By Michael Kuser BOSTON — The offshore wind industry is poised for a wave of growth in the Northeast with expanding solicitations, falling contract prices and increasingly competitive auctions for new project sites, Massachusetts officials and wind developers shared Wednesday. The Environmental Business Council of New England held a conference...

By Michael Kuser BOSTON — Massachusetts is seeking to broaden its already ambitious goals for procuring clean energy and reducing emissions, state officials said last week. Topping the agenda: The state is considering to solicit an additional 1,600 MW of offshore wind energy even as it is barely halfway through...

By Michael Kuser Massachusetts electricity suppliers won’t have any trouble this year meeting the state’s new mandate for serving a certain portion of their sales with “clean peak” resources. That’s because the state’s Department of Energy Resources (DOER) last week set the 2019 minimum to zero while it attempts to...

By Michael Kuser BOSTON — Growing solar generation will be able to meet a third of peak load in Massachusetts in a few years, but as the grid is reaching the saturation point in certain areas, policymakers are looking to energy storage to help address some of the challenges. “The...

By Michael Kuser Offshore wind in the U.S. hit a new milestone Friday when the eighth federal lease auction brought in $405 million for three sites — about six times the revenue from all previous auctions combined. Eleven companies participated in 32 rounds of bidding. The winners were Equinor, a...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. BOSTON — Municipal aggregation is becoming a potent tool for cutting electric prices and greenhouse gas emissions, while some believe retail choice has failed to live up to its promise for residential customers, speakers told Raab Associates’ New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable on Friday. Regulators from...

By Michael Kuser National Grid has begun operating a vanadium redox-flow battery (VRB) with its 1-MW solar PV array in Shirley, Mass., to demonstrate utility operation of storage. The company was the prime recipient of an $875,000 Massachusetts grant awarded to an application team that also includes Vionx Energy, Worcester...

By Michael Kuser BOSTON — This year’s legislative sessions in New England produced clean energy developments ranging from Connecticut’s “most important energy bill” in seven years, to Massachusetts taking “baby steps,” to Rhode Island taking what might turn out to be a “regrettable pause.” Vermont even passed a bill requiring...

By Michael Kuser A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Friday declined to review FERC’s approval of plans to expand capacity on the Algonquin Gas Transmission natural gas pipeline. The court also dismissed a petition from a group of elected Boston officials for lack of standing. Circuit Judge Sri...

By Michael Kuser WESTFIELD, Mass. — Massachusetts officials last week held three hearings across the state to get public input ahead of a September release of the statutorily mandated Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP). The state’s Department of Energy Resources is preparing the plan to project the state’s 2030 energy demands...