New England

As more and more governments and corporations commit to a zero-carbon future, the need for large amounts of renewable energy installations over the coming decades increases. In densely populated New England, there is limited space for large-scale installations of solar panels.

This has sparked discussion and debate about the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions tradeoff between installing solar panels and maintaining current land-use practices. To investigate the issue further, Synapse set out to answer the following questions within New England:

On February 11, 2019, ISO New England published its latest draft distributed solar (“DG PV”) forecast. As in previous years, ISO New England has developed this forecast based on historical data and information about public policies in the six New England states. These policies include state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies, long-term procurements, net energy metering, federal tax credits, and other drivers.

On May 1, 2018, ISO New England released its 2018 forecast for Capacity, Energy, Loads, and Transmission (CELT 2018).

On January 17, 2018, ISO New England (“ISO”) released a draft of its Operational Fuel Security Analysis. This study lays out many different possibilities for a 2024/25 winter, assessing the electric grid’s reliability under a varying array of assumptions. ISO’s main finding is clear: adding more renewables and more imports, and increasing the availability of LNG deliveries and backup oil during supply emergencies, will all contribute to improved system reliability.

Massachusetts has long been a national leader in efforts to capture clean energy economic development opportunities, enhance energy security, and reduce emissions. The state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) legislation is an important part of this leadership in combatting climate change. RPS policies are the foundation for clean energy markets and a proven policy tool to support successful, cost-effective renewable energy development at the state level. An RPS is a market-based mechanism that creates demand for clean energy, which can be met by a variety of cost-effective resources.

On May 1, 2017, ISO-NE released CELT 2017, its latest forecast for electricity demand in New England. As the independent system operator, ISO-NE is responsible for coordinating electric generation and sales in New England and for ensuring the reliable operation of the region’s electric grid.

On February 6, 2017 Synapse released a report on “New England’s Shrinking Need for Natural Gas. ” This report examines the need for, and the cost of, the Access Northeast (ANE) natural gas pipeline.

Synapse Principal Economist Liz Stanton's OpEd on New England's clean energy leadership was recently featured in CommonWealth Magazine.

New England states once again find themselves in the vanguard of our national efforts to stop climate change. The region has long been a leader in driving forward progress in the clean energy economy:

There is almost one gigawatt of energy-saving distributed generation (DG) resources installed across New England, Synapse found in a report prepared for the E4 Group—and state policies, together with falling technology costs, could lead to the installation of nearly two more gigawatts by 2021. So why does ISO-New England currently assume that zero megawatts of new DG will be installed by 2021 for the purposes of transmission reliability planning, potentially leading ratepayers to fund unnecessary transmission upgrades?