The agenda item called Discuss Program Design Options and Green Energy Mix for Upcoming Acton Power Choice Procurement was part of the 28-February-2022 Select Board meeting. Here’s the video for that part of the meeting: https://youtu.be/LqeZeYMC6DE?t=4409
We started with an informative presentation by Paul Gromer, CEO of Peregrine Energy, the Town’s consultant for Acton Power Choice. That presentation is available here: http://doc.actonma.gov/dsweb/Get/Document-80393/Acton%20Power%20Choice_2022-02-28.pdf
This was slide 13 in the deck, showing the amount of additional New England renewable energy available in a variety of Town’s default offerings. Acton is in red. There are a lot of Towns doing way better than we are driving the demand for more renewable energy production by buying more Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).
I was arguing for making our default be 100% New England Class I RECs, in line with our climate commitments expressed in the Climate Emergency declaration. I said that if we did that, we would also need to widely advertise the ability for folks to opt down to lower levels at any time with no fee. We should also find more people who are eligible to sign up for the Eversource subsidized rates, available to any electricity customer who is on any number of means-tested programs, such as MassHealth, the School Lunch programs, Food Stamps, and many more. Details are here: https://www.eversource.com/content/ema-c/residential/account-billing/payment-assistance/discount-rate
No matter what program design is used, prices are going way up. Eversource Basic supply rates just went up 50%. We will need to get information to people about ways to reduce their electricity bills.
We will have another discussion on this topic after some more recent and accurate pricing information is developed by Peregrine. The actual contract will be decided on by the Town Manager in May, when there will only be a few hours between getting the bids for electricity supply and choosing the vendor.
The current Acton Power Choice program is described at ActonPowerChoice.com. A short webinar on Acton Power Choice, sponsored by Green Acton and the Town of Acton, is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjV-IWqYNg0