewable power they want generated while ensuring adequate electricity is in place when weather does not cooperate.

The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority is collecting on its own initiative industry input on modernization proposals, as New York regulators open a formal review of retail energy markets for comparison, that would add up to hundreds of millions of dollars, including utility-scale batteries to store power generated by offshore wind farms and solar arrays; and “smart” meters in homes and businesses to help electricity customers better manage their power use.

The New England Power Pool serves as a central forum for plant operators, commercial users and others like the Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel, amid Massachusetts solar demand charge debates that affect distributed generation policy, with NEPOOL’s chair stating Thursday morning the group was still reviewing the governors’ announcement.

“NEPOOL has been engaged this year in meetings ... exploring the transition to a future grid in New England and potential pathways forward to support that transition,” stated Nancy Chafetz, chair of NEPOOL, in an email.

Connecticut’s issues with ISO New England boiled over this summer on the heels of a power-purchase agreement between Millstone owner Dominion and transmission grid operators Eversource and United Illuminating, which contributed to a sharp increase in customer bills.

A few weeks ago, Lamont signed into law a “Take Back the Grid” act that allows the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to factor in Eversource’s and Avangrid subsidiary United Illuminating’s past performance in maintaining electric reliability, in addition to any future needs for revenue based on needed upgrades. The law included an element for Connecticut to initiate a study of ISO New England’s role.

Eversource and Avangrid have voiced support for the switch to “performance-based” regulation in Connecticut. Eversource spokesperson Mitch Gross on Thursday cited the company’s view that any changes to the operation of New England’s wholesale power markets should occur within the existing ISO New England structure.

“We also recommend any examination of potential alternatives includes a thorough evaluation that ensures unfair costs would not be imposed on customers,” Gross stated in an email.

In a statement forwarded by Avangrid spokesperson Ed Crowder, the United Illuminating parent indicated it intends to have “a voice in this process” with the goal of continued grid reliability amid increased adoption of clean energy sources.

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Near-Field Thermophotovoltaics captures radiated energy across a nanoscale gap, using thin-film photovoltaic cells and indium gallium arsenide to boost power density and efficiency, enabling compact Army portable power from emitters via radiative heat transfer.

Key Points

A nanoscale TPV method capturing near-field photons for higher power density at lower emitter temperatures.

✅ Nanoscale gap boosts radiative transfer and usable photon flux

✅ Thin-film InGaAs cells recycle sub-band-gap photons via reflector

✅ Achieved ~5 kW/m2 power density with higher efficiency

With the addition of sensors and enhanced communication tools, providing lightweight, portable power has become even more challenging, with concepts such as power from falling snow illustrating how diverse new energy-harvesting approaches are. Army-funded research demonstrated a new approach to turning thermal energy into electricity that could provide compact and efficient power for Soldiers on future battlefields.

Hot objects radiate light in the form of photons into their surroundings. The emitted photons can be captured by a photovoltaic cell and converted to useful electric energy. This approach to energy conversion is called far-field thermophotovoltaics, or FF-TPVs, and has been under development for many years; however, it suffers from low power density and therefore requires high operating temperatures of the emitter.

The research, conducted at the University of Michigan and published in Nature Communications, demonstrates a new approach, where the separation between the emitter and the photovoltaic cell is reduced to the nanoscale, enabling much greater power output than what is possible with FF-TPVs for the same emitter temperature.

This approach, which enables capture of energy that is otherwise trapped in the near-field of the emitter is called near-field thermophotovoltaics or NF-TPV and uses custom-built photovoltaic cells and emitter designs ideal for near-field operating conditions, alongside emerging smart solar inverters that help manage conversion and delivery.

This technique exhibited a power density almost an order of magnitude higher than that for the best-reported near-field-TPV systems, while also operating at six-times higher efficiency, paving the way for future near-field-TPV applications, including remote microgrid deployments in extreme environments, according to Dr. Edgar Meyhofer, professor of mechanical engineering, University of Michigan.

"The Army uses large amounts of power during deployments and battlefield operations and must be carried by the Soldier or a weight constrained system," said Dr. Mike Waits, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "If successful, in the future near-field-TPVs could serve as more compact and higher efficiency power sources for Soldiers as these devices can function at lower operating temperatures than conventional TPVs."

The efficiency of a TPV device is characterized by how much of the total energy transfer between the emitter and the photovoltaic cell is used to excite the electron-hole pairs in the photovoltaic cell, where insights from near-light-speed conduction research help contextualize performance limits in semiconductors. While increasing the temperature of the emitter increases the number of photons above the band-gap of the cell, the number of sub band-gap photons that can heat up the photovoltaic cell need to be minimized.

"This was achieved by fabricating thin-film TPV cells with ultra-flat surfaces, and with a metal back reflector," said Dr. Stephen Forrest, professor of electrical and computer engineering, University of Michigan. "The photons above the band-gap of the cell are efficiently absorbed in the micron-thick semiconductor, while those below the band-gap are reflected back to the silicon emitter and recycled."

The team grew thin-film indium gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells on thick semiconductor substrates, and then peeled off the very thin semiconductor active region of the cell and transferred it to a silicon substrate, informing potential interfaces with home battery systems for distributed use.

All these innovations in device design and experimental approach resulted in a novel near-field TPV system that could complement distributed resources in virtual power plants for resilient operations.

"The team has achieved a record ~5 kW/m2 power output, which is an order of magnitude larger than systems previously reported in the literature," said Dr. Pramod Reddy, professor of mechanical engineering, University of Michigan.

Researchers also performed state-of-the-art theoretical calculations to estimate the performance of the photovoltaic cell at each temperature and gap size, informing hybrid designs with backup fuel cell solutions that extend battery life, and showed good agreement between the experiments and computational predictions.

"This current demonstration meets theoretical predictions of radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale, and directly shows the potential for developing future near-field TPV devices for Army applications in power and energy, communication and sensors," said Dr. Pani Varanasi, program manager, DEVCOM ARL that funded this work.

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Georgia Cities Clean Energy IRP Coalition unites Savannah, Atlanta, Decatur, and Athens-Clarke to shape Georgia Power's Integrated Resource Plan, accelerating renewables, energy efficiency, community solar, and coal retirements through Georgia Public Service Commission hearings.

Key Points

Georgia cities working to steer Georgia Power's IRP toward renewables, energy efficiency, and community solar.

✅ Targets coal retirements and doubling renewables by 2035

✅ Advocates data access, transparency, and energy efficiency

✅ Seeks affordable community solar options for low-income customers

Savannah is among several Georgia cities that have led the charge forward in recent years to push for clean energy. Now, several of the state's largest municipalities are banding together to demand action from Georgia's largest energy provider.

Hearings regarding Georgia Power's Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) happen every three years, but this year for the first time the cities of Savannah, Decatur, Atlanta and Athens-Clarke and DeKalb counties were at the table.

"It's pretty unprecedented. It's such an important opportunity to get to represent ourselves and our citizens," said City of Savannah Energy Analyst Alicia Brown, the Savannah representative for the Georgia Coalition for Local Governments.

The IRP, which essentially maps out how the company will use its various forms of energy over the next 20 years was filed with the Georgia Public Service Commission (GPSC) in January, the 200-page IRP outlines Georgia Power's plans to shutter nearly all Georgia Power-controlled coal units, similar to Tucson Electric Power's coal exit timelines elsewhere, which could begin later this year.

The company is also planning to double its renewable energy generation by 2035. The IRP also outlines plans for several programs, including an Income-Qualified Community Solar Pilot, reflecting momentum for community energy programs in other states as well.

During the hearings the coalition, alongside the other groups, had the ability to question Georgia Power officials about the plan to include the proposed increase per kilowatt for the company's Simple Solar program, Behind-the-Meter Solar program study and various other components, amid debates over solar strategy in the South that could impact lower income customers.

"The established and open IRP process is central to effective, long-term energy planning in Georgia and is part of our commitment to 2.7 million customers to deliver clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy. In continuing our longstanding relationship with the City of Savannah, we welcome their interest and participation in the IRP process," John Kraft, Georgia Power spokesman said in an email.

Brown said the coalition's areas of interest fall into three categories: energy efficiency and demand response, data access and transparency and renewable energy for citizens as well as the governments in the coalition.

"We have these renewable goals and just the way the current regulations are set, the way the current laws are on the books, and developments like consumer choice in California show how policy shifts can reshape utility markets, it's very challenging for us to meet those renewable energy goals without Georgia Power setting up programs that are workable for us," she said.

The city of Savannah is already taking action locally to reduce carbon emissions and move toward clean and renewable energy through the 100% Savannah Clean Energy Plan, which was adopted by Savannah City Council in December.

The plan aims to achieve 100% renewable electricity community-wide by 2035 and 100% renewable energy for all energy needs by 2050.

Council previously approved the 100% Clean Energy Resolution needed to develop the plan in March 2020, making Savannah the fifth city in the state to pledge to pursue a lower carbon future to fight climate change.

The final plan includes 45 strategies that fall into five categories: energy efficiency; renewable energy; transportation and mobility; community and economic development; and education and engagement.

Brown said the education and engagement component is central to the plan, but the pandemic has hindered community education and awareness efforts, and utilities have warned customers about pandemic-related scams that complicate outreach, something the city hopes to catapult in the coming weeks.

"With the 100% Savannah resolution passing right before the pandemic, we haven't had as many opportunities to raise awareness about the initiative and to educate the public about clean energy as we would like. This transition will present a lot of opportunities for our communities, but only if people know that they are there to be taken," she said.

"... We also want to engage the community so that they feel like they are developing this vision for a healthy, prosperous, clean community alongside us. It's not just us telling them, 'we're going to have a clean energy future and it's going to look like this,' but really helping them to develop and realize a collective vision for what 100% Savannah should be."

The final round of IRP hearings are scheduled for next month. Those hearings will allow the coalition and other groups to put witnesses on the stand who will make the case for why Georgia Power's IRP should be different, Brown said.

In June, Georgia Power, following a June bill reduction for customers, will have a chance to offer rebuttal testimony and will again be subject to cross examination. Shortly after those hearings, the parties will join together for the settlement process, a sort of compromise on the plan that the commission will vote on toward the beginning of July.

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Canadian Power Crews Aid Florida after Hurricane Irma, supporting power restoration for Tampa Electric and Florida Power & Light. Hydro One and Nova Scotia Power teams provide mutual aid to speed outage repairs across communities.

Key Points

Mutual aid effort sending Canadian utility crews to restore power and repair outages in Florida after Hurricane Irma.

✅ Hydro One and Nova Scotia Power deploy line technicians

✅ Support for Tampa Electric and Florida Power & Light

✅ Goal: rapid power restoration and outage repairs statewide

Hundreds of Canadian power crews are heading to Florida to help restore power to millions of people affected by Hurricane Irma.

Two dozen Nova Scotia Power employees were en route Tampa on Tuesday morning. An additional 175 Hydro One employees from across Ontario are also heading south. Tuesday to assist after receiving a request for assistance from Tampa Electric.

Nearly 7½ million customers across five states were without power Tuesday morning as Irma — now a tropical storm — continued inland, while a power outage update from the Carolinas underscored the regional strain.

In an update On Tuesday, Florida Power & Light said its "army" of crews had already restored power to 40 per cent of the five million customers affected by Irma in the first 24 hours.

FPL said it expects to have power restored in nearly all of the eastern half of the state by the end of this coming weekend. Almost everyone should have power restored by the end of day on Sept. 22, except for areas still under water.Jason Cochrane took a flight from Halifax Stanfield International Airport along with 19 other NSP power line technicians, two supervisors and a restoration team lead, drawing on lessons from the Maritime Link first power project between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. "It's different infrastructure than what we have to a certain extent, so there'll be a bit of a learning curve there as well," Cochrane said. "But we'll be integrated into their workforce, so we'll be assisting them to get everything put back together."

The NSP team will join 86 other Nova Scotians from their parent company, Emera, who are also heading to Tampa. Halifax-based Emera, whose regional projects include the Maritime Link, owns a subsidiary in Tampa.

"We're going to be doing anything that we can to help Tampa Electric get their customers back online," said NSP spokesperson Tiffany Chase. "We know there's been significant damage to their system as a result of that severe storm and so anything that our team can do to assist them, we want to do down in Tampa."

Crews have been told to expect to be on the ground in the U.S. for two weeks, but that could change as they get a better idea of what they're dealing with.

'It's neat to have an opportunity like this to go to another country and to help out.'- Jason Cochrane, power line technician

"It's neat to have an opportunity like this to go to another country and to help out and to get the power back on safely," said Cochrane.

Chase said she doesn't know how much the effort will cost but it will be covered by Tampa Electric. She also said Nova Scotia Power will pull its crews back if severe weather heads toward Atlantic Canada, as utilities nationwide work to adapt to climate change in their planning.

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Africa Energy Investment must quadruple, says IEA, to deliver electricity access via grids, mini-grids, and stand-alone solar PV, wind, hydropower, natural gas, and geothermal, targeting $120 billion annually and 2.5% of GDP.

Key Points

Africa Energy Investment funds reliable, low-carbon electricity via grids, mini-grids, and renewables.

✅ Requires about $120B per year, or 2.5% of GDP

✅ Mix: grids, mini-grids, stand-alone solar PV and wind

✅ Targets reliability, economic growth, and electricity access

African countries will need to quadruple their rate of investment in their power sectors for the next two decades to bring reliable electricity to all Africans, as outlined in the IEA’s path to universal access analysis, an International Energy Agency (IEA) study published on Friday said.

If African countries continue on their policy trajectories, 530 million Africans will still lack electricity in 2030, the IEA report said. It said bringing reliable electricity to all Africans would require annual investment of around $120 billion and a global push for clean, affordable power to mobilize solutions.

“We’re talking about 2.5% of GDP that should go into the power sector,” Laura Cozzi, the IEA’s Chief Energy Modeller, told journalists ahead of the report’s launch. “India’s done it over the past 20 years. China has done it, with solar PV growth outpacing any other fuel, too. So it’s something that is doable.”

Taking advantage of technological advances and optimizing natural resources, as highlighted in a renewables roadmap, could help Africa’s economy grow four-fold by 2040 while requiring just 50% more energy, the agency said.

Africa’s population is currently growing at more than twice the global average rate. By 2040, it will be home to more than 2 billion people. Its cities are forecast to expand by 580 million people, a historically unprecedented pace of urbanization.

While that growth will lead to economic expansion, it will pile pressure on power sectors that have already failed to keep up with demand, with the sub-Saharan electricity challenge intensifying across the region. Nearly half of Africans - around 600 million people - do not have access to electricity. Last year, Africa accounted for nearly 70% of the global population lacking power, a proportion that has almost doubled since 2000, the IEA found.

Some 80% of companies in sub-Saharan Africa suffered frequent power disruptions in 2018, leading to financial losses that curbed economic growth.

The IEA recommended changing how power is distributed, with mini-grids and stand-alone systems like household solar playing a larger role in complementing traditional grids as targeted efforts to accelerate access funding gain momentum.

According to IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, with the right government policies and energy strategies, Africa has an opportunity to pursue a less carbon-intensive development path than other regions.

“To achieve this, it has to take advantage of the huge potential that solar, wind, hydropower, natural gas and energy efficiency offer,” he said.

Despite possessing the world’s greatest solar potential, Africa boasts just 5 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV), or less than 1% of global installed capacity, a slow green transition that underscores the scale of the challenge, the report stated.

To meet demand, African nations should add nearly 15 gigawatts of PV each year through 2040. Wind power should also expand rapidly, particularly in Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa. And Kenya should develop its geothermal resources.

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Global Coal Power Decline 2019 signals a record fall in coal-fired electricity as China plateaus, India dips, and the EU and US accelerate renewables, curbing carbon emissions and advancing the global energy transition.

Key Points

A record 2019 drop in global coal power as renewables rise and demand slows across China, India, the EU, and the US.

✅ 3% global fall in coal-fired electricity in 2019.

✅ China plateaus; India declines for first time in decades.

✅ EU and US shift to renewables and gas, cutting emissions.

The world’s use of coal-fired electricity is on track for its biggest annual fall on record this year after more than four decades of near-uninterrupted growth that has stoked the global climate crisis.

Data shows that coal-fired electricity is expected to fall by 3% in 2019, or more than the combined coal generation in Germany, Spain and the UK last year and could help stall the world’s rising carbon emissions this year.

The steepest global slump on record is likely to emerge in 2019 as India’s reliance on coal power falls for the first time in at least three decades this year, and China’s coal power demand plateaus, reflecting the broader global energy transition underway.

Both developing nations are using less coal-fired electricity due to slowing economic growth in Asia as well as the rise of cleaner energy alternatives. There is also expected to be unprecedented coal declines across the EU and the US as developed economies turn to clean forms of energy such as low-cost solar power to replace ageing coal plants.

In almost 40 years the world’s annual coal generation has fallen only twice before: in 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, and in 2015, following a slowdown in China’s coal plants amid rising levels of deadly air pollution.

The research was undertaken by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air , the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and the UK climate thinktank Sandbag.

The researchers found that China’s coal-fired power generation was flatlining, despite an increase in the number of coal plants being built, because they were running at record low rates. China builds the equivalent of one large new coal plant every two weeks, according to the report, but its coal plants run for only 48.6% of the time, compared with a global utilisation rate of 54% on average.

The findings come after a report from Global Energy Monitor found that the number of coal-fired power plants in the world is growing, because China is building new coal plants five times faster than the rest of the world is reducing their coal-fired power capacity.

The report found that in other countries coal-fired power capacity fell by 8GW in the 18 months to June but over the same period China increased its capacity by 42.9GW.

In a paper for the industry journal Carbon Brief, the researchers said: “A 3% reduction in power sector coal use could imply zero growth in global CO2 emissions, if emissions changes in other sectors mirror those during 2018.”

However, the authors of the report have warned that despite the record coal power slump the world’s use of coal remained far too high to meet the climate goals of the Paris agreement, and some countries are still seeing increases, such as Australia’s emissions rise amid increased pollution from electricity and transport.

The US – which is backing out of the Paris agreement – has made the deepest cuts to coal power of any developed country this year by shutting coal plants down in favour of gas power and renewable energy, with utilities such as Duke Energy facing investor pressure to disclose climate plans. By the end of August the US had reduced coal by almost 14% over the year compared with the same months in 2018.

The EU reported a record slump in coal-fired electricity use in the first half of the year of almost a fifth compared with the same months last year. This trend is expected to accelerate over the second half of the year to average a 23% fall over 2019 as a whole. The EU is using less coal power in favour of gas-fired electricity – which can have roughly half the carbon footprint of coal – and renewable energy, helped by policies such as the UK carbon tax that have slashed coal-fired generation.

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