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If passed, House Bill 315 would undermine the potential for community power to transform our state energy system by giving our cities and towns the local control to save on energy costs, increase resilience, and generate more renewable energy. Before “community power” there were basically two options for energy consumers: take electricity from your utility “default service” (which is fine, but not all that innovative); or every individual customer can go out and negotiate “competitive electricity supply” with a broker or energy supplier. With community power, cities or towns can pool together the buying power of their collective electricity users, break off into town-by-town pockets of electrical load and start to tailor energy services to meet their distinct needs. The institution of a Purchase of Receivables program will lead to more supplier competition and lower risk premiums, resulting in lower pricing and more options for communities and their ratepayers.

Freedom Energy Logistics,  a leading energy advisory that provides comprehensive energy supply management, risk assessment, and renewable energy solutions for businesses, today announced Loren Stacey has been named Channel Program Director. As the champion for Freedom’s Channel Program, Loren will actively network to identify and recruit talent to join and thrive in the expanding Freedom organization, as well as manage and support its current Partners. Bart Fromuth, Chief Operating Officer stated, “Loren Stacey joined the company in early 2020 and has been instrumental in defining and refining Freedom’s Channel Program, working with executive leadership in setting the overall requirements. The private company offers comprehensive energy supply management and renewable energy solutions supporting energy goals and sustainability objectives for businesses and organizations throughout the U. S.  Freedom’s team of energy experts has worked with and delivered energy saving, environmentally responsible solutions for some of the largest commercial and industrial companies, municipalities, universities, healthcare facilities, and businesses.

The CES regulations (form 310 CMR 7.75) were revised in July 2020 to include amendments known as the Clean Energy Standard Expansion (CES-E). CES and CES-E regulations are designed to help increase the amount of ‘clean’ electricity purchased from the regional electric grid for consumption in Massachusetts. The Clean Energy Standard applies to a percentage of electricity sales coming from ‘clean generation units’ in commercial operation after 2010, while the Clean Energy Standard Expansion focuses on ‘existing clean generation units’ in commercial operation prior to 2011. The CES begins its buildout, based on percentage of electricity sales, in 2018 with 16% and continues its buildout at 2% annually through 2050.

For a location here in New England that uses 5,000,000 kilowatt hours and 20,000 dekatherms annually, typical annual capacity costs are $50,000-$150,000 ($.01-$.03/kWh) while basis costs are $20,000-$60,000 in the $1.00-$3.00/Dth range. When an aggregator prices out the bulk load for a group purchase, they use the combined capacity tags and basis measures of all group members, ultimately developing an aggregated rate. From the example above, if your capacity tag is $.01/kWh and the group’s aggregated capacity tag is $.02/kWh, you’d be overpaying $50,000 a year on capacity. The stark reality however is that in an energy buying group before factoring in the lack of individualized attention and flexibility; 50% of the participants are already on the losing end from capacity and basis variance alone.