There’s a lot of untapped potential in our homes and vehicles that could be harnessed to reinforce local power grids and make them more resilient to unforeseen outages, a new study shows.
In response to a cyber attack or natural disaster, a backup network of decentralized devices — such as residential solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and water heaters — could restore electricity or relieve stress on the grid, MIT engineers say.
Such devices are “grid-edge” resources found close to the consumer rather than near central power plants, substations, or transmission lines. Grid-edge devices can independently generate, store, or tune their consumption of power. In their study, the research team shows how such devices could one day be called upon to either pump power into the grid, or rebalance it by dialing down or delaying their power use.
In a paper appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the engineers present a blueprint for how grid-edge devices could reinforce the power grid through a “local electricity market.” Owners of grid-edge devices could subscribe to a regional market and essentially loan out their device to be part of a microgrid or a local network of on-call energy resources.
In the event that the main power grid is compromised, an algorithm developed by the researchers would kick in for each local electricity market, to quickly determine which devices in the network are trustworthy. The algorithm would then identify the combination of trustworthy devices that would most effectively mitigate the power failure, by either pumping power into the grid or reducing the power they draw from it, by an amount that the algorithm would calculate and communicate to the relevant subscribers. The subscribers could then be compensated through the market, depending on their participation.
The team illustrated this new framework through a number of grid attack scenarios, in which they considered failures at different levels of a power grid, from various sources such as a cyber attack or a natural disaster. Applying their algorithm, they showed that various networks of grid-edge devices were able to dissolve the various attacks.
The results demonstrate that grid-edge devices such as rooftop solar panels, EV chargers, batteries, and smart thermostats (for HVAC devices or heat pumps) could be tapped to stabilize the power grid in the event of an attack.
“All these small devices can do their little bit in terms of adjusting their consumption,” says study co-author Anu Annaswamy, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “If we can harness our smart dishwashers, rooftop panels, and EVs, and put our combined shoulders to the wheel, we can really have a resilient grid.”
The study’s MIT co-authors include lead author Vineet Nair and John Williams, along with collaborators from multiple institutions including the Indian Institute of Technology, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and elsewhere.
Power boost
The team’s study is an extension of their broader work in adaptive control theory and designing systems to automatically adapt to changing conditions. Annaswamy, who leads the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory at MIT, explores ways to boost the reliability of renewable energy sources such as solar power.
“These renewables come with a strong temporal signature, in that we know for sure the sun will set every day, so the solar power will go away,” Annaswamy says. “How do you make up for the shortfall?”
The researchers found the answer could lie in the many grid-edge devices that consumers are increasingly installing in their own homes.
“There are lots of distributed energy resources that are coming up now, closer to the customer rather than near large power plants, and it’s mainly because of individual efforts to decarbonize,” Nair says. “So you have all this capability at the grid edge. Surely we should be able to put them to good use.”
While considering ways to deal with drops in energy from the normal operation of renewable sources, the team also began to look into other causes of power dips, such as from cyber attacks. They wondered, in these malicious instances, whether and how the same grid-edge devices could step in to stabilize the grid following an unforeseen, targeted attack.
Attack mode
In their new work, Annaswamy, Nair, and their colleagues developed a framework for incorporating grid-edge devices, and in particular, internet-of-things (IoT) devices, in a way that would support the larger grid in the event of an attack or disruption. IoT devices are physical objects that contain sensors and software that connect to the internet.
For their new framework, named EUREICA (Efficient, Ultra-REsilient, IoT-Coordinated Assets), the researchers start with the assumption that one day, most grid-edge devices will also be IoT devices, enabling rooftop panels, EV chargers, and smart thermostats to wirelessly connect to a larger network of similarly independent and distributed devices.
The team envisions that for a given region, such as a community of 1,000 homes, there exists a certain number of IoT devices that could potentially be enlisted in the region’s local network, or microgrid. Such a network would be managed by an operator, who would be able to communicate with operators of other nearby microgrids.
If the main power grid is compromised or attacked, operators would run the researchers’ decision-making algorithm to determine trustworthy devices within the network that can pitch in to help mitigate the attack.
The team tested the algorithm on a number of scenarios, such as a cyber attack in which all smart thermostats made by a certain manufacturer are hacked to raise their setpoints simultaneously to a degree that dramatically alters a region’s energy load and destabilizes the grid. The researchers also considered attacks and weather events that would shut off the transmission of energy at various levels and nodes throughout a power grid.
“In our attacks we consider between 5 and 40 percent of the power being lost. We assume some nodes are attacked, and some are still available and have some IoT resources, whether a battery with energy available or an EV or HVAC device that’s controllable,” Nair explains. “So, our algorithm decides which of those houses can step in to either provide extra power generation to inject into the grid or reduce their demand to meet the shortfall.”
In every scenario that they tested, the team found that the algorithm was able to successfully restabilize the grid and mitigate the attack or power failure. They acknowledge that to put in place such a network of grid-edge devices will require buy-in from customers, policymakers, and local officials, as well as innovations such as advanced power inverters that enable EVs to inject power back into the grid.
“This is just the first of many steps that have to happen in quick succession for this idea of local electricity markets to be implemented and expanded upon,” Annaswamy says. “But we believe it’s a good start.”
This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy and the MIT Energy Initiative.
An example of the different types of IoT devices, physical objects that contain sensors and software that connect to the internet, that are coordinated to increase power grid resilience.
Braedyn Locke #18 of the Wisconsin Badgers throws a pass in the second quarter during the game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers at Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 29. (John Fisher | Getty Images)
Carbon dioxide emissions from Big Ten football team travel for regular-season conference games more than tripled in 2024 compared to 2023 after after the addition of a quartet of West Coast schools, a Capital News Service analysis found.
Carbon dioxide is one of the major contributors to global warming. It is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps heat in the planet’s atmosphere. Global air travel was estimated to be responsible for 2.5% of all carbon emissions and 4% of global warming, according to a study published by Our World in Data in April.
“As the Big Ten grows and its carbon-intensive activities increase, they’re contributing to higher levels of carbon emissions, so they’re fueling the heating of the planet,” said Joseph Nevins, a professor of geography at Vassar College and one of the pioneers of Flying Less, a project aimed at reducing air travel in higher education. “They’re making contributions to increasing forest fires in the U.S. Southwest and Canada, growing levels of air pollution, which have direct impacts on people’s bodily well-being.”
The Big Ten did not mention environmental impact as a consideration in making its football schedule.
“Our priority in football scheduling is to balance geography and travel to create compelling matchups in a flexible format that maximize opportunities for Big Ten teams to access the expanded College Football Playoff and win National Championships,” the Big Ten said in a statement to CNS in August.
In 2010, the Big Ten consisted of 11 schools: Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Penn State, Michigan, Northwestern, Purdue, Minnesota and Indiana. Nebraska joined the contingent of Midwest schools in 2011. Maryland and Rutgers officially became members in 2014, which allowed the Big Ten to expand its footprint to the East Coast. Carbon emissions from Big Ten travel rose 6% when Maryland and Rutgers joined the conference, per an Arizona State study published in May.
In 2024, the Big Ten added USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, which brought its buffet of schools to 18 and expanded the conference’s geographic footprint across the country. USC and UCLA are more than 2,400 miles away from Rutgers. When UCLA football traveled to New Jersey to face Rutgers on Oct. 19, its travel emitted more than 150,000 kilograms of carbon. Six days later, the Scarlet Knights took their own cross-country trip to face USC for a nationally televised game that started at 11 p.m. on the East Coast. Those two trips emitted the most carbon dioxide of any Big Ten games.
Each of the Big Ten’s new members is traveling at least twice as much this season as the year before, with UCLA and Washington traveling more than three times as much in 2024 for regular-season conference games as they did in their final Pac-12 seasons.
Of the 18 Big Ten schools, 17 will see an increase in carbon emissions from last year. Purdue is the outlier, emitting nearly 14,000 less kilograms of carbon this year in comparison to 2023.
The four West Coast schools are the Big Ten’s highest emitters. Washington is emitting more than 500,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide, the highest in the conference. USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon increased emissions of carbon dioxide by at least 250,000 kilograms in their first year in the Big Ten compared to their final year in the Pac-12. Penn State is projected to emit more 275,000 kilograms, Rutgers above 260,000, while Maryland is above 238,000 to take up the next three spots.
“Is it necessary? Are there alternative ways of doing things that would not only radically cut our carbon emissions, but produce a more socially and environmentally just world?” asked Nevins, who got his doctoral degree from UCLA.
The Seattle Seahawks of the NFL will travel an average of 3,227.62 miles round-trip for road games this season, the most in the league, according to Bill Speros of Bookies.com. The University of Washington football team, which plays its games less than seven miles from the Seahawks, will average 100 miles more per trip than its NFL neighbors.
CNS calculated distances from nearby major airports to find the carbon emissions total. For example, UCLA’s Oct. 19 game against Rutgers, CNS used the distance from Los Angeles International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport. For games where teams likely used bus travel, CNS used the distance between stadiums.
CNS focused on football team travel for this analysis due to the sport’s once-a-week travel patterns. Most other sports play multiple times a week and may have less predictable travel schedules.
In 2023, the conference announced that each Big Ten football program would face all other programs at least twice in a four-year span. Between 2024 and 2028, the Big Ten has scheduled 33 cross-country trips among the seven schools on the East and West Coast (Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, USC, UCLA).
“We develop our scheduling formats with input and feedback from school administrators, faculty representatives, medical professionals and head coaches looking at the potential impact on academics, health, safety, rest, recovery, and overall competitive equity,” the Big Ten stated in August. “We continue to evaluate our formats and evolve as needed.”
Kerry Kenny, the chief operating officer of the Big Ten, told ESPN in 2023 that a divisional model restricted the regularity of compelling football games. Oregon and Penn State, the two teams who met in the Big Ten title game on Dec. 7, are scheduled to play each other three times in the next four seasons, which would not have been the case with East and West divisions.
In its first season with the four new schools, the Big Ten had four teams qualify for the College Football Playoffs, the most of any conference. After an undefeated regular season and Big Ten title, Oregon is the top seed in the 12-team tournament.
An Oct. 12 matchup between Oregon and Ohio State, two of the top three teams in the nation at the time, averaged 10.4 million viewers and peaked at 13.4 million in the final minutes of what was an eventual Oregon victory. It was the most-watched Big Ten primetime regular-season game since 2008, according to a press release from Comcast. Team travel for the game resulted in more than 125,000 kilograms of carbon being released.
“The ultimate variable, in my opinion, is the games are better, the matchups are better, and certainly far more important,” said Tim Brando, a longtime broadcaster for Fox Sports.
Included in Brando’s 2024 slate was a Sept. 27 matchup between the University of Washington and Rutgers. Washington emitted nearly 149,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide in its flight for the game. The Friday night matchup peaked at 2.5 million viewers as Rutgers, who made the game its annual blackout, escaped with a three-point victory.
“That was probably the most intensity and the greatest crowd [Rutgers] had for a home game in Piscataway in years,” said Brando. “In large measure, it was because Washington was the opponent, a team that was playing for the National Championship just a year before.”
What’s happening in the Big Ten is representative of the new age of college football. Division-less conferences are the new norm. The only FBS conference split into divisions this season was the Sun Belt Conference.
“The only option to get to most of these competitions is to fly, which means that necessarily there are more flights,” said Madeleine Orr, an assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto and University of Minnesota graduate. “It’s a growth strategy, as opposed to a reductionist strategy and a climate strategy.”
As awareness around the impact of air travel grows, more major sports teams and organizations are investing in carbon offsets. Carbon offsets have become a trendy way for major corporations to compensate for emissions. They do so by investing in efforts that lower gasses released into the atmosphere, essentially covering the carbon dioxide they emit.
In 2019, the NHL purchased the equivalent of more than 3.8 million pounds (more than 1.72 million kilograms) of carbon offsets to counter its playoff travel. In the five years since then, the NFL’s Houston Texans, English soccer giant Manchester United and even the Australian national men’s and women’s soccer teams have bought offsets to make up for travel.
“In order for that offset to work effectively, the offset has to immediately cancel out … (those) emissions I’ve generated,” Nevins said. “You also have to be able to verify that it’s taking place and that the cut in emissions persists over time.”
Most colleges and universities have sustainability departments that evaluate the schools’ practices and how to lessen their environmental impact. In the Big Ten, in addition to sustainability departments, schools such as the University of Illinois and Michigan have programs focused on sustainable aviation.
The University of Maryland has a pledge to offset all air travel. While Maryland is offsetting all its travel, according to a school dashboard, the number of miles athletics traveled via commercial and chartered flights from 2021 to 2023 increased by 51%. The dashboard has not been updated for 2024, the first year that would include the West Coast teams in the Big Ten.
“What we should be concerned with is: What are they teaching their students, right? What are they teaching the communities in the world?” Nevins asked. “They are normalizing a behavior that is counter to the direction you need to be heading, and they are opening themselves up to accusations of hypocrisy.”
On Nov. 20, the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Studies released a paper looking at the impact of the school’s football travel. Paige Greenberg and Molly Russell, the authors, found conflict between the university’s messaging and the school’s athletics travel.
“While U-M has positioned itself as a leader in sustainability within higher education, the recent Big Ten expansion contradicts this image and poses significant challenges to the University’s commitments,” the paper said.
The 2024 season is the second of media contracts that the Big Ten has with CBS, Fox and NBC, which total more than $8 billion and will run through the 2030 season, according to the Sports Business Journal. In the 2023 fiscal year, the conference paid most of its members more than $60 million, a 3% increase from the previous year, according to USA Today.
“That seems to fall into a larger pattern where, in general, more wealth leads to more emissions,” said Seth Wynes, a professor at the University of Waterloo who has published research on the relationship between sports and climate change. “Richer individuals produce more emissions than poorer individuals. The same is true generally for nations. So as leagues or teams become more affluent, it’s not a surprising result.”
The immediate future of Big Ten football is set. Major media contracts have been signed, and games are scheduled through 2028.
Multiple experts mentioned making college sports regionally organized again would alleviate some of the problem. In the Big Ten, doing so would place the four former Pac-12 schools in a West division. That would lean into the decades-long rivalries of these programs and lessen the environmental strain of travel.
But re-implementing the East and West divisional format likely can’t be done until 2029 at the earliest, meaning the 2024 bump in emissions is likely to remain steady for the next four years.
“We should be going in the direction of more regional, not less,” Orr said. “Let’s crunch this smaller, not let’s blow it up bigger.”
Mekhi Abbott, Henry Brown, Keelin Brown, Shaela Foster, Alexa Henry, Steven Jacobs, Caroline Koutsos, Matthew Neus, Joshua Panepento, Brandon Schwartzberg, Laura Van Pate, and Matthew Weinsheimer contributed to the report.
Massachusetts environmental advocates hope a provision in the state’s new climate law could be a final blow to a proposed expansion of private jet facilities at a suburban airport.
Opponents say adding 500,000 square feet of hangar space at Hanscom Field, a general aviation airport that serves private and corporate aircraft in a town 20 miles outside of Boston, will inevitably mean more flights — mostly private jet travel to luxury locations — which will increase climate pollution with minimal public benefit.
“This is an industry that is highly polluting and yet serves only a very narrow slice of the public,” said Alex Chatfield, a local social worker and an activist fighting the project.
The expansion plans have been in the works since 2021, but progress slowed in June after state regulators rejected the planners’ first environmental impact report. Since then, state lawmakers passed a new law requiring state agencies and boards, including the state port authority, to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions in their decisions.
The measure does not directly prohibit the Massachusetts Port Authority from proceeding with projects such as the Hanscom plan, but it does leave the agency vulnerable to legal action should it forge ahead without being able to show it weighed the likely greenhouse gas emissions against the benefits of the plan.
Much-needed hangars
The expansion plan started with Massport, which oversees operations at Hanscom as well as Boston’s Logan International Airport and Worcester Regional Airport. In 2021, the agency released a request for proposals to develop “much-needed hangars” at the airport, said Massport spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan. A plan submitted by North Airfield Ventures and Runway Realty Ventures won the bid.
The proposed facilities would be built on 47 acres of land, some of which is already owned by the developers and some of which would be leased to them by Massport. The project comprises 17 new hangars, the rehabilitation of a historic Navy hangar on the site, and fuel storage facilities.
Planners argue the development would be environmentally beneficial, because the structures would be designed for net-zero energy use and built to LEED Gold standards, and buildings and equipment would be electrified whenever possible. They also claim the additional capacity would help cut down on emissions from so-called “ferry flights,” in which a plane hangared elsewhere flies to Hanscom to pick up passengers and then returns to its home airport at the end of the trip.
Opponents, however, argue that more hangars will inevitably mean more flights. These flights, they say, are likely to be private jet travel to luxury locations, generating emissions for the benefit of just a privileged few. One report, by Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, found that 31,600 private flights departed Hanscom during an 18-month period in 2022 and 2023, and that roughly half of those were bound for high-end vacation destinations like the Bahamas, Palm Beach, and Nantucket.
“It’s very well known that private jets are the most polluting form of transportation per passenger ever devised,” Chatfield said. “It is on a scale that is really hard to imagine.”
State environmental regulators are also skeptical. The state response to the developers’ first environmental impact report, referred to the “fanciful nature of the proponents’ ‘ferry flight theory,’” pointing to a study that found only 132 ferry flights actually occurred at Hanscom rather than the 3,500 developers claimed. Regulators also suggested new hangars at Hanscom were unlikely to attract planes to relocate, and therefore would not reduce what ferry flights do occur.
The developers can resubmit their environmental impact report, addressing the state’s concerns. One of the founders of North Airfield Ventures said the company declines to comment on its plans at this time.
Factoring in climate impacts
In the months since the state’s order was released, legislators created another obstacle for the project.
As Massachusetts attempts to reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions, an ongoing mundane-yet-important challenge has been the fact that some crucial state agencies and boards have lacked the authority to factor climate impacts in their decisions. These bodies were founded well before the climate crisis became such a pressing public policy question, and thus their rules never required or authorized them to consider greenhouse gas emissions or other climate impacts in their decision-making.
In recent years, attempts have been made to integrate climate change mitigation into more statewide policies and processes. A climate law enacted in 2021 requires the administration to set greenhouse gas reduction goals to be realized by the state’s three-year energy efficiency plans, which were initially intended only to reduce the cost and quantity of electricity, gas, and oil used. The same bill instructed public utilities regulators to consider greenhouse gas impact as part of their decisions.
“The department up to that point had just focused on reliability and affordability,” said state Sen. Michael Barrett, chair of the legislature’s committee on telecommunications, utilities, and energy, and one of the main authors of both the 2021 and 2024 climate bills. “I have wanted to reorient state agencies that don’t seem to have gotten the memo about climate change being an existential crisis.”
The latest bill included more such provisions, authorizing the Board of Building Regulations and Standards to give preference to building materials that boost emissions reductions, and requiring Massport to consider the greenhouse gas impacts of its decisions.
“I hope that Massport appreciates that what is done today on climate is inadequate, and I hope it also appreciates that the policies have changed,” said Barrett. “I don’t pretend to be able to predict particular outcomes on particular projects, but I do know that Massport needs to take this seriously.”
The following commentary was written by Daksh Arora, a project engineer at GameChange Solar, content director for the MIT Energy Conference 2025, and a fellow at the Clean Energy Leadership Institute. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
States like Massachusetts must take the lead in advancing the United States’ climate goals, especially under the incoming Trump administration. While the Biden Administration’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 made significant strides, the U.S. is still on track to achieve only 66% of its greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030.
With the potential for further setbacks, such as a possible second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, states like Massachusetts must step up to drive the deployment of clean energy and climate solutions.
The “Direct Pay” provision in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a game-changer for municipalities, state and local governments, and other tax-exempt entities to access federal clean energy tax credits. This provision allows entities such as nonprofits, schools, tribal governments, and municipal utilities to receive tax credits directly from the IRS, rather than relying on tax liability to claim them.
Before the IRA, only private entities could benefit from these credits, putting public entities at a disadvantage in developing clean energy projects. The Direct Pay provision has no cap on government spending through 2032, offering new opportunities for public sector investment in clean energy. Furthermore, IRA also increases the maximum available tax credit for certain clean energy projects, from 30% to 50%, with the potential for up to 70% or more for projects in energy or low-income communities, or those using American-made materials, helping overcome financial barriers that previously slowed public clean energy development.
To claim direct pay, eligible entities must complete their energy projects before receiving payment from the federal government, which will occur the following year. While the tax credits will lower overall project costs, upfront capital is still needed to finance projects before the refund arrives.
To help address this, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $27 billion program established by another IRA provision, provides increased green bank financing, supporting an equitable green financing ecosystem across the U.S. The IRS just finalized the direct pay rules and it would be really difficult for the next administration to repeal it.
City governments like in Somerville and Cambridge can use direct pay to supplement the costs of deploying renewable energy infrastructure such as solar panels and storage technologies on public lands and buildings; electrifying vehicle fleets; and building out electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Direct Pay is also a significant shift that allows public power entities, like the New York Power Authority (NYPA), to directly own renewable energy projects instead of relying on complex public-private partnerships. This makes it easier for NYPA to scale up clean energy projects by bypassing the need for third-party ownership structures that were previously required.
Regardless of this question, investing in public capacity is a net win for the environment as direct pay not only levels the playing field between for-profit and tax-exempt entities but also shifts energy generation ownership from private to public and nonprofit sectors, enabling more consumer-focused management of energy assets. States like Massachusetts should ensure that benefits from the IRA reach low-income and marginalized communities.
Massachusetts just streamlined the process for building solar and wind farms, transmission lines, and other energy infrastructure to help meet its climate goals by 2050. The state can do more by working to help communities understand the types of investments eligible for direct pay and how to secure financing for clean energy projects, making access to this funding easier and more efficient. The state can also lead by setting an example by deploying climate solutions at scale and ensuring utilities maximize the federal clean energy tax credits by regulatory oversight.
This article was originally published by Floodlight.
A small town in North Carolina has taken a bold step, filing the first climate “deception” lawsuit against an electric utility in the United States.
In a civil lawsuit, the Town Council of Carrboro accuses Duke Energy, one of the largest power companies in the United States, of orchestrating a decades-long campaign of denialism and cover up over the dangers of fossil fuel emissions. The lawsuit claims Duke’s actions stalled the transition to clean energy and exacerbated the climate crisis.
Over the past decade, similar suits have been filed by states and communities against large oil companies and — in at least one instance — a gas utility. But Carrboro, N.C., is the first municipality to ever file such a suit against an electric utility.
“We’re a very bold group,” Carrboro Mayor Barbara Foushee told Floodlight. “And we know how urgent this climate crisis is.”
Duke Energy said in a statement, “We are in the process of reviewing the complaint. Duke Energy is committed to its customers and communities and will continue working with policymakers and regulators to deliver reliable and increasingly clean energy while keeping rates as low as possible.”
The suit, filed in Orange County, North Carolina, accuses Duke Energy of intentionally spreading false information about the negative effects of fossil fuels for decades, despite knowing since the late 1960s about planet-warming properties of carbon dioxide emissions. It claims the power company funded trade organizations and climate skeptic scientists who created doubts about the greenhouse effect and obstructed policy and public action on climate change.
“Duke misled the public concerning the causes and consequences of climate change and thereby materially slowed the transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. Duke’s deception campaign served to protect its fossil fuel-based business model.” the lawsuit reads.
Between 2005 and 2023, the company reported reducing its CO2 emissions from electricity generation by 44%. But in 2023, at least 45% of the electricity Duke produced was still generated by burning coal or methane gas.
“(Duke) was one of the ringleaders behind deceiving the public and municipalities and governments about the causes and consequences of manmade climate change,” said Raleigh attorney Matthew Quinn, who is representing the town.
Carrboro is a town of about 20,000 with an annual budget of $81 million, Foushee said. Quinn, the attorney, estimates the town will incur some $60 million in costs in adapting to climate change impacts, including repairs to roads, upgrades to stormwater systems and increased heating and cooling costs.
At a press conference Wednesday, Quinn explained that expert analysts had arrived at that number based on the amount and cost of climate adaptation that Carrboro would have undertaken had it not been for Duke’s alleged deception.
“There’s a major gulf between where we should be at and where we are right now,” Quinn said at the press conference.
“Really, what this case is about is that Carrboro has been a victim of the climate deception campaign by Duke Energy, (and) as a result of Duke’s conduct, Carrboro has suffered a lot of damages and injustice,” Quinn said in an interview.
Added Danny Nowell, Carrboro Mayor pro tem: “We have paid for it. We have paid for excess road repairs. We have faced the effects of stormwater, and we will continue to pay for other expenses as we uncover them. It’s time for Carrboro to be repaid.”
Quinn’s fees are being paid by NC Warn, a climate nonprofit, Foushee said.
“People that run local governments and others and people that run corporations, they all better get heavily serious about the climate crisis,” said Jim Warren, executive director of NC Warn. “It’s already harming so many across this state.”
Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, called such lawsuits “cute.”
“And I use that term very, you know, intentionally. These lawsuits are cute in the sense that they’re trying to shame companies … into doing better,” said Jarvis, adding that they are rarely successful. “Companies have duties to their shareholders to maximize profits. And so what these lawsuits are really saying is that companies should be punished for maximizing profit.”
“It’s interesting with this as a case directly against a utility,” said Korey Silverman-Roati, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “It’s a shift in perspective from companies just producing fossil fuels to those burning it.”
Although this is the first climate deception lawsuit ever filed against an electric utility, it is not the first time that electric utilities have found themselves in legal trouble for the climate warming pollution their power plants spew as they burn fossil fuels to generate electricity.
In 2004, electric companies faced federal litigation brought by eight U.S. states, New York City and several land trusts seeking to cap the companies’ CO2 emissions. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the plaintiffs.
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
Blue-state attorneys general let none of this go without a fight — filing dozens of lawsuits and taking other actions on all manner of Trump administration moves, not just those connected to the environment, energy and climate. Connecticut was in the thick of it, especially on climate issues related to air quality and the emissions known to contribute to global warming and climate change.
But the second Trump administration could prove even more challenging for the attorneys general. It arrives with previous experience and a team potentially less prone to the mistakes that often caused failures in court in the first go-round. Trump will also have majorities in both chambers of Congress to bolster his agenda.
There are also the very specific policy and action recommendations in Project 2025, the conservative governing plan developed by the Heritage Foundation with assistance from many officials connected to Trump’s first term. After facing serious blowback to the plan during the campaign, Trump claimed he knew nothing about it, though his campaign website contained some of the same ideas.
There is also a super-majority conservative U.S. Supreme Court that has already flexed its muscles. It has issued a number of rulings that have effectively closed off avenues for challenges. The Chevron decision in June and the court’s use of the so-called major questions doctrine both generally now restrict what agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department can do without specific direction from Congress.
“It’s hard to overstate how profound this change is,” Tong said. “It essentially overturns the whole apple cart of regulatory infrastructure in this country.”
“I think we’re expecting a fight on everything. And that regulatory process — in changes in rulemaking — is going to grind to a very slow crawl and in some cases, to a halt. And that was the point of the people that initiated this.”
The Supreme Court rulings were destined to cause difficulties for Connecticut and other states regardless of whether Trump or Harris won. Tong said he and his blue-state brethren had been planning for both contingencies, though he wouldn’t say what the strategies will be.
“We’ve been preparing for the prospect of the Trump presidency for a long time now, and we are very closely coordinated and aligned,” he said. “We are ready.”
Roger Reynolds, senior legal director with the advocacy group Save the Sound called the Supreme Court rulings hugely concerning. “We’re in a really critical place right now. They have a clear anti-regulatory agenda,” he said. “It’s about putting their hands on the scales on the side of the regulated industries.”
Connecticut’s Democratic senate leaders, President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, sent a letter last week to Gov. Ned Lamont urging him to prepare to combat Trump administration actions that could hurt the state and the region. The request follows California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to hold a special legislative session to ensure there is enough money to take legal action against the Trump administration when necessary. Meanwhile, the governors of Colorado and Illinois are forming a blue state governors’ coalition to oppose Trump administration efforts.
The Biden administration has methodically reinstated many of Trump’s first administration rollbacks and fortified them with both regulatory-enhanced programs and funding, such as in the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure act.
Trump’s own campaign statements and promises as presented in his platform, Agenda 47, as well as Project 2025, could initiate another round of climate change, energy and environmental whiplash.
According to published reports, two of the first administration’s more effective members, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, both former fossil fuel industry lobbyists, are back at work in the transition and could be in line for positions in the new administration.
Within a week of the election Trump named former Long Island Republican congressman Lee Zeldin to run the EPA. He has limited environmental expertise but is a Trump loyalist. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a fossil fuel proponent, was nominated to head the Interior Department and to lead a new National Energy Council. And a fracking company executive, Chris Wright, was named to lead the Energy Department and sit on that council. Wright has said there is no climate crisis.
A close review of the nearly 900-page Project 2025 shows that it targets climate change, as well as energy and environmental programs and regulations. The project seeks to cripple the EPA, curtail if not eliminate funding and subsidies for clean and renewable energy programs — including for electric vehicles — as well as eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. And it would eliminate any focus on environmental justice.
It seeks to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which is popular enough among Republicans whose states and districts have benefitted that 18 members of the House Republican Caucus sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson asking that it not be repealed.
Project 2025 also derides the idea of addressing climate change as a policy goal and seeks to remove even the mention of it broadly throughout government.
It contains pointed political statements such as this: “Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs.”
And it makes a number of specific recommendations to remove climate change as a consideration, such as with the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: “End the focus on climate change and green subsidies;” and for the Energy Department: “Eliminate political and climate-change interference in DOE approvals of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.”
Project 2025would privatize the National Weather Service and dramatically reduce the percentage of funding provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for recovery from disasters like the historic flooding Connecticut, and other states, have experienced due to climate change.
The impacts of any of these would likely be felt down to state and local levels.
Connecticut’s biggest worries
If the Trump administration implements the environmental recommendations of Project 2025, Connecticut as well as other states face the possibility that unspent federal funds for climate and energy projects could be clawed back, costing jobs and the economic development around them.
Among 11 bullet points a conservative administration should pursue in energy policy: “Support repeal of massive spending bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which established new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.”
There is also the potential that the funding Connecticut and nearly all states have grown to rely on for large energy and electric grid projects could disappear. Project 2025 calls for eliminating and defunding the Grid Deployment Office.
Connecticut and the entire New England grid has been counting on offshore wind development to bolster its energy capabilities in the face of expanding power needs for economic development around data centers and other large businesses, as well as for electrification needs for motor vehicle charging and heat pump conversions.
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes steered clear of any hand-wringing when asked what she expects from a second Trump administration. She did, however, note that roughly a quarter of DEEP’s budget for both programs and personnel comes from a variety of different federal grants across a number of different federal agencies, EPA being the big one.
“There are a lot of different scenarios that people are contemplating with the new Congress and with the new administration, but it’s early to say what may happen,” she said. “We’re assessing options under different scenarios, but it’s too early to tell what the impacts will be.”
She ticked off a laundry list of programs that recently received federal money and noted the need to get the funds distributed and implemented. “We’re staying in touch with our neighboring states and with project developers to help understand how we can be nimble in the face of any changes that may come.”
And she said DEEP will be collaborating with the state Attorney General’s office and will follow its lead on any steps that need to be taken to protect Connecticut’s mission and interests.
One likely impact for Connecticut is that Trump’s policies will further prolong the now 50-year battle for clean air.
The state continues to face pollution and ozone levels that have long kept it from meeting federal air quality standards. The entire state does not meet 2015 standards and the southern part doesn’t even meet more lenient ones from 2008. That’s even as still tighter standards were issued in February.
The heat of this summer has once again resulted in a large number of bad air days — 23. The result over time has been persistently high asthma rates in the state, especially among vulnerable populations.
A principal cause is pollution and greenhouse gases that blow in from Midwest power plants running on fossil fuels of oil, gas and coal. Connecticut has long contended the situation violates the Good Neighbor provision of the Clean Air Act designed to keep upwind states from polluting downwind ones.
After four years fighting the first Trump administration’s efforts to loosen regulations on both greenhouse gas and standard pollutant emissions, Tong’s office has remained active the last four years, battling red-state attorneys general attempting to thwart the Biden administration’s tighter Good Neighbor regulations. In June, the Supreme Court stayed those regulations and sent them back to the lower courts.
“It’s not great,” Tong said, when asked whether the case is now stuck. “That doesn’t mean I’m gonna fight any less hard than I have. It doesn’t mean that we are any less focused on it. No one’s giving up, and no one’s saying darn it, because we have Lee Zeldin and a six-three conservative court that we should just move on to other things. It’s clean air; it’s foundational and fundamental to public health, so we’re just gonna keep at it. It’s not optional.”
Reynolds at Save the Sound is equally gloomy, saying the current litigation scenario puts everything several years out — again. “It doesn’t mean that it’s not necessarily going to go forward, but it certainly means it’s not going to be implemented anytime in the near future,” he said. “It’s absolutely a fair assessment that we’re not going to see clean air in Connecticut anytime soon.”
And the axis on environmental and climate regulation is likely to flip again as the Trump administration is expected to replace the Biden rules with their own less restrictive ones. The rulemaking process takes time and is likely to set off a whole new wave of court challenges, delaying things even more.
This session, the Supreme Court is taking up a challenge to the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act that requires in-depth environmental reviews for federal projects. A recent federal appeals court ruling curtailed how those reviews can be structured.
There are also hints in Project 2025 that the second Trump administration might try to overturn the so-called Endangerment Finding, which allowed greenhouse gases to be regulated — specifically as part of motor vehicle, power plant and industrial emissions.
All of these could further limit the tools attorneys general and others have for challenging environmental laws and regulations the new administration may want to overturn from the Biden era and before, or may seek to put in place.
Reynolds points out that states still have a lot of power — to approve power plants and review pipelines, among other things. And he notes that the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts specifically allow citizen suits if the federal government isn’t complying with those laws. He said that’s been Save the Sound’s bread and butter in upholding environmental regulations.
“That’s why, since the ‘70s, through all the administrations we’ve had, many of which have put a bull’s eye on environmental regulations, we’ve continued to have progress,” he said. “Our strategy is going to continue to be to enforce these incredibly powerful acts, and fight rollbacks and do what we can to get funding for these initiatives, and to get states and municipalities to take the lead.”
Reynolds isn’t the only one talking about states and municipalities taking the lead.
Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation and a former EPA regional administrator, said simply opposing Trump as state and local officials did during the first administration will not be enough this time, based on what Project 2025 espouses and what Trump has already said, because both clearly cater to the fossil fuel industry.
“What we’ll be pushing for is for states to fill in any gaps that are created by Trump’s attacks on federal agencies and the rollback of some standards,” he said. “A major concern in New England is the climate investments that Biden was able to secure in Congress. Those are enormously important to accelerating New England’s energy transition.”
But if the Trump administration embraces Project 2025’s threat to cut funding to clean energy and other climate-targeted programs, tax incentives and entire programs and offices — across all government, not just environment and energy areas — will states have the money to take the lead?
“States may have to come up with additional funding for the energy transition if the federal government goes into full retreat,” Campbell said.
Focus on the states
“Not going to happen this year,” said Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex and co-chair of the Energy and Technology Committee. “The state budgets before Trump won are already out of balance.”
He noted that many state employees — including at DEEP — are paid in whole or part with federal funds. “If you lose 10% of state employees because their funding is cut directly by federal budget changes,” he said. “I don’t know how we make that up, right? I just think it’s going to be a stressful, difficult time.”
Needleman said he still plans to hold a series of meetings before the legislative session begins to formulate policies and initiatives.
“I do not believe that anyone can fight a battle with only a strong defense. I think we need a combination of a sensible offense and a thoughtful defense about the damage that they can do, because we are going to have a target on our back,” he said.
His co-chair, Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, said he and Needleman are already trying to figure out whether to resurrect some of the major energy, environmental and climate legislation that failed in the last two sessions. The presumption at that time was that the federal government would be at least neutral, if not supportive broadly of climate change initiatives.
“This may further chill our willingness to take on big things,” he said. “I would never throw up my hands and walk away. But coming into the session I was already feeling frustrated, constrained, finding it difficult to do the things that I think we really need to do, which are of bigger consequence, like a lot of this necessary investment in infrastructure.
“Now you layer in on top of it, either federal preemption of any regulatory framework we might choose, or certainly a cessation or diminishment of funding for the things that we’ve counted on the feds for in the past. It’s very hard to figure, what do we do first?”
Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich and ranking member on the committee, said his goal is to make the best policy he can in alignment with his goals of low cost, reliable and environmentally responsible energy.
“Whether there’s a Democratic presidential administration or a Republican one, and there is going to be both in the next 20 years, and policy at the federal level — you make the best of it,” he said. “I haven’t seen, really in any substantial way, that federal policy has helped us meet those goals in Connecticut over the last decade or so.
“The goal is to make policy on a state level. You can’t count on federal policies. We need things to be sustainable on their own. Subsidies will not solve our woes.”
Steinberg offers some ideas for getting money if federal funding decreases or disappears. He suggests collaborations with the business community or investors.He said it might be worth considering something like taxing data center developers to cover the energy burden they bring. Such a tax could be reduced or eliminated if the company installs solar, geothermal, or some other energy reduction mechanism. “Anything to mitigate their energy burden by like a third or 50% before they can escape this tax,” he said.
The point, Steinberg said, is to figure out ways to get things done. It could be opting for low cost solutions in the near term or working with the Green Bank on private funding sources.
“I think that there are things that we must explore doing, even if it’s going to be harder,” he said.
Others said the transition to clean energy in New England is well underway which will help survive another round of Donald Trump.
“There is so much momentum behind clean energy technologies in particular,” said Julie McNamara, deputy policy director climate and energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s two things at once. There will continue to be progress and there will not be as much progress as there could or must have been.
“Certain things will slow or stop because we’re approaching the parts of the clean energy transition where it gets hard. A lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and so we’re starting to need to take those next further steps, the kind of things where It takes real, intentional work to couple policy with economics and a vision for the future.”
But Steinberg warned against the impulse to just wait Trump out. “It is not only not an answer; it would be irresponsible, in my view.”
He said everyone will need to be creative. “But the one thing we cannot lose is our resolve,” he said. “We just need to keep doing it, because we don’t have a choice.”
The Boise Airport became powered by 100% renewable energy this fall after Boise opted to be the first city to sign on to an optional new renewable energy program through Idaho Power.
The city of Boise is purchasing enough solar energy to power both the Boise Airport and the Lander Street wastewater treatment facility through 100% renewable energy, Steve Hubble, climate action manager for the city of Boise, said in an interview Thursday.
The Boise Airport is likely the first municipally-owned major airport in Idaho to become 100% solar energy powered. Hubble said he isn’t familiar enough with municipalities in North Idaho or eastern Idaho, which work with different utility companies, to know what their energy mix is.
“We’re the first municipality in Idaho to enter one of these Clean Energy Your Way contracts, so that’s pretty exciting in and of itself,” Hubble said. “And then from a quantitative perspective, I’m always going to link that back to what the city’s goals are.”
The move to powering its facilities by renewable energy represents Boise moving forward on climate policies at a time when the Idaho Legislature is actively pushing back against environmental and climate programs. While the Idaho Legislature has not established formal climate goals, the city of Boise has specific goals it bases climate policies around.
Power city government by 100% renewable energy by 2030.
City government operations become carbon neutral by 2035.
Power the entire community by 100% clean electricity by 2035.
The community becomes carbon neutral by 2050.
Making the Boise Airport and Lander Street wastewater treatment plant 100% renewable-powered brings the city to 25% of its 2030 renewable energy goal for city government.
Starting in the fall of 2024, the city of Boise is buying enough solar energy to power the Lander Street Wastewater Treatment plant and the Boise Airport. (Courtesy of City of Boise)
“So in other words, if you look at all the city’s electricity usage right now, about a quarter of it is being powered by renewable electricity, because the airport and Lander Street are two of our three biggest electricity-using facilities,” Hubble said.
How did Boise make its airport and a water treatment plant renewable energy powered?
Boise had been powering the airport and Lander Street facility with the standard energy it received from Idaho Power, which includes an energy portfolio of renewable energy like hydro as well as nonrenewable energy sources, like coal. To go 100% renewable, the city bought enough renewable solar energy to cover 100% of the energy those two facilities use.
The project is part of Idaho Power’s Clean Energy Your Way program, which is optional and does not change the energy mix that regular Idaho Power customers receive or the rates they pay, Idaho Power Director of Economic Development and Innovation Megan Ronk said in an interview.
Idaho Power’s largest source of energy today is renewable hydro power, Ronk said. For 2022, 24% of Idaho Powers energy generation capacity was coal, Idaho Power reported. Idaho Power has a goal to have 100% clean energy by 2045.
For customers who want to go renewable sooner, Idaho Power created Clean Energy Your Way, Ronk said.
“Clean Energy Your Way is really intended to provide a menu of options to meet customers where they are at in meeting their respective renewable and clean energy goals,” Ronk said in a phone interview.
The Boise City Council approved participating in the Clean Energy Your Way program in October 2023.
“This is possible because Boiseans have been so clear that they expect our city to lead in protecting our environment for the future,” Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said in a written statement after the Boise City Council vote. “It is important that we are resilient and because we want our kids, and their kids, to be healthy and to have a place where they can live and thrive into the future.”
After the Boise City Council approved participating in the program, Idaho Power and the city applied for approval from the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, which regulates utility companies in Idaho.
Under the application for the project, Boise sought approval to buy up to 10 megawatts of power from Black Mesa Energy solar project in Elmore County. In addition to the normal Schedule 19 rate Boise pays for energy not from the solar project, Boise will pay a fixed cost charge for each kilowatt hour of energy received from the Black Mesa Energy solar project. Excess energy generated but not used will be credited to the city.
The city of Boise buys enough energy from the Black Mesa Energy solar project in Elmore County to power the Boise Airport and Lander Street Wastewater Treatment Plant. (Courtesy of Idaho Power)
The Idaho Public Utilities Commission approved the application in August, which allowed the city to begin purchasing the solar energy Sept. 1.
The city’s contract is for 20 years. Hubble told the Sun he expects the city to pay slightly more for energy during the first 18 months of the project. Then, for the duration of the first 10 years, Hubble expects the city to either realize a savings or be paying no more than it would have regularly, without going renewable.
“We’re pretty excited about that savings opportunity, because basically this contract allows us to kind of lock in the rate for a portion of our power cost, and power costs do change, so that’s something we’re really excited about,” Hubble said. “It’s kind of cool, not only the renewable attribute of this, but that economic attribute of this is pretty exciting.”
Boise has a 25% share of the solar energy from the Black Mesa Energy project, while the remaining 75% is being used by Micron for renewable energy projects, Hubble said.
Other cities, residents and businesses can participate
Idaho Power offers different types of Clean Energy Your Way programs for residential customers, businesses and large municipal customers like the city of Boise. The largest energy-using customers, like the city of Boise, are able to participate in the Clean Energy Your Way Construction agreement that powered the Boise Airport and Lander Street facility. Hubble thinks Boise’s project could set an example for other large Idaho Power municipal or industrial customers who want to go with renewable energy.
But there are other options for other types of Idaho Power customers too. Residential customers can cover all or part of their energy use with renewable wind and solar energy at a cost of 1 additional cent per kilowatt hour, with the ability to cancel any time. Business customers can purchase renewable energy certificates, with options to buy on a month-to-month basis or for a three-year commitment.
The following commentary was written by Kelley Trombley, senior manager of state policy at Ceres. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
This campaign season, the state of Washington was a battleground for energy and climate policy. The pitched fight over Initiative 2117 became one of the most expensive ballot measures in state history, drawing millions of dollars in political funding to each side of the issue, which would have repealed Washington’s Climate Commitment Act to end its nation-leading cap-and-invest system. In its first year alone, the policy has driven $2.2 billion into projects designed to protect the state from the effects of climate change while fighting pollution, but faced opposition from those who argued it hurt the economy.
Yet it was some of the top employers in the state – and for that matter on the planet – that urged voters to keep the program in place. Amazon, Microsoft, and REI were among the many companies urging a no vote. And in the end, voters agreed, decisively defeating the ballot measure by a wide margin. It turns out that this kind of climate action is actually an economic boon.
The strong showing of corporate support for the CCA shouldn’t be surprising. Take it from me and my colleagues at Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit that works with businesses and investors across the country on sustainability issues. Over the last decade, leading businesses have increasingly come to recognize that climate and clean energy policies are key economic drivers. Business leaders have rallied to support them – from the federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, marking the nation’s largest-ever investment into confronting climate change, to ambitious legislation in states across the U.S., including here in Washington.
To understand why, just think about what businesses need to prosper. Reliable and affordable electricity to power their operations. Good transportation networks to ensure people and goods can get where they need to be. Infrastructure investment and job growth to bolster local economies. Market-based systems to efficiently solve pressing economywide problems. And, last but not least, a healthy workforce.
The CCA is delivering all of that.
By putting a cap on carbon pollution designed to all but eliminate it by 2050, the policy uses basic economic principles to address the challenge and financial risks of climate change. It promises to reduce impacts such as floods, drought, heatwaves, and severe storms that threaten pillars of the economy that businesses depend on, such as infrastructure, facilities, supply chains, and workforces. Not only that, the CCA is also investing in improving and fortifying many of those very things: its revenue is being used to improve and modernize energy and transportation infrastructure, invest in energy efficiency, and protect communities from climate impacts. Repealing it was projected to cost some 45,000 good-paying jobs and do $9 billion in economic damage.
Businesses understood the CCA is about protecting and strengthening our economic future, one that we are all in together. And voters did too. By voting no, Washington has signaled to companies across the U.S. that it is acting to address a major economic challenge and is investing in solutions that businesses of the future will rely on.
There’s a lesson here for state policymakers around the country, especially those committed to strengthening their communities as an attractive and reliable place to conduct business. The private sector will continue to seize business opportunities as clean energy investment grows, and states will find broad support when they address the economic imperative to reduce pollution and advance clean power, transportation, and building policies. In Washington, voters made it abundantly clear that their “no” vote wasn’t about just protecting the climate. It was about protecting the economy as well.
North Carolina regulators on Friday accepted Duke Energy’s controversial plan for curbing carbon pollution, a blueprint that ramps up renewable energy and ratchets down coal power but also includes 9 gigawatts of new plants that burn natural gas.
The biennial plan is mandated under a 2021 state law, which requires Duke to zero out its climate-warming emissions by midcentury and cut them 70% by the end of the decade.
The timing of the order from the North Carolina Utilities Commission, two months ahead of schedule, caught many advocates by surprise. But its content did not: it hewed closely to a settlement deal Duke reached this summer with a trade group for the renewable energy industry; Walmart; and Public Staff, the state-sanctioned ratepayer advocate.
But critics were dismayed by regulators’ abdication of the 2030 deadline. The ruling said Duke no longer needed a plan to make the reductions by decade’s end, instead telling it to “pursue ‘all reasonable steps’ to achieve the [70%] target by the earliest possible date.”
“Major step back on climate,” Maggie Shober, research director at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy,” wrote on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, adding, “for those that say it couldn’t be done, Duke had a 67% reduction by 2030 in its 2020 [long-range plan.] The utility industry generally, and Duke in particular, has had opportunity after opportunity to do better. They chose not to, and here we are.”
“Duke’s plan isn’t even compliant with the latest EPA regulations related to greenhouse gas pollution,” David Rogers, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said in a statement.
Concerns about the Biden-Harris rules, along with doubt that the natural gas plants could be converted to burn carbon-free hydrogen, appeared not to persuade regulators.
“The Commission acknowledges that there are uncertainties and risks associated with new natural gas-fired generation resources, but this is true of all resources,” the panel wrote.
On the contrary, regulators believe Duke can make use of gas plants after the state’s 2050 zero-carbon deadline, even if clean hydrogen doesn’t pan out.
“Accordingly,” the panel said, “the Commission determines that a 35-year anticipated useful life of new natural gas-fired generation and its assumed capital costs are reasonable for planning purposes.”
The greenlight for the gas infrastructure is not absolute, commissioners emphasized in their order, since Duke still must obtain a separate permit for the facilities. But advocates still bemoaned the anticipated impact on customers.
“This order leaves the door open for Duke Energy to stall on carbon compliance in order to develop additional resources, like natural gas, that largely benefit their shareholders over ratepayers,” Matt Abele, the executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, said via text message.
‘Positive step’ for offshore wind
Still, Abele and other advocates acknowledged the plan’s upsides, including its increase in renewables like solar and batteries. The 2022 plan limited those resources to about 1 gigawatt per year; this year’s version increases the short-term annual addition to about 1.7 gigawatts.
Regulators’ decision to bless 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2034 and call for Duke to complete an “Acquisition Request for Information” by next summer also drew measured praise.
“This order is an overall positive step for offshore wind,” Karly Lohan, North Carolina program manager for the Southeastern Wind Coalition, said in an email, adding, “we still need to see Duke move with urgency and administer the [request for information] as soon as possible.”
With regulators required to approve a new carbon-reduction plan for Duke every two years, advocates are already looking ahead to next year, when the process begins anew.
“Proceedings in 2025 present another chance to get North Carolina back on track to achieving the carbon reduction goals as directed by state law,” Will Scott, Environmental Defense Fund’s director of Southeast climate and clean energy, said in a statement.
“By accelerating offshore wind and solar, the Commission could still set a course for meaningful emissions reductions from the power sector that are fueling the effects of climate change, including dangerous and expensive storms like Hurricane Helene.”
And like Scott, David Neal, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, isn’t giving up on the state’s 2030 carbon-reduction deadline, the commission’s latest order notwithstanding.
“We’ll continue to push for the clean energy future that North Carolinians deserve and that state law and federal carbon pollution limits mandate,” he said in a statement.
Login
