Massachusetts passes sweeping climate law

[peakbagger]

All of New England will be seeing big increases as the region bet on natural gas 25 years ago. The only nuclear plants left are Millstone in CT and Seabrook in NH. Mass was hoping to get an additional hookup to Hydro Quebec via a new line in Maine but that is not happening for another year if ever. There is an approved and permitted project down through VT, but it was deemed too expensive by HQ, if the money thrown away on the NH project that failed and the Maine project that may fail were added up its looking like someone made a bad bet as the VT project would be on line by now. New England is supply limited for natural gas through the pipelines so any extra gas has to come from LNG. LNG is in great demand now and more so this winter due to the Russian mess so New England will have a choice of heating homes or keeping the lights on. New England has very little gas storage due to the local geology.

 

[Ashful]

Maybe those of us still on oil should hang onto our boilers, just a bit longer.

 

[EbS-P]

Maybe those of us still on oil should hang onto our boilers, just a bit longer.

So a quick look shows 0,50$ per KWh with a cop of 3 is roughly equatorial fuel oil at 4,75$ a gallon. Propane at 3.75$ and nat at 2.95$ a therm.

Propane at

Residential Heating System Cost Calculator | Efficiency Maine

Our heating cost comparison calculator can help you estimate your annual home heating costs for different heating systems.

www.efficiencymaine.com

 

[woodgeek]

Maybe those of us still on oil should hang onto our boilers, just a bit longer.

No worries, you are on the correct side of the Hudson, in the land of fracking, cheap gas and legacy nukes.

 

[Ashful]

So a quick look shows 0,50$ per KWh with a cop of 3 is roughly equatorial fuel oil at 4,75$ a gallon

I'd been paying mid-$2's to mid-$3's, the last ten years, prior to the European embargo on Russian oil. But even with Putin playing his games, my price today is 15% lower than that bench mark.

Of course, I'm paying nowhere near $0.50/kWh, either!

 

[peakbagger]

Looking at current heating oil futures (see below), its a good bet for this winter compared to natural gas. Heating oil is also energy dense and can be easily stored. When I used oil, I never used more than 500 gallons a year and fairly quickly installed a second oil tank so I could fill up once a year during the summer when prices were low.

I had a coworker at one point that had a sixties contemporary, lots of glass, partially on a slab, shallow roof and odd foot print with lot of exterior walls. In order to keep the snow off the roof there was zero insulation in the ceilings. He had two oil tanks but went through 2500 gallons a winter. There is large natural gas line that comes through the area but with the exception of a couple of prisons and a papermill that are near the line and have a tap, there is no natural gas available, so its oil or propane.

 

[Brian26]

So looked a little further and it really will be .49 delivered. The supply/generation side is going from 11.491 to 33.891 per kwh. Since electricity is deregulated in Massachusetts National Grid makes no profit off the supply side. When you add on their delivery fees and other charges the total cost delivered is .49 kwh.

 

[Ashful]

Looking at current heating oil futures (see below), its a good bet for this winter compared to natural gas. Heating oil is also energy dense and can be easily stored. When I used oil, I never used more than 500 gallons a year and fairly quickly installed a second oil tank so I could fill up once a year during the summer when prices were low.

I had a coworker at one point that had a sixties contemporary, lots of glass, partially on a slab, shallow roof and odd foot print with lot of exterior walls. In order to keep the snow off the roof there was zero insulation in the ceilings. He had two oil tanks but went through 2500 gallons a winter.

Good info. It's funny that my prior house, a relatively small 2500 sq.ft. with all new windows, had two 275 gallon tanks. I went thru a little more than 600 gal/year there, so I couldn't quite make a full year, but could usually time it well enough on pricing. I did have some sludge issues with the tanks in that house, perhaps the result of having too much stored for too long.

This house has only one 275 gallon tank, and we use about 2700 gallons per year without the stoves going, heating about 6400 sq.ft. with mostly 250 year old windows and doors. The oil company called us an "every 7-10 day'er", meaning they have to deliver here every 7 - 10 days, to be sure we don't run dry if the stoves aren't kept going. With the stoves, I can usually hold us to 1000 gallons per year, with a third of that being domestic hot water usage and storage. I suppose it must frustrate their predictive usage software, to see I may only use 100 gallons from one delivery, and then blow almost clean thru 275 gallons on the next because I wasn't burning, but they have never complained.

I am in the process of replacing that aging tank now, for safety rather than added capacity, as my oil company lets me pre-buy at summer pricing without having to store it in my own basement.

 

[Tithis]

So looked a little further and it really will be .49 delivered. The supply/generation side is going from 11.491 to 33.891 per kwh. Since electricity is deregulated in Massachusetts National Grid makes no profit off the supply side. When you add on their delivery fees and other charges the total cost delivered is .49 kwh.

View attachment 299451

This is making the whole energy choice thing potentially useful for once. (https://www.energyswitchma.gov)
Normally they have always been more expensive then getting it from Nation grid. Cheapest one without a cancellation fee claims to be 100% renewable and is offering it at 22.49 cents per kwh, which should work out to a final price of about 37.6 cents/kwh after adding the delivery & transmission rates. Still a little suspicious of the whole thing though.

Originally I was planning to only burn wood in the middle of winter and with the heatpump covering the milder parts + helping even out the house a bit. I don't want to burn not fully seasoned wood again like last year, so I might order a couple pallets of biobricks. Per BTU I think works out as twice as expensive as delivered cordwood, but certainly cheaper then propane or the heatpump this year.

 

[peakbagger]

No doubt burning wood or biobricks is the way to go this winter unless you have true net metered solar.

In my case in NH I am grandfathered into a closed rate plan for my existing arrays where I get paid the exact same amount for the power I export as what I import minus a very small state sales tax (20 or 30 cents a month) which is probably illegal but no wants to fight it.

 

[Tithis]

We want to get solar eventually, got enough room for probably a 7KW system on our detached garage that faces due south with a basically ideal pitch. Other projects have just been taking priority for a bit, if this lasts longer than the winter that will likely change though.

Just ordered 3 tons of biobricks to be delivered to supplement the 2 cords of oak and maple. Just need to clear some room in the garage now.

 

[Ashful]

I can't imagine roof-top solar ever paying for itself in Mass. I've run the numbers for southeastern Pennsylvania, and best-case scenario is a break even, and only then if you pretend inflation doesn't exist.

 

[peakbagger]

Mass has had some incredible incentives over the past 10 years for household solar. Many of the programs were far too generous. One of my coworkers installed a 10 KW system and paid for it in about 3 years. Power is steep in the state. Basically, in Mass if you do not put solar on your house you are paying for your neighbor to do so.

BTW, they also have some great incentives on batteries.

 

[stoveliker]

That was my thought; with 50 ct/kWh rates, even if the net metering is not really good, it might be worth looking into adding a battery.

 

[Brian26]

Massachusetts has literally the best solar and battery incentives in the nation. They have a program called connected solutions where they pay you $1800 a year to draw from your battery during high demand. The program is 5 years so they essentially pay for your battery and then you get a free battery with 5 more years of the 10 year warranty. Go put a Massachusetts address in the Tesla site and see all the incentives there. The current return on investment on solar there is around 5 years with all the incentives. With this price increase I could see it going down to 3.

 

[Ashful]

Mass has had some incredible incentives over the past 10 years for household solar. Many of the programs were far too generous... Basically, in Mass if you do not put solar on your house you are paying for your neighbor to do so.

...they pay you $1800 a year to draw from your battery during high demand. The program is 5 years so they essentially pay for your battery and then you get a free battery...

This mentality always surprises me, @Brian26.

@peakbagger already correctly said it, but to put a finer point on it, it is not "free". The government doesn't make money, and they can't give anything to you for free. All they can do is take money from you, lose some of it due to a debatable combination of operating costs, inefficiency, and corruption, and then return the rest in goods and services. Economics 101.

@peakbagger's, "if you do not put solar on your house, you are paying your neighbor to do so," is almost as good as Reagan's, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

 

[stoveliker]

I can't imagine roof-top solar ever paying for itself in Mass.

But you said this. And the scale where "this" matters is the individual scale, because that is where the decision is made, and where cost vs benefits is calculated. And as you can see, on that scale it does pay for itself, because the cost (for the individual) is so low in MA.

 

[Brian26]

This mentality always surprises me, @Brian26.

@peakbagger already correctly said it, but to put a finer point on it, it is not "free". The government doesn't make money, and they can't give anything to you for free. All they can do is take money from you, lose some of it due to a debatable combination of operating costs, inefficiency, and corruption, and then return the rest in goods and services. Economics 101.

@peakbagger's, "if you do not put solar on your house, you are paying your neighbor to do so," is almost as good as Reagan's, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

None of Massachusetts incentives are from federal money. Almost all of them are funded by energy efficiency surcharges on electric and gas bills. Here in CT something like 5% of your electric bill is to fund the energy efficiency fund. I installed solar 7 years ago and received a huge state incentive but between my house and business easily paid way more in electricity efficiency fund surcharges than I received for my panels.

That same fund is currently offering a $10k rebate for insulation right now as well.

 

[gthomas785]

In order to keep the snow off the roof there was zero insulation in the ceilings.

 

[stoveliker]

I hope they don't have eves ...

 

[Ashful]

None of Massachusetts incentives are from federal money. Almost all of them are funded by energy efficiency surcharges on electric and gas bills. Here in CT something like 5% of your electric bill is to fund the energy efficiency fund. I installed solar 7 years ago and received a huge state incentive but between my house and business easily paid way more in electricity efficiency fund surcharges than I received for my panels.

That same fund is currently offering a $10k rebate for insulation right now as well.

That's good info. But changing the revenue stream doesn't actually change the reality of my second paragraph.

Stoveliker makes a good point, that you're paying less as an individual if a 5% tax on your electric bill is indeed the only revenue stream into that fund. But of course that system could then not survive more than just a very small fraction of the population drawing from those funds, unless another revenue stream were to be added.

 

[woodgeek]

Historically, charging customers to fund efficiency programs did save rate payers money NET, bc it eliminated (or delayed) the need for building new expensive power plants.

No power is cheap power.

 

[Brian26]

Another unprecedented 160% electricity rate increase for Unitil customers in New Hampshire.

Unitil customers can expect a significant rate increase in December, if the utility’s Friday request is granted.

Unitil is asking to increase electric rates to 26 cents per kilowatt-hour, which would take effect on Dec. 1 and last for eight months. That’s a 160 percent increase from the current rate of 10 cents. A typical household can expect its bill to increase 75 to 78 percent, or $85 to $100 depending on energy use.

https://www.nhbr.com/unitil-seeks-160-rate-increase/

 

[SpaceBus]

Maine has already gone up significantly, I hope it doesn't happen again.

 

[Ashful]

The article wasn't clear, but based on the numbers and some of the other statements, I'm assuming this 160% increase is on the distribution fees only? Still, 75 - 78% increase in the bill will break some budgets, if behavior and usage cannot adapt quickly enough.