DPU Ruling promotes alternatives for home heating

By Karen Kahn

In early December 2023, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities issued a groundbreaking ruling that charts a new course for meeting the state’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050: eliminating methane (aka, natural gas) in home heating. “This is potentially the most transformational climate decision in Massachusetts history,” Kyle Murray of the Acadia Center, told the Boston Globe.

This is potentially the most transformational climate decision in Massachusetts history.

–Kyle Murray, Acadia Center

Rejecting arguments from the state’s large utility companies, Eversource and National Grid, to use “renewable natural gas” and green hydrogen for home heating, the DPU ruled the state should encourage a transition to electricity and other options. Across the state, 1.4 million households — or 51 percent —currently heat their homes with methane.

Marilyn Ray Smith of Gas Transition Allies called the decision “a major step toward retiring the Commonwealth’s aging gas system.” Gas Transition Allies published a report in 2021 in which economist Dorie Seavey found that upgrading the gas pipeline system over the next two decades would cost ratepayers $40 billion. The group argued that ratepayers should not be burdened with these costs, as gas pipelines would become “stranded assets” as the state shifted away from gas heat to meet its climate goals.

A Transformational Decision

The DPU ruling comes on the heels of the November 2022 election, in which Democrat Maura Healey replaced Republican Charlie Baker as governor. Healey appointed new DPU commissioners who rejected a draft plan developed by the gas utilities for “the future of gas” that continued to rely on the state’s gas infrastructure for decades.

Clean energy advocates vociferously opposed the solutions proposed by the gas companies.

Clean energy advocates had vociferously opposed the solutions proposed by the gas companies — to replace fracked gas with “renewable natural gas,” which comes from organic materials, or green hydrogen. Both are in short supply, and green hydrogen is particularly risky as a home heating fuel. Additionally, according to the Hydrogen Science Coalition, green hydrogen mixed with methane reduces efficiency, resulting in the need for more fuel. As a result, the reduction in greenhouse gasses is minimal.

New Requirements and Solutions

Beginning in 2025, the gas utilities will be required to submit climate compliance plans every five years, detailing their plans to transition to clean energy. For the first time, the utilities are also required to consider non-gas alternatives to gas expansion projects, and they are prohibited from increasing consumer rates to pay for such projects.

Non-gas solutions include electric heat pumps and geothermal heating systems, as well as conservation measures such as better insulation and using sunlight more effectively to warm buildings. The state provides incentives for homeowners to switch to air-source or ground-source heat pumps, and the gas utilities are currently piloting “networked” geothermal systems in Framingham and Lowell. The Framingham project, initiated by Eversource in partnership with the clean energy advocacy group HEET, will pipe heat from geothermal heat pumps to 140 households. Fast Company just named the project one of the ten most hopeful tech innovation projects of 2023.

Additional support for transitioning away from fossil-fuel heating sources is embodied in the Future of Clean Heat bill, one of several bills that SAFE is supporting in the 2023-24 legislative session. The bill would require utilities to begin transitioning away from fracked gas and other fossil fuels. It would ban the use of “renewable natural gas” and hydrogen for home heating.

Karen Kahn is a member of SAFE’s communications workgroup.