A year and a half since Massachusetts introduced an optional new building code aimed at lowering fossil fuel use, climate activists are heartened by how quickly cities and towns are adopting the new guidelines. 

The new code, known as the specialized stretch code, became law in 2023. Since then, 45 municipalities representing about 30% of the state’s population have voted to adopt its guidelines. The code is already active in 33 of these communities and scheduled to take effect over the next year in another 12.

“That is just an astounding statistic to me,” said climate advocate Lisa Cunningham, one of the founders of decarbonization nonprofit ZeroCarbonMA. “The rollout has been, quite frankly, amazing.”

Massachusetts has long been a leader in using opt-in building codes to push for decarbonization of the built environment. In 2009, the state introduced the country’s first stretch code, an alternative version of the building code that includes more stringent energy efficiency requirements. Municipalities must vote to adopt the stretch code, and the vast majority have done so: As of June, just 8.5% of residents lived in the 50 towns and cities without a stretch code. 

The specialized stretch code takes this approach a step farther. The goal is to create a code that will help achieve target emissions reductions from 2025 to 2050, when the state aims to be carbon-neutral. In 2021, the legislature called on the state to create an additional opt-in code that would get close to requiring net-zero carbon emissions from new construction. 

“We want to work towards decarbonizing those buildings, right from the start, as we look to a future in 2050 while we are net-zero in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.

At the same time, electrified, energy-efficient homes will mean lower energy costs for residents over time, more comfortable and healthier indoor air, and more stable indoor temperatures when power outages occur, she said. 

The construction industry, meanwhile, has concerns about the measure’s impact on upfront costs. 

Getting to net-zero buildings

The resulting code doesn’t require buildings to achieve net-zero emissions right away, but attempts to ensure any new construction will be ready to go carbon-neutral before 2050.

There are a few pathways for compliance. A newly built home can use fossil fuels for space heating, water heating, cooking, or drying or be built fully electrified. If the new home uses any fossil fuels, however, it must be built to a higher energy efficiency standard, be wired to ready the house for future electrification, and include solar panels onsite where feasible. In all cases, homes must be wired for at least one electric vehicle charging station.

Larger, multifamily buildings must be built to Passive House standards, a certification that requires the dramatic reduction of energy use as compared to similar buildings of the same size and type. Single-family homes can also choose to pursue Passive House certification. 

Decarbonization advocates are pleased with the rollout so far. The state’s major cities, including Boston, Worcester, and Cambridge, were all quick to adopt the code. In most municipalities the vote to adopt the specialized code has been near-unanimous, said Cunningham.

And more communities are considering the specialized code.

“We’re talking to a lot of communities that are contemplating it for their town meetings this fall,” Mahony said. “We know there is a growing sense out there of wanting to do this.” 

 The key to convincing cities and towns that the code is a good idea is for municipal governments to understand and frame the code as a consumer protection measure, rather than an added burden, Cunningham said. The requirements of the specialized code along with state and federal incentives can save on construction costs upfront, and will ensure buildings cost less to operate during their lifetime, offering significant benefits to residents, she said. 

“At the point of construction this is an incremental expense – it’s barely even a blip,” she said. “Then it directly reduces your future electricity bills.”

A troublesome transition?

Many in the construction industry, however, disagree with Cunningham’s take. Emerson Clauss III, a director with the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Massachusetts, has found the equipment needed to reach the high standards in the code is more expensive than its authors counted on, and supply chain issues are causing even higher prices.  

“It’s had quite a rough start to it,” Clauss said. “It’s adding considerable cost to new housing.” 

He also worries that the high cost of electricity now — Massachusetts electricity prices are the third highest in the country — spells near-term financial trouble for homeowners that feel forced to go all-electric. 

“The idea that it’s going to cost less 20 years from now — what does that do for people who need to get into a house now?” he asked.

Furthermore, the creation of a new optional code, he said, adds another variable for builders already jumping between the basic code and the previous stretch code, as well as learning the new rules in ten communities banning fossil fuels as part of a state pilot program. Even municipal building directors aren’t able to keep up, Clauss said, recalling a confused call with a suburban building inspector who needed 20 minutes to confirm it was OK to install a natural gas line in a new home. 

In Cambridge, one of the first cities to adopt the specialized code, Assistant Commissioner of Inspectional Services Jacob Lazzara noted there was some confusion at the outset, but time and proactive communication from the city helped ease the transition. The city has held trainings, created materials to hand out to builders and design professionals, and fine-tuned internal communications to make sure the staff is all well informed. 

“There was a little bit of shock for everyone at first, but I think we’re in a good place right now,” Lazzara said.

Massachusetts cities are quickly embracing new emission-slashing building code option is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Massachusetts has awarded $53 million — and announced plans for additional funding — to allow affordable housing operators to execute energy efficiency retrofits that are expected to reduce carbon emissions, cut energy bills, and create healthier, more comfortable homes for residents. 

The state in late July announced the second round of awards in the Affordable Housing Decarbonization Grant Program, allocating $26.1 million to five organizations to improve insulation, tighten building envelopes, and switch to heat pump heating and cooling systems. These grants come seven months after an initial round of $27.4 million was awarded to seven affordable housing operators statewide. 

“This has been a really critical funding stream for moving forward critical energy projects at some of our family public housing sites,” said Joel Wool, deputy administrator for sustainability and capital transformation at the Boston Housing Authority, which received grants in both rounds.

Along with the most recent round of awards, the state also announced it would invest another $40 million into the program in anticipation of giving out another set of grants in the fall.

The program was designed to address two major policy goals: decarbonization and addressing the state’s affordable housing crisis. 

Massachusetts has set the ambitious goal of going carbon-neutral by 2050. Buildings — which contribute 35% of the state’s carbon emissions — are a particularly important sector to target for decarbonization. This means finding ways to retrofit the state’s existing housing stock, much of which is drafty, heated by fossil fuels, and decades — or even centuries — old. 

At the same time, Massachusetts is experiencing an acute housing crisis. State officials estimate at least 200,000 new homes are needed to accommodate demand by 2030. Finding an affordable home is even more challenging for lower-income residents faced with soaring rents and home prices — and often, high energy bills. 

“We have such a housing crisis in Massachusetts that we want to do anything we can to create more housing, but also to make the housing we have now a better place to live,” said state Energy Department Commissioner Elizabeth Mahony. “These are investments in our infrastructure.”

Nonprofit Worcester Common Ground received an $820,000 grant in the latest round that it will use to complete deep energy retrofits on four buildings that were last updated some 30 years ago. The money will allow the renovations to include air sealing, more energy-efficient windows, and extra insulation. The grant will also allow the buildings to go fully electric, including with air source heat pumps that will provide lower-cost, more comfortable heating and cooling.

“Even though it’s a higher upfront cost, the hope is that maybe it reduces expenses going forward,” said Timothy Gilbert, project manager for Worcester Common Ground. “It might sound a little cheesy but we really do care about the well-being of the folks who live in our houses.”

In most cases, the grant money is being combined with other funding to allow more complete — and even downright ambitious — upgrades. In Worcester, other funding sources will pay for rooftop solar panels that will make the newly energy-efficient buildings even more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The Boston Housing Authority is using its latest $5.8 million award as part of a larger project that aims to completely decarbonize the Franklin Fields housing development in the Dorchester neighborhood by combining energy efficiency upgrades and Boston’s first networked geothermal system. 

In the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, the Madison Park Development Corporation is receiving $13.5 million from the Affordable Housing Decarbonization Grant Program to do work at its 331-unit Orchard Gardens development. But it is also seeking out other sources to meet the $20 million expected cost of the planned sustainability upgrades.

“It’s a big property and the heart of one of Boston’s oldest, most diverse, most underserved neighborhoods,” said Oren Richkin, senior project manager for the organization. “This grant money is pivotal for this project.”

Supporters of the program are expecting it to strengthen the state’s ability to respond to climate change in the future as well. Switching affordable housing units from fossil fuel heating to heat pump heating and cooling will allow residents to stay comfortable and safe in their own homes during increasingly hot summers, Wool said. 

The funding could also help nudge the ideas of deep energy retrofits and electrification more into the mainstream, Mahony said. 

“We are essentially socializing these programs — the more we do it, the more people will get used to the ideas,” she said. 

As the recipients of the first round of grants begin their projects, the state is starting to learn how to operate the program more effectively. The state has already, for example, started providing some technical assistance to organizations interested in applying for future rounds of funding. Continued conversations with building owners and nonprofits will be essential to creating an even stronger program moving forward, Mahony said.

“We’re setting ourselves up for success in the future,” she said.

Massachusetts awards $53 million to help affordable housing operators cut emissions and make homes healthier is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Massachusetts officials, advocates, and businesses are hoping proposed changes to the state’s solar incentive program will help reinvigorate a flagging market and give more disadvantaged residents access to the benefits of renewable energy. 

“The program has been pretty set in stone since it first launched,” said Katie Moffitt, project development manager for solar investment firm Sunwealth. “I am very excited about making the program more responsive to the needs of the solar industry and allowing us to adapt with the times.”

The state’s energy department earlier this month unveiled an extensive set of proposed adjustments to the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target, or SMART, program, the first major overhaul since the program launched in 2018. The suggested changes include strategies to ensure subsidy rates keep up with the solar market, incentives to encourage more installation of solar on buildings and previously developed land, and plans to make solar power more accessible to low- and moderate-income residents. 

The state is accepting feedback on the proposal until August 2, and expects to file final draft regulations in the fall. 

The proposal comes at a moment when the state has seen significant declines in new solar power coming online. In 2021, Massachusetts saw more than 600 megawatts of new solar installed, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association; in 2022 and 2023, less than 400 megawatts were installed each year. Yet the state’s climate plan calls for at least 27 gigawatts of solar to meet its goal of going carbon-neutral by 2050.

“We know, based on historical deployment rates, that we’re falling behind those goals,” said Samantha Meserve, director of the state’s renewable and alternative energy division. “We need to spur more development.”

Adaptable rates

Much of the slowdown in solar development is due to a mismatch between market conditions and state incentive rates, said those in the industry. SMART works by providing a fixed rate for every kilowatt-hour of power generated by a solar installation, with increased rates (called “adders”) available to projects that advance certain policy goals, like serving low-income populations. The set rates were intended to help encourage development with financial support and also create stability and predictability for developers.

The base rates were set when the program launched in 2018, and were designed to decline as more installations were built. The idea was that the solar market would gain steam and prices would continue falling, making state support less necessary over time. 

However, the market did not cooperate with this vision: Supply chain problems made equipment more expensive, inflation increased costs for materials and labor, and rising electricity rates canceled out much — and sometimes all — of the financial benefit the SMART payments provided. 

“That model theoretically would have worked fine in a noninflationary environment, but worked very poorly in the inflationary period,” said Isaac Baker, co-CEO of solar developer Resonant Energy. 

The proposal tackles this problem by instituting an annual system for setting rates. Each year, the state will undertake an analysis of the current market conditions and progress toward state solar targets, and use this information to determine the program’s rates and capacity for the following year. Developers will provide real cost details to ensure the accuracy of the process. 

“We achieved a lot of certainty in the last program, but we now need certainty with flexibility,” Meserve said. “We know we’re losing momentum to get to some of our goals because of that certainty.”

The proposal’s approach to deciding how much capacity to support each year, however, has some in the industry a bit wary. For the first two years, the capacity for projects larger than 25 kilowatts would be set at 300 megawatts; in subsequent years, the annual analysis would determine the capacity. 

This limit does not help encourage more development, said Lindsay Bourgoine, vice president for policy for the Solar Energy Business Association of New England. And the starting point of 300 megawatts a year does not come close to supporting the state’s goal of hitting 10 gigawatts of solar power by 2030, she said. 

“We remain pretty concerned about the use of caps,” Bourgoine said. 

Getting siting right

Additional changes to the program aim to encourage more solar installations on buildings, parking lots, and other already-developed land.

“We’re making it more attractive to site projects in the built environment,” Meserve said.

A 2023 study found the state has highly suitable sites for 54 gigawatts of rooftop and canopy solar potential. At the same time, some environmental groups have been raising concerns about large solar installations disturbing important wildlife habitats and forests that can pull carbon from the air.

“We can’t be doing that with state money,” said Michelle Manion, vice president of policy and advocacy for Mass Audubon. 

However, the economics of building large, ground-mounted arrays on previously undeveloped land have generally been more favorable. The new SMART proposal lays out several ideas to rebalance that equation. The proposal would lift the cap on subsidizing developments smaller than 25 kilowatts, a category that includes most residential projects and many installations for nonprofits, houses of worship, and small businesses. 

The proposal also increases adders connected to projects in the built environment. The adder for building-mounted projects would go from 2 cents to an estimated 3 cents, and the adder for building over a landfill would increase from 4 cents to 6 cents. 

Canopy-mounted systems would see both an increased adder — from 6 cents to 8 cents per kWh of energy produced — and a new definition. Whereas the current program awards a canopy adder only to projects over parking lots, pedestrian walkways, and canals, the revamped program would widen the criteria to include any array mounted on a structure high enough to maintain the function of the area beneath. This change opens the door for canopy projects shading everything from junkyards and gas stations to compost piles and picnic areas. 

“You’ll start to see a lot more interesting and creative applications like that,” said Ben Underwood, Baker’s co-CEO at Resonant Energy.

A new adder, likely starting out at 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, would also be created for raised racking on rooftops: mounting systems that raise solar panels up high enough that other equipment such as climate control systems can still operate and be accessed beneath them. This addition has the potential to unlock enormous amounts of roof space for development, Underwood said. On some of Resonant’s smaller projects, it could even triple the size of projects that could fit on a roof, he said. 

While the changes incentivize solar in the built environment, they also attempt to narrow the criteria for building in previously undeveloped greenfields to make sure only “cream of the crop” sites are developed, Meserve said. While the existing program decides whether land can be developed by looking at the entire parcel, the updated iteration would look more closely at the footprint of a proposed array to make sure it is not disturbing the most valuable green spaces and habitats.

The proposal also calls for an increased “subtractor” — a reduction in the base SMART rate — for greenfield developments. The rate would go down 6 cents plus an additional 0.4 cents per acre of land affected, a significant increase from the current subtractor which tops out at 0.1 cents. Developers can earn back the 6 cents through a community engagement adder by proving they’ve worked with the community to mitigate the impacts the project will have, an element Meserve said will help the state focus on only the best developments. 

Bourgoine, however, said many solar installers are worried that the hefty subtractor will slow down solar development too much at a time when the state needs to be accelerating its move to renewable energy. 

“There are situations where the subtractor could cause damage where it doesn’t need to,” she said. 

Sharing the benefits

New strategies could also make the benefits of solar energy more accessible to low-income households, which have so far made up only a very small fraction of the consumers using SMART-subsidized power. 

The proposal would expand the list of facilities that qualify for low-income adders to include deed-restricted affordable condominiums, homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters, and other affordable housing buildings not covered by the current definition. 

The new plan would also broaden the definition of a low-income customer. Under current guidelines, a low-income customer is someone who receives a discounted rate from the electric utility or who lives in a designated low-income area. The new definition would also include consumers enrolled in other needs-based programs to qualify as low-income, and those who self-attest that they fall under the set income caps. 

“This will make participating in low-income solar a much more accessible option,” Moffitt said. 

Furthermore, community solar developments will now be required to enroll a minimum of 40% low-income customers to receive the community solar adder of 7 cents. Though community solar is fairly widespread in Massachusetts, customers have generally been those with higher incomes and credit scores. The current program includes an adder for low-income community solar, but it is not often used because of the obstacles of locating customers — obstacles the new definitions would lower significantly.

“This new program will lead to there being a massive shift in value coming from stand-alone community solar,” Baker said. “A huge amount of that value is going to be directed to low-income tenants and ratepayers throughout the commonwealth, which is a really positive step.”

Massachusetts aims to ‘adapt with the times’ with updates to solar incentive program is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Massachusetts environmental justice advocates say the $5 billion statewide energy efficiency plan that could take effect next year needs to do even more to reach low-income residents, renters, and other populations who have traditionally received fewer benefits.  

The plan, which will guide efficiency programming from 2025 through 2027, outlines wide-ranging initiatives that would support weatherization and heat pumps for homes and small businesses, improve the customer experience with more timely rebate processing and increased multilingual support, and expand the energy efficiency workforce. The proposed plan calls out equity as a major priority. 

“There have certainly been some changes in this latest draft we’re pleased to see, but there is definitely a lot more that needs to be done, especially in the realms of equity and affordability and justice,” said Priya Gandbhir, senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation. “The good news is we’re still working on this, so there’s some time for improvement.”

Massachusetts has long been considered a leader in energy efficiency, ranking at or near the top of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s annual State Energy Efficiency Scorecard for more than 10 years. The core of the state’s efficiency efforts is Mass Save, a partnership between gas and electric utilities, created in 2008, that provides education, energy audits, rebates on efficient appliances, low and no-cost weatherization services, and financing for efficiency projects.

Mass Save programming is guided by the three-year energy efficiency plans put forth by the major utilities in collaboration with the state Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, and approved by state public utilities regulators. Over the past several years, legislation has required that Mass Save prioritize reducing greenhouse gas emissions, rather than focusing only on using less energy. 

“Mass Save needs to be a tool not just for energy efficiency but also for decarbonization,” said Hessann Farooqi, executive director of the Boston Climate Action Network. 

Strides toward equity

In recent years, there has also been an effort to ensure the benefits of Mass Save programs are distributed equitably. A 2020 study by the utilities found that communities with lower incomes, higher proportions of residents of color, and more renters were far less likely to have used Mass Save services. 

Following this report, the three-year plan covering 2022 to 2024 included several provisions intended to address these disparities, including a 50% higher budget for income-eligible services, financial incentives for utilities to serve lower-income households, and grants to community organizations that can help connect residents to information about Mass Save benefits. 

The plan’s focus on equity was hailed by advocates. 

“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in production and service and savings because of the increased budget,” said Brian Beote, an Energy Efficiency Advisory Council member and director of energy efficiency operations for housing security nonprofit Action Inc. “We’ve been able to bring on more contractors and serve more households.”

This latest plan continues the focus on equity for underserved populations in several ways. The draft plan increases the budget for services to income-eligible households, defined as those with incomes below 80% of the area median, from roughly $600 million to nearly $1 billion, the highest number ever proposed. 

The draft plan also attempts to simplify the process of obtaining benefits for residents in areas that have been marginalized in the past. The plan identifies 21 “equity communities” – municipalities in which more than 35% of residents are renters and more than half of households qualify as low or moderate income. Residents in these communities would be eligible for no-cost weatherization and electrification, often without income verification, and rental properties would be able to receive low-cost weatherization and electrification services.

This approach might mean higher-income customers receive no-cost services they might otherwise have had to pay for, but supporters say the likely benefits outweigh this possibility. 

“On balance, we’re going to get more of those low- to moderate-income customers and that is really a key goal,” Farooqi said.

In addition, the proposed plan would expand the Community First Partnership program, which provides funding to nonprofits and municipalities to target outreach and education about Mass Save’s offerings, using their knowledge of their communities and populations. 

Missed opportunities

Still, the plan misses several opportunities to make even greater strides toward equity, advocates said. At the heart of their argument are funding levels: The budget for low- and moderate-income services is about 19% of the total budget, even as nearly half of the state’s households fall into that category. 

“We just need to be making sure that we are distributing the benefits of this program proportionally to where people are actually at in the population,” Farooqi said. 

The plan’s targets for heat pump installations are another point of contention. The plan calls for installing 115,000 heat pumps during the plan period, with 16,000 of these going to low- and moderate-income households. This target is not nearly high enough, advocates said.

“That’s a major failure,” said Mary Wambui-Ekop, an energy justice activist and co-chair of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee’s equity working group. “They definitely need to increase that target to 30,000, and even that is really low.”

Switching from gas heating to heat pumps at current high electricity rates could increase costs for customers, so it is also important that the push to electrify heating for lower-income residents focus on households currently using higher-emissions, higher-cost fuels like heating oil or propane, Wambui-Ekop said. 

In Massachusetts, some 800,000 households use heating oil and propane; more than 151,000 of these households fall within the plan’s designated equity communities. 

“If they switch to heat pumps, they will see their energy bills go down, their energy burdens will go down, they will have good indoor air quality, and the commonwealth will benefit because of the greenhouse gas reductions,” Wambui-Ekop said. 

Advocates are also waiting to see the details for the plans to expand the Community First Partnership program. At current levels, the funding can pay a part-time energy staffer at a modest rate, which can make it difficult to find and keep qualified employees, said Susan Olshuff, a town liaison with Ener-G-Save, a Community First Partner organization in western Massachusetts. She’s gone through six different staffers since the program began and is anxiously waiting to see the final funding that comes out of the new plan.

“I like to think it will be enough,” she said, “but I am nervous to see what numbers they come down on.”

The final plan will be submitted to the state in October. Public utilities regulators will then be able to approve the plan as a whole, or to suggest modifications. Advocates are hoping to see an even more equitable plan filed and approved. 

“The people who can afford to do it will do it on their own,” Gandbhir said. “We need to make sure that people who are renting or who aren’t able to afford the upfront costs are provided with the assistance that’s needed.”

Massachusetts advocates say proposed statewide energy efficiency plan falls short on equity is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A $156 million federal grant is expected to fund a transformative investment in residential solar for low-income households in Massachusetts, advocates and officials say.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All program awarded Massachusetts the money for its plans to provide zero-interest loans, financial subsidies, and technical assistance to solar projects benefiting low-income households and public housing facilities. The state’s proposal was largely designed to take advantage of existing programs and resources to maximize the impact of federal funding. 

The grant is the largest any New England state received from the program, but well below the $250 million Massachusetts requested. Still, the state expects to go ahead with all the initiatives outlined in its application, though planners are now working to reallocate money across intended programs to maximize impact.

“We were shooting for the stars,” said Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the state Department of Energy Resources. “This was an extremely competitive award process.”

Solar for All is a $7 billion program created in 2022 by the Inflation Reduction Act, an economic stimulus bill that included $369 billion in spending on energy and climate change programs. Solar for All will give grants to states, territories, nonprofits, tribal governments, and municipalities to increase solar development with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, creating energy savings for overburdened households, and building markets for renewable energy businesses. The grants will target low-income and other marginalized communities where renewable energy has historically been less accessible.

Last month, the EPA announced the selection of 60 applicants for grants ranging from $25 million to $250 million. Only five grantees received larger awards than Massachusetts; 22 received the same amount. 

Massachusetts’ proposal is structured around initiatives in three program areas: small residential buildings, multi-family housing, and community solar. The programs will be administered by a coalition of agencies including the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, the Boston Housing Authority, and MassHousing. 

“They got a really strong coalition of major players involved,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for climate nonprofit the Acadia Center. “While it’s disappointing that we did not get the full award, I cannot stress enough how much this money is going to be a game-changer for getting solar to low-income and disadvantaged communities.”

The small residential portion of the programming — originally slated to receive $40 million — includes two main initiatives. The first would provide low-income households with zero-interest loans to pay for solar panels. The program would be modeled after the MassSave Heat Loan program and the Mass Solar Loan, which sunsetted in 2020, having made some 3,000 loans to low-income borrowers for the installation of solar panels.

“We’re going back to that and reviving it because it was quite successful,” Mahony said. 

The initial proposal also allocated $65 million to programs that would install solar panels on affordable housing and public housing, with the benefits flowing to the residents. In housing developments where tenants pay for their own utilities, they would receive savings from lower electricity bills. In housing where utilities are included in the rent, that benefit could be something other than energy bill savings: free wi-fi or improved facilities, for example. 

Another provision of the Inflation Reduction Act will further amplify the financial power of installing solar panels on public and affordable housing. In the past, nonprofits were not eligible to receive clean energy tax credits because they paid no taxes. Now, clean energy tax credits are available to nonprofits in the form of a direct payment. 

“It means we can then bring more federal resources into the state of Massachusetts,” said Joel Wool, deputy administrator for sustainability and capital transformation for the Boston Housing Authority, which will be administering the public housing portions of the grant programming statewide. “Every dollar that we can save on operating costs in public housing is a dollar we can put into making housing better.”

The community solar segment of the plan builds upon the state’s existing Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target, or SMART, program. All community solar projects receiving grant money will have to meet SMART’s existing requirement that at least half of the project’s offtakers are low-income residential customers. Additional points will be given to projects that offer deeper savings, serve a higher percentage of low-income households, or have members — such as nonprofits or affordable housing facilities — that benefit the community.

At the same time, the state is in the process of updating SMART to meet current environmental and economic needs. The Solar for All community solar program is likely to be tightly interwoven with these changes, Mahony said. 

“We’re really leaning in hard on SMART when it comes to community shared solar that serves low-income customers in a way we never have before,” she said. 

Smaller pools of money in the original plan were to be used to fund upgrades — such as roof replacements or wiring updates — needed to prepare buildings for solar panels, and to provide outreach and community engagement, workforce development, and technical assistance. 

In addition to the environmental benefits and the savings for low-income residents, backers of the plan expect the influx of funds to have a long-term effect on the growth and stability of all facets of the renewable energy industry. 

“That really enables the commonwealth and surrounding states to make those investments in their workforce and their supply chain, knowing that there will be demand for that equipment and those services in the years ahead,” said Maggie Super Church, director of policies and programs for the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank, a part of MassHousing. 

The state is now in the midst of negotiating the final grant contract with the EPA, a process it expects to conclude this spring. The goal is to start rolling out the first programs in the fall. 

“The numbers are still striking for what we can do,” Mahony said. “It’s just going to look a little different than how we laid it out in the first place.”

Massachusetts to recharge solar programs for low-income residents with $156M federal grant is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.