Environmental agencies in nine states will work together to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions by making electric heat pumps the norm for most new home HVAC equipment sales by 2040. 

The memorandum of understanding, spearheaded by the inter-agency nonprofit Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, or NESCAUM, was released today and signed by officials in California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island. 

While it is not legally binding and does not commit particular funding, the agreement calls for heat pumps to make up 90% of residential heating, air conditioning and water heating sales in these states by 2040. 

An interim goal of 65% by 2030 is based on last fall’s target from the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of 25 governors, to quadruple their states’ heat pump installations to 20 million in the same timeframe. 

The residential sector is one of the top two or three contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in most of the East Coast states signing on to the agreement, driven in part by cold climates and a heavy reliance on oil and gas for home heating. Residential emissions rank far lower in the Western states participating.

In a press release, NESCAUM emphasized the harmful smog, haze and ozone driven by nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions from fossil fuel combustion, calling buildings “a hidden source of air pollution.” 

Senior policy advisor Emily Levin said states must move quickly to help residents replace these fossil-fired HVAC and water heating systems with heat pumps in time to limit the harms of global warming. 

“You may only have one more crack at these buildings between now and 2050, because these are long-lived pieces of equipment — they can last 10 or 20 years,” she said. “So we really can’t miss our opportunity.” 

Clear market signals

Matt Casale, senior manager of market transformation with the Building Decarbonization Coalition, said the new agreement’s market-share approach adds specificity to how states will meet existing, number-based goals for heat pump installations. 

“The idea is to send a clear signal to the market that heat pumps are the future of home heating and cooling, while reflecting the urgency with which we need to act to meet GHG emissions reduction targets,” he said. 

Manufacturers have called for this kind of “long-term signal,” said Levin — “they need to plan, they need to make significant investments.” She said agreements like this show companies that “this is the direction we need to go in” and that state governments are committed to helping make the transition happen.

“Greater demand for heat pumps will also put pressure on installers,” Casale added. “We will need policies that both grow and further develop the workforce. The MOU is a great opportunity to bring them in more directly, learn from them, and talk about their needs.” 

Under the new agreement, participating states will “collaborate to collect market data, track progress, and develop an action plan within a year to support the widespread electrification of residential buildings,” according to NESCAUM.

Afton Vigue, a spokesperson for the Maine Governor’s Energy Office, said taking advantage of consolidated industry data will help prevent another new reporting requirement for participating states and will help align with varying state metrics.

The states’ forthcoming action plan is expected to include emphasis on workforce development and supply chain constraints, which have tempered otherwise strong heat pump progress in states like Maine. 

“It really does focus on that element of driving the market and collaborating with manufacturers,” Levin said. “Right now, states don’t really necessarily know … how their heat pump market is developing. Creating systems to bring visibility to that, provide insights into that … it’s a really important element.” 

The agreement tees up annual reports on each state’s progress toward the 2030 and 2040 goals, and schedules a 2028 check-in about any necessary adjustments. 

Collaborative tools for affordability and access

“A greater focus on consumer education, workforce development, and affordability will be critical to the success of the transition,” said Casale. “This means getting the most out of the Inflation Reduction Act and other incentive programs, but we also need to answer the questions of how this solution best serves multi-family buildings, renters and others for whom purchasing a new system isn’t entirely within their control.” 

In the agreement, the states pledge to put at least 40% of energy efficiency and electrification investments toward disadvantaged communities — those facing high energy cost burdens or disproportionate pollution — in line with the federal Justice40 program, which underlies similar rules for the IRA.

Working through NESCAUM and other existing groups, the participating states will brainstorm tools for reaching these goals, potentially including funding for whole-home retrofits, building code enforcement and other uniform standards, data collection, research projects, use of federal resources and more. 

“It’s going to look a little different in every state,” Levin said. “But they’re committing to collaborate and to advance a set of policies and programs that work for their state to accomplish those broader goals.”

This could include adapting or building on each other’s approaches. Levin highlighted Maine and California as having successful models for consumer outreach and heat pump market coordination, and said Maryland has shown strong impact and ambition around clean building performance standards. 

Maine, which relies more on heating oil than any other state, is among the participants with existing heat pump goals in their climate plans. The state surpassed an initial target — 100,000 installations by 2025 — last year, and now aims to install 175,000 more heat pumps by 2027. 

Officials in Maine have said that heating oil use appears to be slowly falling in concert with increasing use of electricity for home heat. Vigue said the new agreement lines up with existing state goals and will help Maine “bolster our ongoing collaboration with other states, share experiences, and see where gaps may exist.” 

Nine states pledge to boost heat pumps to 90% of home equipment sales by 2040 is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

More than 100 years ago, an African American inventor named Alice H. Parker designed an indoor heating system using natural gas that she called a “heating furnace.” Her innovative design, awarded Patent Number 1,325,905 on December 23, 1919, was never placed into commercial production, but still stands as a groundbreaking advance in indoor comfort.

At this point in a conventional Black History Month profile, the narrative might turn to Parker’s life and the profound impact of her childhood curiosity on her later years. There would be at least one photo of Parker, perhaps in the process of drawing diagrams for her invention. The story would be a declaration of her achievement as an example of “Black girl magic.” 

In fact, there is scant data of any kind on Alice Parker or her life. To be sure, an online search for Alice Parker reveals several profiles and tributes. The problem is that a lot of the content in these pieces is questionable at best, however well-meaning their intent. Even the nature of her invention is often misinterpreted, with some sources claiming that she invented the indoor furnace — she did not — or that she was the first to design a natural gas heating system — also not true.

There doesn’t even seem to be a verifiable photo of her. One widely-distributed photo that accompanies several pieces about Parker is actually a White woman born five years after the patent was granted.

“It’s consistent with things that I’ve certainly learned about and read about as it leads to record-keeping of Black history in this country, when we think about who gets to tell the story — who gets to tell history,” said Dr. Rabiah Mayas of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. “And when people are not allowed the power to tell their own histories, to document their own legacies, we know that there are huge gaps in what any of us have access to.”

As a Black woman who lived and worked prior to the modern Civil Rights movement and before women obtained the right to vote, Alice Parker represents yet another “hidden figure” in the sciences like NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson and others. Her absence as a more prominent presence speaks to the ongoing need to address the obstacles that perpetuate the lack of women and people of color in the sciences, Dr. Mayas said.

“It’s something I would love to learn more about in particular and in Miss Parker’s story, to understand what some of those challenges were,” Dr. Mayas said. “And really, have we really moved the needle? Because representation is incredibly important. Diversity is incredibly important. We have more women [and] we have more people of color in the sciences, but we also know that we still are not fully represented in terms of our numbers in the population.”

Photos and other images

In a tribute piece to Alice Parker posted in November, writer Melissa Gouty casts doubt on the commonly used photo of Parker, noting that it “seems to be a white woman in clothing more suggestive of the 1940s or 1950s” and is “clearly a different person.” 

While many Black people have fair complexions and features that can appear racially ambiguous, Gouty is right. The photo is the wrong Alice Parker.

A major clue to the true identity of the woman mistakenly identified as Parker the inventor can be found in the caption included with a profile for NJ.com, which credits “lyons-family.co.uk” for the image. The website is a family genealogy portal, and reveals the Alice Parker in the image was born in London in 1924 — five years after the furnace patent. Further confirming Gouty’s suspicions, the genealogy site estimates the photo was taken in 1942. 

The genealogy website is an absolute treasure trove overflowing with photos, family trees and narratives about various members of the extended Lyons family. This wealth of data stands in marked contrast — and irony — to the nearly total absence of any information about the African American Alice Parker and her life experiences.

It is not clear who originally misattributed the photo, but it appears in a multitude of articles about Alice Parker the inventor. One rendering of the image shows her with a markedly darker complexion than the woman in the original photo. Another illustration of Parker on the children’s site Nickelodeon alters her image to erase her smile, in addition to displaying a darker skin tone. 

Gouty also noted that other profiles of Parker show an entirely different photo of another Black woman, also with a much darker complexion. This second photo has also been identified as either Marie Van Brittan Brown, born in 1922, or Bessie Blount Griffin, born in 1914. In either event, these two African American inventors were both born much too late to have obtained a patent in 1919.

Parker’s birthplace and residence

The furnace patent is credited to “Alice H. Parker of Morristown, New Jersey.” Beyond that, details are scarce about where and when Parker may have lived.

According to a profile on the National Society of Black Physicists website, Parker was born in 1895 in Morristown, New Jersey. Another profile on the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce website also states that Parker was born in Morristown “shortly after the Civil War,” which ended in 1865.

A number of sources state that Parker died in 1920 at age 24 or 25. However, January 1920 Census records obtained from the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center include a woman named Alice Parker listed as a 35-year-old cook — which would place her year of birth as approximately 1885. The record also states that this Alice Parker was born in Virginia and married to a 45-year-old butler named Edward whose birthplace is listed as Canada.

Alice and Edward Parker from the 1920 census records were listed as Black domestic employees of a White man named George Fanning whose 60-acre farm was located in Boonton, just outside of Morristown, the county seat. 

Although there is no definitive proof, it’s very possible that the Alice Parker from the 1920 New Jersey census records is also the Alice H. Parker who obtained the “heating furnace” patent in 1919, despite the discrepancies between various accounts. 

As a cook living in a large house, Parker would have had ample motivation to design a multi-room furnace. Indeed, Parker’s profile on the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce website stated that a desire to keep warm in her home during cold New Jersey winters inspired the design for her “heating furnace.”

Parker’s educational background 

The earliest known media mention of Parker’s patent appears in the February 1920 issue of The Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP. A roundup of notable accomplishments by African Americans called “the Horizon” includes the text: “Alice H. Parker, a graduate of Howard University, has been issued a United States patent for a heating furnace.” The same blurb was reprinted in a similar roundup called “The Colored Citizen” in the March 13, 1920, edition of Cayton’s Weekly, an African American publication based in Seattle published from 1916 to 1921.

The process for filing a patent application is rigorous and demanding, with many potential pitfalls. The patent’s clear explanation of the design, along with its well-executed drawings, suggest that the Alice H. Parker who submitted the sophisticated patent application for her “heating furnace” was educated as well as highly intelligent.

However, according to the Howard University alumni office, the only matching record was for an Alice Parker who graduated in 1939, almost certainly too late to have obtained a patent in 1919.

Another commonly cited source is a 1910 commencement program from Howard University Academy, a high school program affiliated with the university, that lists an Alice H. Parker from Clifton, Virginia, among its graduates.

But while they’re both identified as being born in Virginia, the Alice Parker in the New Jersey Census record would have been 25 years old in 1910, when the Alice H. Parker at Howard University Academy was graduating. If the National Society of Black Physicists’ 1895 birthdate is correct, Alice Parker would have been 15 at the time of the 1910 commencement.

However, the Alice Parker in the New Jersey Census record was married, and would likely have attended school under her birth name. A request to the Howard University alumni office for a listing of students named “Alice” during the relevant time period was declined, citing confidentiality.

So it’s possible that the Alice H. Parker from Howard University Academy is the inventor. It’s also possible that the Alice Parker working as a cook in New Jersey is the inventor, and attended Howard University under an unknown birth name. But it’s unlikely that both of these scenarios are true at the same time.

Parker’s ‘heating furnace’

Alice Parker’s “heating furnace” was essentially a rudimentary heat exchanger, comprised of a series of separate mini-furnaces. Each mini-furnace would be connected to a common air exchanger that created hot air from the combustion of natural gas, which would then be directed through ductwork throughout the entire house. While natural gas was already in use for industrial heating applications, and for lighting during this period, Parker’s central heating furnace design is credited as the first to use natural gas for heating homes and offices.

During the early years of the 20th century, wood-burning fireplaces or coal-burning stoves were the primary means of indoor heating. Heating with natural gas produced none of the smoke, soot and ash associated with burning coal or wood indoors. Using natural gas as a heating source also eliminated the need to restoke a fireplace with wood or a free-standing stove with coal — along with vastly reducing the risk of a fire from an unattended heat source.

While Parker obtained the services of an attorney to file her patent — as listed on her application — she deserves credit for navigating the complex patent application process, perhaps largely on her own.

“I can’t imagine the process of filing for a patent during that time and being one of the only [Black inventors] at the time and not having a community, not having mentors who perhaps had traveled the same path and could support and nurture along that path,” Dr. Mayas said.

Innovation and inequity

Parker’s groundbreaking whole house heat distribution system was much more efficient than either coal-burning stoves or fireplaces. And while natural gas is no longer a novelty as a heating source, Parker’s innovation fundamentally changed how indoor heating systems operate by being the first to incorporate separate, individually controlled heating elements in each room. Room level temperature controls in Parker’s “heating furnace” adapt seamlessly with modern smart home technology, which is projected to be used in more than 60% of all U.S. homes by 2026.

Yet, unlike Carrier Corporation or Lennox International Inc., there is no heating and cooling company named after Alice Parker. Except for her patent application, there seems to be no evidence that she engaged in structured scientific research. It’s a reasonable conjecture that the fact that Alice Parker was a Black woman during the early 1900s truncated her opportunities, including a potential career in the sciences, Dr. Mayas said.

“This was a time where not only could Black women not vote but White women could not vote at the time. So, we’re not seen as voting citizens of this country. There were still many institutions of higher education that were not permitting [Black students to attend], whether that was by their policy or by their practice. They were not admitting Black students, African American students into their programs,” Dr. Mayas said. “[Scientific research] was designed largely for White males, to be honest. That is, the scientific enterprise, as well as higher education, was really originally structured around men.”

Recognition and inspiration

Despite the fact that so little can be confirmed about Alice Parker and her life, she has not gone completely without well-deserved recognition. In 2019, the National Society of Black Physicists honored Parker, stating that her revolutionary invention “conserved energy and paved the way for the central heating systems we all have in our homes today.”

Likewise, in claiming her as a native resident, the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce established the Alice H. Parker Women Leaders in Innovation Awards in 2019 to honor women who utilize innovation to improve life in the state. The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce made an extensive effort to obtain background information about Parker in the process of creating their profile and award, and shared those findings with the Energy News Network.

Aside from this type of official recognition, seeing others who look like them in science and technology careers is important for Black girls and young Black women. It’s a signal that the sciences are open to them — not as an extraordinary achievement, but as a conventional career path — as it was for Dr. Mayas.

“The [first] laboratory in which I worked was run by a woman named Dr. Audrey Trotman who was a Black woman who was married and had children and was a successful researcher and professor,” Dr. Mayas said. “And I think because that was my first research experience and that it wasn’t called out as particularly special, it was normalized. It was a normal experience to have a Black woman running the lab and doing this incredible research. I think it was incredibly impactful because I didn’t have an experience where that was not normal. 

“I had the privilege of seeing as my first mentor in the sciences someone who looked like me, sounded like me, had cultural connections to me. And so, I think a lot about that as an adult about how meaningful that was and how important it is for all of our young people to have some of that experience and representation be normalized. Not celebrated as an exception, but part of their normal engagement with science.”

What we know about Alice Parker, a ‘hidden figure’ in modern heating is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Massachusetts faces growing competition from other states trying to take advantage of the anticipated surge in offshore wind development by building onshore infrastructure to support the burgeoning industry. 

Vineyard Wind, which would be the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind development, is expected to receive a major federal approval within weeks, kicking off the growth of a long-simmering industry in the region. Anticipating this project in the waters off of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, the state has made major investments in developing facilities to support the industry. 

Recently, however, other states across the Northeast have announced their own ambitious plans for port infrastructure and economic development, and some in Massachusetts are feeling the pressure to confirm the state’s position as a leader. 

“The opinion is relatively widely held that we could’ve been doing more in the last few years to maintain and increase our lead,” said Eric Hines, director of the Tufts University offshore wind engineering graduate program. “There’s a collective sense of urgency right now to really get serious about investing for the future on the land side.”

Massachusetts has been at the forefront of the offshore wind conversation since 2001, when businessman Jim Gordon proposed Cape Wind, a 468-megawatt wind farm that would have been located in the waters south of Cape Cod. Facing harsh opposition from powerful opponents, that plan was eventually defeated. 

The state’s current push for offshore wind began in 2016 with the passage of a law calling for the procurement of up to 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind energy. In 2018, Vineyard Wind was awarded the contract for the first 800 megawatts; the following year Mayflower Wind was selected to provide the next 800 megawatts. Since then, Massachusetts has upped its total planned procurements to a total of 5,600 megawatts.

Along the way, public and private parties in the state have been developing support facilities on land. In the city of New Bedford, on the south coast, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center developed a $113 million marine commerce terminal designed specifically for use by the offshore wind industry. In Charlestown, a waterfront neighborhood of Boston, the clean energy center built a $40 million facility for testing turbine blades, the largest such facility in North America.

In Somerset, a small town near the Rhode Island border, a private company has taken over a site formerly occupied by a coal-burning power plant and demolished the previous facilities with the goal of creating a support center for offshore wind.

“We are a first mover and continue to be a leader in the offshore wind space,” said Bruce Carlisle, managing director for offshore wind at the clean energy center. 

Massachusetts’ planned projects have been wading through the permitting process. Vineyard Wind, in particular, experienced delays at the federal level that many suspect were related to former President Donald Trump’s disdain for wind energy. 

At the same time, other states joined in the pursuit of offshore wind. Along the East Coast, states have committed to procuring some 29,000 megawatts of offshore wind, according to the American Clean Power Association. 

These states have also started planning port facilities and other onshore infrastructure to support the industry. New Jersey, which has aiming for 7,500 megawatts by 2035, is planning an offshore wind port for 200 acres along the Delaware River in the southern part of the state with an expected cost of $300 million to $500 million. The state has also pledged another $250 million to build a manufacturing facility for turbine components. 

New York, which has a goal of 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035, has announced plans for a facility to manufacture turbine towers at the port of Albany. 

These procurement spending commitments in a concentrated region send a signal to wind developers that these locations are committed to the industry, said Brandon Burke, vice president for policy and regulatory engagement at the Business Network for Offshore Wind, a nonprofit that promotes the development of the industry.  

“New York and New Jersey together are your biggest offshore wind markets and a lot of attention has been paid to them,” he said. “One of the biggest key elements here is investor and developer certainty.” 

At the same time, Massachusetts has announced no new moves to develop onshore facilities since the completion of the New Bedford site in 2015. The Somerset site has not yet been used for offshore wind purposes. 

“We probably haven’t seen the level of investments in this side of the industry that we have seen in other states like New York, New Jersey, and Virginia in recent years,” said Susannah Hatch, clean energy coalition director with the Environmental League of Massachusetts.

There is still, however, plenty of reason to believe Massachusetts can remain competitive onshore, said those with industry knowledge. 

The importance and impact of New Bedford commerce terminal should not be underestimated, even though it has not yet been used to its potential, Carlisle said. Both Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind have already struck deals to use the port as their staging area for receiving, assembling, and transporting turbine components during construction. 

Also, when construction begins, the market is likely to swing into action developing onshore facilities. Massachusetts is well poised to capture this business, he said. In 2017, the clean energy center released a port and infrastructure assessment that aims to appeal to private businesses in the sector by detailing the features, advantages, and possibilities of a variety of sites from the South Coast up to the North Shore. 

“There’s plenty of capital in this market,” Carlisle said. “And if the market sees a long-term pathway to a business venture, they will follow that.”

Hines also points to the advantages created by the state’s early start in the industry. Even though Cape Wind did not come to fruition, the planning process for the project laid a base of expertise and experience that is unique to Massachusetts, he said. Further, the University of Massachusetts schools, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Northeastern University, and his own employer, Tufts, are all at the forefront of research into issues involving fisheries, workforce development, and wind technology.

“The level of expertise Massachusetts has on the ground is extremely well established and runs very deep,” he said.

There is also a growing optimism — particularly given President Joe Biden’s strong support for offshore wind — that the industry will be robust enough to support ports and other onshore businesses throughout the region, without any state being a winner or a loser. 

“I think the general consensus is that, in the long run, there will be more than enough action in this industry, if we actually bring it to scale, for everyone,” Hatch said. “There is going to need to be a sort of constellation of infrastructure up and down the East Coast.”

Massachusetts sees more competition to bulk up offshore wind infrastructure is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Massachusetts-based EnergySage announced the soft launch of its community solar marketplace earlier this month.

A new online marketplace for community solar is aiming to connect project developers and potential subscribers in nine states, bringing down costs and helping to accelerate community solar development.

Massachusetts-based EnergySage announced a soft launch of the portal earlier this month. The company previously developed an online marketplace to help customers request and compare quotes from rooftop solar installers.

Community solar, in which customers subscribe to shares of electricity generated at larger, off-site projects, is growing in popularity, but recruiting customers remains a challenge for developers. Meanwhile, would-be customers have had to do homework to find available projects in their area.

EnergySage is hopeful its new platform can help solve these problems. 

“It actually saves you money and you can lock in your savings for up to 20 years,” said EnergySage founder and chief executive Vikram Aggarwal. “And, because of you subscribing to community solar, more solar is getting built.” 

In any given market, about 75% of residents, on average, are unable to install their own solar panels because they are renters, don’t get enough sunlight, don’t have the money or credit needed, or have an unsuitable roof, said Matt Hargarten, public affairs director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access, a national trade group. Community solar gives these consumers a chance to realize the savings and environmental benefits of solar. 

This form of energy sales is legally authorized in only 20 states, as well as Washington D.C., but is increasingly popular: The Solar Energy Industries Association estimates as much as 3.4 gigawatts of community solar capacity is likely to be added in the next five years, well more than double the current installed capacity.

And community solar is popular with consumers, with new developments generally selling out quickly, Hargarten said. Yet identifying and recruiting these customers is a major cost for developers, Aggarwal said. The EnergySage marketplace is designed to simplify that process. 

The marketplace serves nine states: Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. Consumers in these areas can search by zip code to find available community solar developments, compare options side-by-side, and subscribe to a project right from the EnergySage site. 

All of the available developments fit the individual state’s definition of community solar; in Massachusetts, for example, the project must be within the same utility territory as the subscriber. Customers can be confident, Aggarwal said, that their business is helping fund the development of new, local power generation, rather than sending money to a pre-existing solar farm on the other side of the country. 

The service is free for consumers, who are expected to save about 10% annually on their electricity bills. EnergySage makes its money by charging developers a fee to be included in the marketplace listings. 

“EnergySage’s marketplace will help more people access solar power — and we’re excited to be part of it,” said Joel Gamoran, general manager of energy services at Arcadia, a clean energy technology company that has developed community solar projects listed in the marketplace.

The service makes sense, said Hargarten. There are plenty of consumers who are interested in community solar who have simply never been presented with an opportunity to join a project, he said. A marketplace or similar service could tap into a well of pent-up demand.

“I am not surprised it’s starting to happen,” Hargarten said. “There is an appetite.” 

Right now, the marketplace offers what EnergySage describes as “dozens” of listings, including nine active in Massachusetts. The listings may not have options for everyone quite yet. But the company is continually adding listings and adding territories as more projects become available.

EnergySage started in 2011 as part of the federal government’s SunShot initiative, which awarded money to companies with ideas to lower the cost of solar energy. Two years later, EnergySage launched its first marketplace, this one for residential rooftop solar. The goal was to lower prices by generating competition and lowering installers’ customer acquisition costs, Aggarwal said.

Homeowners submit a few details about their home and solar goals, and receive quotes from up to six local installers. The information provided by each installer is formatted so consumers can make what Aggarwal calls an “apples-to-apples” comparison. 

The service grew over the years — Aggarwal says it is now the leading online residential rooftop marketplace — and eventually the company decided to adapt the model to community solar. 

Aggarwal is optimistic about the future of community solar, but he also wants state governments to pursue policies that will help encourage even further development. Massachusetts, for example, has solar incentives that are widely considered to be among the country’s most generous. However, the program came close to filling up within months of launch. The state has since doubled the program’s capacity, but, at current adoption rates, this expansion will only accommodate the demand for a few more years.

Longer-term planning could accelerate solar development, creating both environmental and financial benefits, Aggarwal said. 

“If some of these bottlenecks are taken away, you could see 30% or 40% discounts for consumers,” he said. “Imagine, in that case, how big this market would be.”

Aggarwal expects imitators to come along and attempt to replicate the EnergySage model. And he doesn’t mind at all, he said, if the end result is the creation of more renewable energy.

“If we can get more people interested and more solar is installed then that is a win-win for all of us,” Aggarwal said. “We need to install solar at a much, much higher rate than what we are doing today.”

Online portal aims to be clearinghouse for community solar subscriptions is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

It’s unclear if falling gas prices will make the agreement an easier political sell since unemployment is also surging.

The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states working on a regional compact to reduce vehicle emissions are still hoping to produce a final memorandum of understanding before summer, despite the pandemic shutdown. 

Meanwhile, plunging gas prices and the economic fallout from the coronavirus have put the partnership’s political odds and projected impact in flux.

Progress on the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a collaboration of 12 states and the District of Columbia, is continuing, according to senior organizers. 

“Our ability to work through the details of what that deal looks like hasn’t been significantly impacted,” said Peter Walke, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. “Most of the teams working on it are working at home and haven’t been affected at this point by the virus.”

Peter Rafle, communications director for the Georgetown Climate Center, which is facilitating the collaboration, confirmed that staff work groups and senior leadership discussions are continuing by email, phone and video conference. 

However, he added, “it’s too soon to be able to say for sure” whether the timeline might have to be extended. 

Alli Gold Roberts, the director of state policy for Ceres, a Boston-based nonprofit that works on sustainable business practices, said she had heard that the final memorandum would now likely be pushed back to the fall. 

“But to be honest, I think that’s fluid,” she said. “No one knows how long we’re going to be in this current state that we’re in.”

Known as TCI, the transportation initiative is modeled after the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cooperative cap-and-trade effort that has helped drive down power plant emissions in the region, though there is disagreement as to exactly how much.

As outlined in a draft memorandum released in December, the participating states would set a cap on emissions from cars, trucks and other vehicles. Transportation fuel suppliers would have to buy allowances at auction for every ton of carbon dioxide their fuel will generate beyond the cap. 

The estimated $5 billion to $7 billion in auction proceeds annually would flow back to the states, which could use the funds to further emissions reductions by investing in public transit, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and other projects. 

The aim is to reduce transportation emissions — which account for about 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the region — by as much as 25% by 2032. The participating jurisdictions are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington, D.C. 

The original timeline called for the launch of the program in January 2022. 

Since the release of the draft memorandum, some governors have publicly expressed doubts as to whether they will ultimately sign on to the final plan, due to its likely impact on gasoline prices. The plan’s backers have acknowledged that if fuel suppliers choose to pass along the additional costs to consumers at the pump, prices could rise from 5 to 17 cents per gallon, depending on the size of the emissions cap. 

That aspect could become less of a concern now, as gas prices have plummeted since the pandemic shutdown. The national average was less than $2 a gallon as of Tuesday, according to AAA. 

But that’s no guarantee TCI will become more politically palatable, given the many other factors at play, Walke said. 

“At the same time that oil prices have gone down drastically, unemployment claims are soaring,” he said. “It’s a bit difficult to gauge.”

The situation is made more complex in that lower fuel prices also affect the program’s modeling. Significantly lower fuel prices could slow the pace of emissions reductions, as electric vehicles and high-efficiency vehicles would become less cost-effective relative to the price of fuel, Walke said. 

“And if we see a boost in purchases of inefficient vehicles because fuel costs become less of a concern, over time we won’t see those reductions,” he said.

In light of the severe economic challenges ahead, lawmakers may become more interested in TCI’s job creation potential, said Anthony Cherolis, coordinator of Transport Hartford, a sustainable transit advocacy group at the Center for Latino Progress in Hartford, Connecticut. 

The draft modeling predicted the program would result in an average of 10,000 new jobs per year at a 25% reduction cap.

“I think that wasn’t getting the attention that it’s going to get now,” Cherolis said. “You can already kind of see it at the federal level where they’re talking about a $2 trillion infrastructure program. The opportunity in this crisis will be in building a sustainable and resilient infrastructure that doesn’t just put people back to work but builds a transportation system that doesn’t grease the skids to climate catastrophe.”

There are signs of growing interest in the initiative from major corporations. In a March 23 webinar hosted by Cherolis in partnership with other environmental advocacy groups, executives for Eversource and BP America both expressed their corporations’ strong and continued support for TCI. 

And Ceres has gathered support for the measure from more than 100 companies, trade associations and institutions, all of whom signed on to a March 12 letter making the case to governors in participating states. Signatories included the global pharmaceutical firm Novartis; Akamai Technologies, the content delivery network and cloud services provider; and Autodesk, the multinational software corporation.

“For businesses, transportation is a very complicated sector to decarbonize,” Gold Roberts said. “Companies have been excited by a market-based system that’s region-wide to decarbonize the transportation system and invest in those clean transportation solutions.”

Transportation and Climate Initiative moves ahead amid pandemic uncertainty is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.