I attended the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) solar siting listening session on Oct. 26, hoping to hear thoughtful dialogue about the rapid deployment of solar energy as a tool to mitigate the coming climate disaster.
Unfortunately, the event was mostly a discouraging display of insularism and fear-mongering, with virtually all speakers decrying solar energy as nothing more than a local threat or burden [see: “Rural towns push back on state solar siting rules,” Gazette, Oct. 27]. The listening session audience didn’t seem concerned about the universal threat of global climate change, or the narrower needs of their neighbors who might want to host solar on their land, perhaps to keep their farms solvent. There were wild, inaccurate claims about the risks of solar and battery energy storage, that these systems were somehow “too risky” for rural communities but “just fine” for developed communities. This disregard for the welfare or preferences of people living in developed areas was disheartening as those communities have often also been burdened with hosting the dirty fossil fuel plants that have long supplied electricity to rural communities. I heard a consistent claim that western Massachusetts is unduly burdened by solar development, and that solar development here only serves to “meet the green energy needs of Boston and the eastern part of the state.”
But what do the data actually show? John Pepi, a local energy researcher, conducted a detailed analysis of western Mass. energy production and consumption and it makes clear we don’t come close to meeting our own energy needs, let alone produce a surplus of solar energy that is somehow preferentially siphoned off to Boston. Currently, all of the electrical generators in western Mass., including fossil fuel plants, hydroelectric dams, waste-to-energy and biomass facilities, and solar and wind installations, only provide about 55 percent of our regional electricity demand. Factoring in the fuels we use for home heating and transportation, we only meet about 12 percent of our total energy demand. So, it turns out we, the residents of western Massachusetts, are actually net energy importers, energy “takers,” if you will.
And the “disproportionate” solar development we supposedly endure? To date, eastern Mass. has installed about four times more solar capacity than western Mass. More importantly, all of the solar now installed in western Mass. is only sufficient to meet about 19 percent of our region’s current electricity demand. If we are to phase out our fossil fuel generators and also electrify our home heating and transportation sectors, western Mass. will have to increase renewable energy capacity many times over. Until then, complaints about being unduly burdened by solar development ring hollow.
Sadly, instead of sharing bold and optimistic ideas for how western Mass. will embrace renewable energy projects at the scale necessary to mitigate the widespread and severe harms of climate change, the overwhelming sentiment of the listening session attendees was negativity — a long list of rationalizations for restricting solar development and maintaining the status quo. But this won’t solve the climate crisis. The only feasible way of doing that involves the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, which can only occur if we greatly increase renewable energy capacity. To succeed, every community will have to meaningfully contribute; every community should want to meaningfully contribute. Now more than ever we must “Act Locally,” as the old bumper stickers advise and expedite solar energy deployment across the commonwealth.
Keith Hastie is a retired environmental scientist, lifelong environmentalist, member of the Shutesbury Planning Board, and contributor to the Western Massachusetts Clean Energy Network (wmcen.org).