How a National Grid event about energy efficiency and solar turned out quite differently.
By Seth Mansur
Solar Consultant Team Lead
Life is busy. It’s tough getting out to public meetings at town hall, but when an event near and dear to my heart (like solar energy) is a major topic, count me in!
The event was at the Leominster City hall and hosted by National Grid. I should have known something was fishy when the Massachusetts National Grid President introduced the co-speaker - the manager of the natural gas pipelines. Community members at the event were on a range of mildly annoyed to extremely angry at National Grid for their policies, a few people even address the company's president as representing “National Greed!”
In my home state of Massachusetts, we have an energy problem. Currently we produce over 50% of our electricity using methane gas (natural gas is actually methane - a great way to make natural gas sound less scary). As demand increases in the winter from all the methane gas heated buildings, supply for the electricity plants gets limited.
Unfortunately, National Grid doesn’t make money on solar, hence the reason why they have been aggressively fighting solar every step of the way. There is a cap in place that is limiting solar expansion, which National Grid fought to impose, and is fighting any effort to lift the cap. Instead, their only solution to our energy challenge is more pipelines to bring in more methane gas.
So what can we do to reduce our methane intake? Here are my top suggestions:
The event was at the Leominster City hall and hosted by National Grid. I should have known something was fishy when the Massachusetts National Grid President introduced the co-speaker - the manager of the natural gas pipelines. Community members at the event were on a range of mildly annoyed to extremely angry at National Grid for their policies, a few people even address the company's president as representing “National Greed!”
In my home state of Massachusetts, we have an energy problem. Currently we produce over 50% of our electricity using methane gas (natural gas is actually methane - a great way to make natural gas sound less scary). As demand increases in the winter from all the methane gas heated buildings, supply for the electricity plants gets limited.
Unfortunately, National Grid doesn’t make money on solar, hence the reason why they have been aggressively fighting solar every step of the way. There is a cap in place that is limiting solar expansion, which National Grid fought to impose, and is fighting any effort to lift the cap. Instead, their only solution to our energy challenge is more pipelines to bring in more methane gas.
So what can we do to reduce our methane intake? Here are my top suggestions:
1. Have an energy audit for your home
For customers in National Grid and Eversource this is a service that you already pay for via your electric bill so take advantage of it!
2. Look into powering your home with solar energy
You can find more info about Intelligen later in this article and the unique approach they take to helping homeowners evaluate solar for their property.
3. Contact your elected officials
Let them know your concern about energy costs and how renewable energy resources are the long term solution to the problem
If we rely on methane gas even more, we will require more pipelines in the future. Seems a bit insane to just focus on more pipelines and not recognize the value of distributed generation, from solar and wind to geothermal and solar thermal. Right now there are over 30,000 leaks in the methane gas pipeline system in Massachusetts, why would we want any more pipelines in this state of affairs? I’m not sure about you, but I trust simple solar panels on my roof over a complex array of pipelines with highly flammable methane gas that is pressurized 11 times greater than the gas that comes into our houses.
For customers in National Grid and Eversource this is a service that you already pay for via your electric bill so take advantage of it!
2. Look into powering your home with solar energy
You can find more info about Intelligen later in this article and the unique approach they take to helping homeowners evaluate solar for their property.
3. Contact your elected officials
Let them know your concern about energy costs and how renewable energy resources are the long term solution to the problem
If we rely on methane gas even more, we will require more pipelines in the future. Seems a bit insane to just focus on more pipelines and not recognize the value of distributed generation, from solar and wind to geothermal and solar thermal. Right now there are over 30,000 leaks in the methane gas pipeline system in Massachusetts, why would we want any more pipelines in this state of affairs? I’m not sure about you, but I trust simple solar panels on my roof over a complex array of pipelines with highly flammable methane gas that is pressurized 11 times greater than the gas that comes into our houses.
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