On August 29, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (the Department) issued a pivotal order that could shape the state’s future energy landscape. This ruling marks a significant, though incremental, step toward modernizing the Commonwealth’s distribution grid, offering a preliminary roadmap to guide Massachusetts on its journey toward a more advanced energy infrastructure.

The far-reaching decision, the first of its kind under a 2022 law, lays out the Department’s findings on a variety of issues that include how utilities plan and propose grid investments, weigh new alternatives, assess opportunities to connect (and pay for) clean energy resources, engage stakeholders, account for procedural, distributional, and structural equity, account for costs and benefits, and recover costs. The Department’s decision lays out next steps but falls short of approving actual expenditures that will result in more distributed energy resources (DERs) connecting to the grid and contributing to the Commonwealth’s decarbonization goals. 

In January, the three Massachusetts electric utilities (Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil) filed “Electric Sector Modernization Plans” with the Department. Each plan outlined future energy system improvements and investments to fulfill the Commonwealth’s decarbonization and energy transition goals. Advanced Energy United has been engaged in all three proceedings as part of a coalition of clean energy stakeholders.