We’re All in This Together
Do Something about Climate Change: Help Us Fix the Grid
By Halsey Snow
This is about the campaign to create governance reform in the electric grid operator in New England. The electric grid covering the six New England states is operated by a behind-the-scenes operator known as ISO-NE (Independent System Operator – New England, a Delaware-incorporated non-profit company). Other regions have similar ISOs operating their electric grids.
The older generating plants in our region (unlike all those solar farms you see popping up) use a combination of fuels to feed our grid. The most common one right now is methane gas, a carbon-producing fossil fuel. In 2021, 53% of the region’s electricity was generated using methane gas (only about 12% renewables). That’s a huge impact on our regional carbon footprint.
ISO-NE controls which energy sources power our grid. Why? Because they are the ones who buy it from producers, through a complex mechanism called the “wholesale electricity market.”
Where this process becomes a problem is that the ISO is not accountable to the states.
They can listen to what the states want – and five of the six New England states now have pretty aggressive and forward-thinking carbon-reduction goals and plans. But the ISO is only answerable to FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a subdivision of the US Department of Energy. This is because technically the ISO is engaging in interstate commerce.
The inner workings of the ISO-NE are not very transparent to the rest of us. Nor are they very much in alignment with the states’ (certainly not with Maine’s) “clean energy transition” to renewable energy sources – like solar, wind and hydro. So, as the ISO works to balance regional flows, and endeavors to protect grid reliability, it has a habit of relying on old solutions. If we are to reach our Maine Climate Council’s ambitious goal of 80% clean energy generation by 2030, we need ISO to be on board with stakeholders’ current focus on clean, renewable sources of energy.
So, what can be done?
This is a particularly unique issue, politically, because the states can’t legislate what energy sources ISO-NE chooses to use. This is one of the reasons there is such a backlog of solar energy farms waiting to be hooked up to the grid. Because ISO is dragging its feet and continuing to support the older fossil-fuel generating stations throughout the region. And guess what? You and I pay for all this!
Want to know more?
Contact Citizens Climate Lobby at portlandme@citizensclimatelobby.org or write to the campaign here in Maine at fixthegrid.maine@gmail.com.
Halsey Snow is a Golden Ratio educator and a student of water, as well as a member of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby currently focusing on climate change issues and the Fix-the-Grid Campaign in Maine. He lives in Casco.
