A New Generation of Power is Here to Electrify New England

By Ethan Drake

Designed as part of a course on data visualization at Brown University in May 2024.

The Mystic Generating Station outside of Boston, MA, pictured above, is set to shut down on June 1, 2024. The natural gas plant, which is the second largest electricity generation plant in New England and the largest in Massachusetts, has been a fixture of the Boston skyline since its construction during World War II. While its retirement is largely due to aging infrastructure, the decision to close the plant is in no small part the result of state climate goals that mandate a transition away from fossil fuels.

With climate change in mind, states like Massachusetts are being forced to make difficult decisions on how to transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. While halting fossil fuel usage is good for the planet, the burden gets placed on the consumer, who may face electricity shortages or dramatic increases in their energy bills. As states look to retire fossil fuels, they need to find something cleaner and cost-effective to replace it with.

Enter Vineyard Wind 1. The offshore wind project located 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard is slated to be complete in the second half of 2024 and will bring 804 MW of electricity generation capacity to the New England region. While Vineyard Wind’s energy capacity doesn’t quite make up for the more than 1,400 MW that the region is losing with the retirement of the Mystic plant, many more wind projects are on the way. Revolution Wind, which will be built off the coast of southern Rhode Island, will bring another 704 MW of renewable generating capacity.

As the example of the retiring Mystic Generating Station and the construction of Vineyard Wind 1 shows us, the transition to a clean energy future is a policy decision. States must prioritize clean energy decisions, even as they face rising energy costs. Demand for electricity isn’t going down anytime soon; indeed, recent studies are showing that energy consumption is expected to increase for the first time in decades. In this piece, I hope to look at how prepared states in the New England region are for the transition away from fossil fuels.

As seen in the map above, New England’s fossil fuel retirements in the coming decade are entirely in southern New England – in Massachusetts and Connecticut to be precise. While the decision to retire these plants is almost certainly the result of aging infrastructure, it takes an intentional policy choice to permanently close a fossil plant rather than invest in repairs.

Given that all states in the New England region have renewable energy goals, it is interesting to see that just two states have announced the retirement of fossil fuel plants. Of course, the true explanation is surely more complicated, but I imagine that what is happening here is the result of states ensuring grid flexibility. The term ‘energy generating capacity’ refers to all of the available sources that a state has to produce electricity at a given moment; this doesn’t mean that all of these resources are being used at any given moment.

Fossil fuels tend to be much more flexible than renewable energy at providing on-demand electricity when it is needed in a hurry. Indeed, if the grid needs more power but the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, grid operators need somewhere to turn. More often than not, they turn to natural gas because it is cheap and easy to fire-up in an instant. States don’t want to risk power outages, and so they are likely keeping around some of their aging fossil fuel resources for a rainy day (literally).

The chart above provides a little more clarity to the question of why only Massachusetts and Connecticut have announced the planned retirement of fossil fuel plants: they have way more fossil fuel resources than the other New England states! Vermont’s energy generating capacity, in contrast, consists almost entirely of renewable technologies. For this reason, they don’t have nearly as many fossil fuel plants to retire as New England’s southern states.

To cut Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut some slack, renewable energy generation can be very dependent on geography. Northern New England benefits from a surge of hydroelectric power, which comes from an abundance of rivers to dam. The rise of offshore wind off the Atlantic coast is southern New England’s answer to the geography problem. However, these wind projects are complex and many of them are being delayed or canceled entirely.

Given that demand for energy is rising and southern New England is retiring fossil fuel plants, the question becomes whether or not they can build enough renewable energy generating capacity to fill the gap.

The chart above says yes. Renewable energy construction is outpacing the retirement of dirty energy plants. In the middle of 2024, the closure of the Mystic Generating Station will result in a net loss in generating capacity for New England, but as Vineyard Wind 1 and its neighboring project Revolution Wind are finished in the second half of 2024 and early 2025, the region’s generating capacity will jump back up.

However, it is critical to note that this chart only shows us the net change in generating capacity in the next few years. Currently, New England has around 40 GW of capacity in the region, more than half of which still comes from fossil fuels. To make a meaningful change towards a clean energy future, New England’s states have a long way to go. Continuing to retire fossil fuel plants as renewable technologies are built out will be key to reducing carbon emissions and slowing global climate change. To do so, the region will need to continue to grow its offshore wind industry as well as lean into residential and commercial solar.

References

Electricity Data - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). (2024). URL

Gas by sentya irma from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)

renewable energy by Yayat Dayat from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)

decrease by Xinh Studio from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)

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