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Feb 17

Clearing Up the Confusion on Pipeline Studies

New England’s growing dependence on natural gas has had some in the region worrying about supply constraints. In fact, concerns about natural gas supply and the impacts of proposed new pipelines prompted no fewer than three separate studies on the issue last year. In 2015, three consulting firms released separate reports for different clients analyzing the need for incremental natural gas pipeline in New England through 2030. The three distinctly different approaches to the studies have the potential to create uncertainty for those trying to compare the results.

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Feb 12

“You Can’t Stay Climate Change”

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s surprising and controversial decision to stay implementation of the Clean Power Plan—which limits the emission of carbon dioxide from existing power plants—here’s a bit of global context (see figure below).

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Feb 11

Delaying the Clean Power Plan: Who Pays for the Stay?

On Tuesday, February 9, 2016, the Supreme Court issued a stay on EPA’s Clean Power Plan (click here to learn more about the Clean Power Plan, and click here to learn more about the expected timeline of the stay). This stay calls into question whether some states will continue to implement policies associated with the Clean Power Plan, such as increased renewables and energy efficiency.

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Feb 10

Supreme Court Stays Clean Power Plan

Last night, the Supreme Court shocked many of us when it took the unprecedented step of granting a stay of the EPA’s carbon-reducing Clean Power Plan before litigation against the rule has even been heard by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. A stay is essentially a judicial pause button that halts the implementation of a regulation while challenges to it work their way through the court system. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled the D.C.

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Feb 01

Fairness, Health, and the Clean Power Plan: New Webinar

Environmental justice advocates have a new role to play in their states’ electric-sector planning. In its new rule on carbon emissions from power plants, called the Clean Power Plan, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires states to involve community stakeholders in their compliance planning processes. Underlying this requirement are the often disproportional health and environmental impacts that power plants can have on vulnerable communities.

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Jan 28

Forthcoming Report and Webinar Explain How Rate Design Proposals Have Customers “In a Fix”

Recently, there has been a sharp increase in the number of utilities proposing to increase mandatory monthly fixed charges for electricity. Utilities prefer fixed charges over usage charges, because fixed charges ensure a set amount of revenue each month, regardless of sales. However, higher fixed charges are an inequitable and inefficient means to address utility revenue concerns: they reduce customer control, disproportionately impact low-usage and low-income customers, dilute incentives for energy efficiency and distributed generation, and increase electric system costs.

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Jan 28

A RGGI Refresh that Could Help the Environment and the Economy

Next Tuesday (February 2) the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) participating states and regional stakeholders will meet to begin their second in-depth review of the RGGI program. This meeting will solicit stakeholder input on RGGI program design elements, including considerations for compliance under EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The last program review in 2012 led to a 45 percent reduction in the regional CO2 cap, among other changes.

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Jan 28

Synapse’s 2016 CO2 Price Forecast Is Out

The past year has brought plenty of changes in the energy regulatory landscape, particularly in relation to climate change and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Accounting for the resulting costs of these and other policies by incorporating a CO2 price is now firmly in the realm of best practice for utilities and system operators engaged in long-term energy planning. To assist with such planning and to provide a resource for other stakeholders, Synapse’s CO2 price forecasts simplify the complex process of determining effective CO2 prices by combining our own modeling results with comprehensive analysis of other CO2 prices in use throughout the electricity sector.

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Jan 20

Northeast States Can Use Cap-and-Trade Program and Other Strategies to Reduce Emissions and Save Billions of Dollars

Meeting the emission reduction goals of states within the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) will yield billions of dollars in savings and tens of thousands of new jobs each year for over a decade, according to a Synapse study released today. A more stringent RGGI cap, complemented by individual state renewable resource and efficiency standards, will help states achieve their climate goals, which cluster around a 40 percent reduction from 1990 emissions levels by 2030.

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Jan 11

Synapse Will Host Webinar Thursday on Bill Impacts of the Clean Power Plan

As state agencies and other stakeholders begin to explore options for compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, critical questions are emerging regarding the costs of compliance to consumers and the role of energy efficiency in reducing both emissions and bills. Synapse modeled various compliance options to determine how big an impact strong energy efficiency policies can have on the achievability and affordability of Clean Power Plan compliance.

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