New power sources

Date:
February 23, 2022
Source:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summary:
Thirty-six million people in the U.S. use an energy system developed
by a handful of activists in the 1990s. A scholar examines this
unusual story.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Thirty-six million people in the U.S. use an energy system developed
by a handful of activists in the 1990s. An MIT scholar examines this
unusual story.


==========================================================================
In the mid-1990s, a few energy activists in Massachusetts had a vision:
What if citizens had choice about the energy they consumed? Instead of
being force-fed electricity sources selected by a utility company, what
if cities, towns, and groups of individuals could purchase power that
was cleaner and cheaper? The small group of activists -- including a journalist, the head of a small nonprofit, a local county official, and
a legislative aide -- drafted model legislation along these lines that
reached the state Senate in 1995. The measure stalled out. In 1997, they
tried again. Massachusetts legislators were busy passing a bill to reform
the state power industry in other ways, and this time the activists got
their low-profile policy idea included in it -- as a provision so marginal
it only got a brief mention in The Boston Globe's coverage of the bill.

Today, this idea, often known as Community Choice Aggregation (CCA),
is used by roughly 36 million people in the U.S., or 11 percent of the population. Local residents, as a bloc, purchase energy with certain specifications attached, and over 1,800 communities have adopted CCA
in six states, with others testing CCA pilot programs. From such modest beginnings, CCA has become a big deal.

"It started small, then had a profound impact," says David Hsu, an
associate professor at MIT who studies energy policy issues. Indeed, the trajectory of CCA is so striking that Hsu has researched its origins,
combing through a variety of archival sources and interviewing the
principals. He has now written a journal article examining the lessons
and implications of this episode.

Hsu's paper, "Straight out of Cape Cod: The origin of community choice aggregation and its spread to other states," appears in advance online
form in the journal Energy Research and Social Science, and in the April
print edition of the publication.



==========================================================================
"I wanted to show people that a small idea could take off into something
big," Hsu says. "For me that's a really hopeful democratic story, where
people could do something without feeling they had to take on a whole
giant system that wouldn't immediately respond to only one person."
Local control Aggregating consumers to purchase energy was not a novelty
in the 1990s.

Companies within many industries have long joined forces to gain
purchasing power for energy. And Rhode Island tried a form of CCA slightly earlier than Massachusetts did.

However, it is the Massachusetts model that has been adopted widely:
Cities or towns can require power purchases from, say, renewable sources,
while individual citizens can opt out of those agreements. More state
funding (for things like efficiency improvements) is redirected to cities
and towns as well.

In both ways, CCA policies provide more local control over energy
delivery.

They have been adopted in California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York,
and Ohio.

Meanwhile, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Virginia have recently passed
similar legislation (also known as municipal or government aggregation,
or community choice energy).



==========================================================================
For cities and towns, Hsu says, "Maybe you don't own outright the whole
energy system, but let's take away one particular function of the utility, which is procurement." That vision motivated a handful of Massachusetts activists and policy experts in the 1990s, including journalist Scott
Ridley, who co-wrote a 1986 book, "Power Struggle," with the University
of Massachusetts historian Richard Rudolph and had spent years thinking
about ways to reconfigure the energy system; Matt Patrick, chair of
a local nonprofit focused on energy efficiency; Rob O'Leary, a local
official in Barnstable County, on Cape Cod; and Paul Fenn, a staff aide
to the state senator who chaired the legislature's energy committee.

"It started with these political activists," Hsu says.

Hsu's research emphasizes several lessons to be learned from the fact
the legislation first failed in 1995, before unexpectedly passing in
1997. Ridley remained an author and public figure; Patrick and O'Leary
would each eventually be elected to the state legislature, but only after
2000; and Fenn had left his staff position by 1995 and worked with the
group long-distance from California (where he became a long-term advocate
about the issue). Thus, at the time CCA passed in 1997, none of its main advocates held an insider position in state politics. How did it succeed? Lessons of the legislation In the first place, Hsu believes, a legislative process resembles what the political theorist John Kingdon has called a "multiple streams framework," in which "many elements of the policymaking process are separate, meandering, and uncertain." Legislation isn't
entirely controlled by big donors or other interest groups, and "policy entrepreneurs" can find success in unpredictable windows of opportunity.

"It's the most true-to-life theory," says Hsu.

Second, Hsu emphasizes, finding allies is crucial. In the case of CCA,
that came about in a few ways. Many towns in Massachusetts have a
town-level legislature known as Town Meeting; the activists got those
bodies in about 20 towns to pass nonbinding resolutions in favor of
community choice. O'Leary helped create a regional county commission
in Barnstable County, while Patrick crafted an energy plan for it. High electricity rates were affecting all of Cape Cod at the time, so community choice also served as an economic benefit for Cape Cod's working-class service-industry employees. The activists also found that adding an
opt-out clause to the 1997 version appealed to legislators, who would
support CCA if their constituents were not all bound to it.

"You really have to stick with it, and you have to look for coalition partners," Hsu says. "It's fun to hear them [the activists] talk about
going to Town Meetings, and how they tried to build grassroots support. If
you look for allies, you can get things done. [I hope] the people can
see [themselves] in other people's activism even if they're not exactly
the same as you are." By 1997, the CCA legislation had more geographic support, was understood as both an economic and environmental benefit for voters, and would not force membership upon anyone. The activists, while
giving media interviews, and holding conferences, had found additional
traction in the principle of citizen choice.

"It's interesting to me how the rhetoric of [citizen] choice and the
rhetoric of democracy proves to be effective," Hsu says. "Legislators feel
like they have to give everyone some choice. And it expresses a collective desire for a choice that the utilities take away by being monopolies."
He adds: "We need to set out principles that shape systems, rather than
just taking the system as a given and trying to justify principles that
are 150 years old." One last element in CCA passage was good timing. The governor and legislature in Massachusetts were already seeking a "grand bargain" to restructure electricity delivery and loosen the grip of
utilities; the CCA fit in as part of this larger reform movement. Still,
CCA adoption has been gradual; about one-third of Massachusetts towns
with CCA have only adopted it within the last five years.

CCA's growth does not mean it's invulnerable to repeal or utility-funded opposition efforts -- "In California there's been pretty intense
pushback," Hsu notes. Still, Hsu concludes, the fact that a handful
of activists could start a national energy-policy movement is a useful
reminder that everyone's actions can make a difference.

"It wasn't like they went charging through a barricade, they just found a
way around it," Hsu says. "I want my students to know you can organize and rethink the future. It takes some commitment and work over a long time." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology. Original written by Peter
Dizikes. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. David Hsu. Straight out of Cape Cod: The origin of community choice
aggregation and its spread to other states. Energy Research &
Social Science, 2022; 86: 102393 DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2021.102393 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220223133447.htm

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