Boston’s Mayor Marty Walsh announced a new plan on Thursday, June 7, to potentially join forces with other large cities around the country to buy into large-scale renewable energy projects together. The initiative will start with an information-gathering phase, to be conducted by Boston and six other cities. Mayor Walsh claimed that the plan will “help power our cities and create more clean energy jobs.”
BostonCAN is excited to see the administration taking this active new step toward carbon reduction. We’re interested in the details of how this large-scale purchasing plan is going to be set up, and what effects it will have, both on our own city and on the country as a whole. Below are some questions that we hope the city will answer as more information becomes available.
Would this project meet the environmental principle of additionality?
The term “additionality” means the extent to which an investment creates more greenhouse gas reduction than would have occurred without it. In particular, we want to know if Boston’s investment would create additional reduction that would not have occurred anyway.
An example of a project that would not meet the additionality criterion would be a wind farm sited in the Midwest. Wind power is already commercially competitive in states with strong natural wind resources and large rural areas with low real estate costs. In these states, market forces are already yielding many wind power projects, which are profitable without government or environmentalists needing to invest in them. Another decision that would limit the additionality of a project would be to put it in a state with a weak regulatory mandate for renewable energy.
Would the city’s investment yield other public benefits to Boston residents besides low-cost renewable energy?
Would our air be cleaner, or our public health improved? Would local innovative energy businesses be stimulated? Would Boston residents gain employment opportunities? In particular, Boston should not try to cut costs by locating clean energy projects in “Right to Work” states with poor worker protections.
How soon could such a plan be implemented?
Climate change is already damaging our cities, and the more slowly we reduce greenhouse gases, the more problems we will have. The potential effectiveness of a project is a combination of how much it will reduce annual emissions and how soon it will start.
A final note: We hope that this new project will not distract from the effort to implement Community Choice Energy (CCE). Multiple industry experts have said that CCE is relatively straightforward. BostonCAN recommends that EEOS follow through with the directive from City Council to set up an advisory group and issue a Request for Proposals to get the ball really rolling on CCE. By implementing it as soon as possible, the city will score a win on carbon reduction even as it explores other promising proposals.