Puerto Rico’s 2019 and 2021 Greenhouse Gas Inventories Report

Client: Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER)

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Joshua R. Castigliego, Chirag T. Lala, Sachin Peddada,
Jay Bonner, Eliandro Tavares, Sumera Patel, Alicia Zhang, Myisha Majumder,
David Jiang, and Jordan Burt; Ramón Bueno and Kari Hewitt

July 2023

On behalf of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), AEC staff and partners prepared a report that presents the results for Puerto Rico’s 2019 and 2021 greenhouse gas emission inventories together with 20-year emissions projections under several scenarios and sensitivities. AEC established a methodology for conducting greenhouse gas emission inventories in Puerto Rico, which went through a comprehensive quality assurance and quality control process by an Expert Panel (established for this project and composed of experts in greenhouse gas emissions measurement and Puerto Rico climate and energy issues). Using AEC’s Emissions Measurement Inventory Tool (AEC-EMIT), AEC calculates net greenhouse gas emissions released in Puerto Rico’s seven emitting sectors: (1) Power Supply, (2) Direct Fuel, (3) Industrial Processes and Product Use, (4) Transportation, (5) Agriculture, (6) Forestry and Other Land Use, and (7) Waste Management.

Puerto Rico’s 2019 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaption, and Resiliency Law (i.e., Puerto Rico Act No. 33-2019) measures mandated emission reductions against an estimated 2005 emissions level of 53.3 MMT CO₂e and calls for a 50 percent reduction relative to 2005 emissions by 2025 (26.7 MMT CO₂e). Emission levels achieved in 2021 (34.3 MMT CO₂e) represent a 36 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels. With 14 percentage points and 4 years left to go, Puerto Rico must find another 7.7 MMT CO₂e to eliminate. Based on the Business-as-Usual projection in AEC’s analysis, Puerto Rico’s greenhouse gas emission levels will reach their mandated levels (50 percent of 2005 levels, or 26.7 MMT CO₂e) in 2035, 10 years later than the required 2025 target.

Based on the analysis presented in this report, AEC has identified several key recommendations to further facilitate Puerto Rico’s work towards achieving its ambitious and necessary decarbonization goals set out in Puerto Rico’s 2019 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaption, and Resiliency Law, including: (1) better data collection, (2) increased climate progress reporting (3) reprioritization in rebuilding its electric sector, and (4) a new focus in transportation planning.

Link to Report (English)

Link to Report (Español)

Return to Publications

Energy Storage Benefit-Cost Analysis

Prepared on behalf of the Clean Energy States Alliance

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Sachin Peddada, Elisabeth Seliga, Chirag Lala, Eliandro Tavares, Gabriel Lewis, Tsanta Rakotoarisoa, Elizabeth A. Stanton, PhD

Contributing Editor: Todd Olinsky-Paul, Clean Energy States Alliance

AEC staff prepared a report that provides a framework for state energy agencies contemplating a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) for battery storage on behalf of the Clean Energy States Alliance. AEC’s battery storage BCA framework provides guidance for state energy agencies preparing to conduct cost-effectiveness evaluation for battery storage, including information regarding: cost-effectiveness tests, discount rates, benefits, costs, sensitivity analyses, and stakeholder engagement.

Link to Report

Return to Our Work

Expert Memo: Review of Memphis Light, Gas, and Water RFP Update and Staff Power Supply Recommendation

Client: Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC)

Authors: Elizabeth A. Stanton, PhD, Joshua R. Castigliego, Myisha Majumder, Eliandro Tavares, Sachin Peddada

AEC staff conducted an assessment of Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW)’s 2020 Integrated Resource Plan on behalf of the Southern Environmental Law Center, finding multiple instances of biases in favor of gas resources and against renewables and batteries. In light of these discoveries, AEC staff recommend that the biases be addressed prior to the MLGW Board making a decision on power supply alternatives.

Link to Memo

Return to Our Work

Bringing Equity into Energy Reliability Decisions

Client: Environmental Defense Fund

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Sachin Peddada, Sagal Alisalad, Jordan Burt, Elisabeth Seliga, Tanya Stasio, PhD, Eliandro Tavares, Grace Wu, Elizabeth A. Stanton, PhD

AEC staff prepared a report on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund that analyzes the connection between issues of energy system reliability and equity. This data-driven report utilizes case studies of advocates’ for more equitable energy systems real-world experiences to assess how decision-makers should account for equity when making decisions regarding system reliability. The report concludes with recommendations for future decision-making in energy system reliability, including strengthening consumer and community representation. A common theme across the real-world experiences of the advocates discussed in this report is the ways in which community engagement efforts in energy system decision-making often fall short of creating real change in energy sector decisions, and environmental justice and other under-resourced and underserved communities are often left out and left behind in decisions that directly disproportionately harm the health and wealth of their communities.

Link to Full Report

Link to Press Release

Return to Our Work

Making Clean Energy Decisions in New England

Client: Community Action Works

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Sachin Peddada, Eliandro Tavares, Elisabeth Seliga, and Myisha Majumder

April 2022

On behalf of Community Action Works, AEC staff developed a report that identifies and examines six on-going clean energy and energy justice advocacy campaigns in New England. AEC profiles and assesses each campaign to determine which decision makers possess the authority to act on the advocates’ goals. These six campaigns include opposition to the proposed peaker plant in Peabody, MA; continued operation of New England’s last coal-fired power plant in Bow, New Hampshire; three existing peaker plants in Berkshire County, MA; a proposed gas-fired power plant in Killingly, CT; a proposed gas pipeline between Longmeadow and Springfield, MA; and an approved electric substation in East Boston awaiting construction. In addition to profiling each project, the report clarifies the key role the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE), governors, and state legislatures play in developing New England’s energy mix.

Across all six campaigns, we find that advocates have more opportunities to pursue their goals while a project is still in its proposal phase; it becomes more challenging to shut down an energy project once it is operational. In addition, we recommend changes at ISO-NE that have the potential to render many polluting New England energy projects less competitive.

Link to Our Report

Press Release

Return to Our Work

Equity Measurement and Targeting Underserved Communities in Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan

Client: Green Justice Coalition

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Sagal Alisalad, Eliandro Tavares, Myisha Majumder, and Liz Stanton, PhD

December 2021

On behalf of the Green Justice Coalition, AEC staff developed three white papers on equity measurement and how underserved communities will be served in the implementation of Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan. The first paper, Equity Measurement for Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan, builds on the equity recommendations of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council’s (EEAC) Equity Working Group (EWG) and the Green Justice Coalition by describing metrics needed to evaluate progress towards equity goals. The second paper, Energy Efficiency and Equity Efforts Nationwide, provides examples from other jurisdictions around the nation on the state of equity programming in energy efficiency policies. The third AEC white paper, Targeting Underserved Communities in Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan, is a detailed review of Massachusetts towns identified as underserved by the energy efficiency program administrators and their partners.

Link to White Paper 1: Equity Measurement for Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan

Link to White Paper 2: Energy Efficiency and Equity Efforts Nationwide

Link to White Paper 3: Targeting Underserved Communities in Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan

Return to Our Work

Energy Storage for Winter Grid Reliability: How Batteries Became the Low-Cost Solution for Power Assurance in Massachusetts

Client: Clean Energy Group

Authors: Joshua R. Castigliego, Liz Stanton, PhD, Sagal Alisalad, and Eliandro Tavares

December 2021

On behalf of the Clean Energy Group, Researcher Joshua Castigliego, Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD, and Assistant Researchers Sagal Alisalad and Eliandro Tavares evaluated the value of winter reliability services and the opportunity to provide these services economically in New England using distributed battery storage. AEC finds that the value of winter peaking capacity services from distributed (customer-sited) resources is incorrectly assumed to be $0 in the battery program cost-benefit analyses that determine performance payments to battery storage owners.

The value of winter electric capacity is treated by electric distributors as distinct from that same value in summer, and it has been dubbed “winter reliability” to distinguish it from “summer capacity.” When calculating customer performance payments, summer capacity services are valued, but winter reliability services are not. In this report, AEC introduces a winter reliability metric defined as the assurance of adequate electric capacity during periods of critical need, called—following ISO-New England’s convention—capacity scarcity condition (CSC) events. AEC calculated a “winter reliability value” measured as the net dollar value to supply any given peak supply technology (i.e., gas peaker or large-scale battery storage) on a per kilowatt-hour (kWh) basis during a CSC period.

Link to Report

Link to Presentation

Media Coverage

Return to Our Work

PJM's Capacity Market: Clearing Prices, Power Plants, and Environmental Justice

Authors: Joshua R. Castigliego, Liz Stanton, PhD, Sagal Alisalad, Tanya Stasio, Eliandro Tavares

October 2021 (Updated November 2021)

Researcher Joshua Castigliego, Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD, Assistant Researcher Sagal Alisalad, Researcher Tanya Stasio, and Assistant Researcher Eliandro Tavares prepared a report reviewing the economics of power plants in the PJM region, focusing on the "capacity payments" given to owners of generating units that promise to be available if needed to generate power at times of peak customer demand. AEC finds that PJM has consistently overestimated its peak demand and as a result spent too much money on capacity payments, and generating units—including many in or near Environmental Justice (EJ) communities—are kept online despite being uneconomic and unnecessary to provide reliable electric service.

AEC adjusted PJM’s forecasts and market design to better represent customer demand and other market conditions, and estimated the prices that individual generating units bid into the 2021/22 capacity auction, which took place in 2018. The actual bids by power plant owners are not made public, so we model them based on available cost and revenue data. PJM’s overestimate of customer demand and costs of new generating units raises market clearing prices and capacity payments to power plant owners, resulting in what we call a “fat market” with payments made to unnecessary power plants and higher costs to customers. In place of PJM’s $140 per megawatt-day (MW-day) fat market clearing price, we estimate a clearing price of $100 to $104 per MW-day to serve customer needs without adding unnecessary costs. Our leaner, adjusted clearing price would lower customer bills without sacrificing reliable electric service and put an end to capacity payments propping up the bottom lines of uneconomic power plants, many of them in or near EJ communities.

Link to Report (Updated 11/30/2021)

Link to Presentation for PJM Cities & Communities Coalition

Return to Our Work

ConnectedSolutions: A Program Assessment for Massachusetts

Client: Clean Energy Group

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Liz Stanton, PhD, Eliandro Tavares and Sagal Alisalad

September 2021

On behalf of the Clean Energy Group, this Applied Economics Clinic report assesses the design and performance of the Massachusetts ConnectedSolutions program. Massachusetts’ ConnectedSolutions program offers incentives to customers in exchange for allowing their electric supplier to draw on the energy stored in their grid-connected batteries and/or to curtail energy use via smart thermostats or electric vehicle charging at times of peak electric demand. Launched as a full program offering in 2019, ConnectedSolutions had about 34,000 customer participants with 310 megawatts (MW) of capacity enrolled by the end of 2020.

This report compares the Massachusetts ConnectedSolutions program, as it has been administered in the first three-year program cycle, with related programs in other states across the country. In several important areas, the Massachusetts program administrators could benefit from best practices implemented elsewhere; chief among these is the treatment of income-eligible customers and those in historically underserved communities.

Link to Report

Link to Webinar

Return to Our Work

Estimating the Net Change in Carbon Dioxide Emissions for Solar Projects in Massachusetts

Client: Borrego

Authors: Joshua R. Castigliego, Chirag Lala, Eliandro Tavares, and Liz Stanton, PhD

September 2021

On behalf of Borrego, Researchers Joshua Castigliego and Chirag Lala, Assistant Researcher Eliandro Tavares, and Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD conducted analysis estimating the net change in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of Borrego’s proposed solar projects at three sites in Wareham, Massachusetts. AEC estimated net emission savings of the proposed projects as the sum of “positive” CO2 emissions savings from the electric grid due to renewable energy generation, and “negative” CO2 emissions due to land use conversion from forestland to grassland. AEC found that Borrego’s proposed projects offset four times more CO2 emissions than are emitted in their development.

Link to White Paper

Return to Our Work

Conditional Benefits of Sustainable Community Microgrids

Client: GreenRoots

Authors:
Joshua R. Castigliego, Tanya Stasio, and Eliandro Tavares

May 2021

On behalf of GreenRoots, Researcher Joshua Castigliego, Research Assistant Tanya Stasio, and Assistant Researcher Eliandro Tavares prepared a policy brief on the impacts of community microgrids on vulnerable populations. AEC staff defined “sustainable community microgrids” as independently controlled energy systems that, depending on their design, have the potential to enhance grid resilience, lower electric bills, improve public health, and strengthen local communities while prioritizing equitable outcomes.

Link to Policy Brief

Return to Our Work

Ameren MO IRP Comments

Source: USFWS Midwest Region

Authors: Tyler Comings, Joshua Castigliego, Sagal Alisalad, Eliandro Tavares, and Sierra Club

March 2021

AEC co-authored (with Sierra Club) comments on the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) from Ameren Missouri. The comments discuss Ameren's failure to: economically optimize coal unit retirements, adequately address substantial costs from pending litigation, and adequately consider low-cost solar and solar-battery hybrid resources.

Link to Comments

Return to Our Work

What the COVID-19 Pandemic Can Teach Us About Climate Justice

Authors: Sagal Alisalad, Eliandro Tavares, Tanya Stasio, and Myisha Majumder

February 2021

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had massive impacts on nearly all aspects of human life—from jobs to food security to healthcare. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are disproportionately impacted by this unprecedented health crisis as a result of preexisting socioeconomic and environmental disadvantages. Assistant Researchers Sagal Alisalad and Eliandro Tavares, and Research Assistants Tanya Stasio and Myisha Majumder prepared an AEC policy brief that focuses on the relationship between preexisting racial inequality and the economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this brief, AEC finds a substantial overlap between vulnerability to COVID-19 and vulnerability to climate change. Much like the global climate crisis, some groups, especially Environmental Justice communities, are more likely to bear the brunt of the ongoing health crisis.

Link to Policy Brief

Return to Our Work

Risks Outweigh Rewards for Investors Considering PJM Natural Gas Projects

Client: Energy Foundation

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Liz Stanton, PhD, Eliandro Tavares, Sagal Alisalad, Myisha Majumder; and Dennis Wamsted from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)

October 2020

On behalf of the Energy Foundation, the Applied Economics Clinic and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) prepared a report that assesses the substantial risks to financial entities investing in natural gas-fired power plant development in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) region—the largest independent power system operator (ISO) in the United States. 

AEC and IEEFA identify six overarching threats that pose growing risks for investors in new PJM gas-fired power plants: increasing price competitiveness of clean solar, wind, demand response and battery storage alternatives; significant existing over-capacity, flat demand growth and market turmoil; high-impact, unpredictable global events such as COVID-19 that radically reshape markets and expectations of future demand; uncertainty over the future direction of gas prices, particularly given the substantial increase in U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports; actions by state governments within the PJM market to limit future fossil fuel generation and/or even withdraw from the market entirely; and public opposition that can delay project development and raise overall costs.

Link to Report

Return to Our Work

Visualizations of Racial Inequity

Client: Renew New England
Authors: AEC Staff

August 2020

On behalf of the Renew New England coalition, AEC used publicly available data to produce visualizations of racial disparities. 

There are three sets of data graphics:

1) The first set shows disparities in rates of incarceration, average income, COVID-19 cases, and unemployment across as many as five racial categories: Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx and white. This data is presented for each of the New England states and the U.S.

2) The second set shows Black/white disparities across as many as 23 measures (e.g. homelessness, infant mortality, educational attainment). This data is presented for Massachusetts and the total U.S.

3) Black/white unemployment for all U.S. states and the U.S. average. 

The data demonstrate that racial inequalities are pervasive across common measures of well-being like employment, incarceration, poverty status and educational attainment. These inequalities are consistent across New England and the rest of the United States. For example, across the United States today, a Black individual is 6.4 times more likely than a white individual to be incarcerated, 2.4 times more likely to have a positive COVID-19 test, and 2.2 times more likely to be unemployed.

Link to Presentation

Link to Downloadable Images

Return to Our Work

A Needs Assessment of the Hopkinton-Ashland Transfer Line Replacement Project

Client: Town of Ashland

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Joshua R. Castigliego, Bryndis Woods, and Eliandro Tavares

May 2020

Clinic Director Liz Stanton, PhD, Researchers Joshua Castigliego and Bryndis Woods, and Assistant Researcher Eliandro Tavares authored this white paper on behalf of the Town of Ashland to assess the need for the Hopkinton-Ashland Transfer Line Replacement project. Proposed by Eversource to the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board in 2018, Eversource maintains that the pipeline is required to address current and future customer gas demand, as well as the need for redundancy in the gas delivery system. AEC found that Eversource's claims are not strongly substantiated, include errors/omissions, and do not adequately consider alternatives to building additional gas infrastructure. Overall, this white paper deems the project unnecessary in satisfying both current and expected gas demand, that redundancy is not the planning standard in the state, and that the pipeline contradicts emissions targets and climate laws as Massachusetts transitions to a zero-carbon future. 

Link to White Paper

Return to Our Work

Comments on Massachusetts Decarbonization Roadmap

Client: Conservation Law Foundation

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Bryndis Woods and Eliandro Tavares

Updated April 28, 2020

In February 2020, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs requested public feedback on setting a 2050 emissions limit that will achieve the Commonwealth’s 2050 goal of net-zero emissions. On behalf of Conservation Law Foundation, this Applied Economics Clinic white paper provides eight recommendations for the Commonwealth as it works to set its 2050 emission targets. We argue that Massachusetts should set an ambitious 2050 emissions reductions target that builds in flexibility to account for truly recalcitrant emissions via carbon sinks, distinguishes the state as a national leader on climate, clearly defines and limits the use of carbon sinks until the Commonwealth approaches full decarbonization in 2050, considers the context of global climate change and local impacts, is in line with the best available science, and uses modeling tools that are able to consider a full range of emission reduction technologies.

Link to White Paper

Return to Our Work

New England Housing Costs: Rent as a Share of Income

Authors: Bryndis Woods, Liz Stanton, PhD and Eliandro Tavares

March 2020

Researcher Bryndis Woods, Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD and Assistant Researcher Eliandro Tavares prepared a presentation that assesses housing costs as a share of income across the New England states. We find that, across New England, lower-income households bear a greater rent burden than higher-income households. Between 2011 and 2017, some households’ rent as a share of income has risen, as a result of falling incomes and/or rising rents that can lead to displacement.

Link to Presentation

Return to Our Work

New Orleans' Renewable Portfolio Standard: Cost-Effective, Reliable, Resilient

Client: Alliance for Affordable Energy

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Bryndis Woods, Eliandro Tavares and Sagal Alisalad

March 2020

Clinic Director and Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD, Researcher Bryndis Woods, and Assistant Researchers Eliandro Tavares and Sagal Alisalad prepared a report that addresses Entergy New Orleans’ (ENO) critiques of the Energy Future New Orleans Coalition's July 2019 Resilient Renewable Portfolio Standard (R-RPS) proposal to achieve a 100 percent renewable electric generation by 2040. ENO incorrectly claims that the R-RPS would: be prohibitively costly; harm grid resiliency, and harm grid reliability. AEC’s analysis of the R-RPS found the plan to be affordable, would provide substantial resiliency benefits, and would reliably provide New Orleans’ energy needs.

Link to Report

Return to Our Work

A Whole New Ballgame: Indiana Coal and the New Energy Landscape

Client: Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Bryndis Woods, Joshua Castigliego, Eliandro Tavares and Sagal Alisalad

February 2020

Clinic Director and Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD, Researchers Bryndis Woods and Joshua Castigliego and Assistant Researchers Eliandro Tavares and Sagal Alisalad prepared a report on behalf of the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana that responds to several myths that persist regarding claimed benefits of aging coal-fired generators over renewable wind and solar. The report finds that legacy power generation sources like coal are characterized by a lack of flexibility, making them costly and inconvenient to integrate with more modern renewables.

Link to Report

Return to Our Work