Advanced Energy Perspectives

As we near the end of 2024, I’m pleased to share some good tidings and a bit of hope. While uncertainty hangs heavy on the horizon, Massachusetts offers a bright example of how states can shine when they choose to step up.

Governor Maura Healey recently signed a landmark clean energy package that will accelerate clean energy deployment in Massachusetts, and, in turn, will increase local jobs and lower energy costs. The act includes critical reforms to streamline siting and permitting processes, as well as provisions to expand grid-enhancing technologies, energy storage, and other advanced energy technologies.  

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.

As a candidate, Governor Maura Healey pledged to achieve 100% clean electricity in Massachusetts by 2030. Such an ambitious target will require not only lots of clean energy generation to be built quickly and a doubling down of energy efficiency measures but will also require that the state support the building of a stronger, more dynamic electric grid. Creating the modern electric grid that Massachusetts needs to achieve its energy goals will require transformative investments on two fronts: the state needs to build new lines to move clean power like offshore wind throughout the Commonwealth, and it also needs to upgrade existing power lines with modern technologies. Nowhere is the more critical than at the transmission level. Advanced Energy United is working with decision-makers in New England to address these challenges with policy solutions.

Across the country, clean energy developers are facing increasingly long and costly waits to connect their projects to the grid. The core problem they face is the lack of grid infrastructure to get clean electricity from where it’s made to where it is used.  

As we navigate our way into a new year, our team is reflecting on the legislative wins that drove the electric vehicle (EV) industry forward at a historic pace in 2022 and considering the actions and opportunities they create in the year ahead. This year’s review of enacted federal and state legislation tells a story of increased urgency, funding, and massive commitments by governments and utilities to expand transportation electrification. To synthesize the EV action across the country, Advanced Energy United read and summarized thousands of pages of enacted legislation, which we provide now as a three-part series that covers seven dominant trends.