Here’s the announcement from Newton City Hall
Mayor Warren Announces Major Initiative as Newton Continues to be an Environmental Leader
Newton – Joined by Lt. Governor Timothy Murray and numerous business and community leaders, Mayor Warren announced today that Newton continues to be an environmental leader in the commonwealth. Mayor Warren announced that Newton is the first community in Massachusetts to procure 100% of its municipal electricity through green/renewable sources. Secured through a reverse-auction process last week, the City of Newton will not only use environmentally friendly resources to power every building and street light in the city, but will also save over $300,000 over the course of the next three years.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates that Newton is leading the Commonwealth with a comprehensive energy initiative that will move the green economy forward,” Mayor Warren said. “We are proud to be the first community in Massachusetts to procure 100% of the city’s electricity from green/renewable sources. This will reduce our carbon footprint, generate green jobs, and result in significant cost savings in the years ahead.”
“We have developed a nation-leading clean energy agenda because it is the right thing to do for our environment, our energy independence and our public health,” said Governor Patrick. “I applaud Newton for setting an example for communities across the state.”
“Governor Patrick and I congratulate the City of Newton for once again being a leader in clean energy,” said Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray. “As one of the Commonwealth’s first designated Green Communities, Newton ‘s decision to power 100 percent of its electricity needs with ‘green’ and renewable power is another pioneering move that supports our Administration’s clean energy goals and provides a model for other Massachusetts communities to emulate.”
Today’s announcement builds on Mayor Warren’s successful track record of making Newton a model for
environmentally friendly policies. Among the accomplishments of Mayor Warren’s administration are the
conversion of municipal buildings from oil to gas heat, locking in natural-gas prices saving the city close to $2 million over the next four years, streamlining the process to install solar panels on public building, and the installation of electric vehicle recharging stations. The City of Newton has also partnered with the state’s Green Community Program to receive a grant to reduce energy costs in one of our least efficient buildings, the Lower Falls Community Center. As a result, the building will yield energy reductions of upwards of 70% when work is completed later this spring, making the building a model for energy conservation.In February, Mayor Warren announced in February to reduce the energy consumption by 20% by the year 2020. The program takes a three-pronged approach to reducing energy consumption in the residential, commercial and municipal sectors.
It seems like a no-brainer, is there a down side? Kudos to the Mayor.
Who is the supplier,and if this is as good as it sounds can Newton sell this supply to residents like other districts have done thereby making a green-city as well a municipal profit center?
Hoss – the supplier is Reliant, NGR
@ Hoss – The supplier is Reliant NGR. See the story here.
@ Greg Sorry for my two comments, I’m not sure how to insert links here.
Hmm… The press release says there’s a savings; Chloe’s article mentions state grants and 20% consumption reduction… Maybe it’s not a cheaper source?
Hoss the article says the city will save $300,000 on its power bills over three years compared to its current electricity rates.
Even without doing anything different, we’d probably save compared to current rates, because of what the current glut of natural gas is doing to both gas and electricity prices:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2012/05/08/utilities_cutting_rates_for_electricity/
To tell how good a deal this is, you have to break out the general market price effect, the price effect of using a ‘green’ source vs traditional, and the volume effect (how much we’ve reduced consumption through better insulation, etc.).
For Chloe (and others), here are instructions for inserting a link.
1. Copy the link location of the destination page
2. Type: <a href=””></a>
3. Type the link text between > and <
4: Put your cursor between the two quotation marks and paste the URL (the link location)
Here is a list of <a href=””></a>
Here is a list of <a href=””>Newton aldermen</a>.
Here is a list of <a href=”http://newtonma.gov/gov/aldermen/members/default.asp”>Newton aldermen</a>.
It will look like this:
Here is a list of Newton aldermen.
I highly recommend doing the HTML tags (step 2) before you type the link text or URL, to make sure that you get the tags right. Add the URL last because it’s the thing that’s going to make it unreadable as you edit.
… and then use the Preview button to make sure you got it right before Submitting it.
Mayor Warren deserves credit for this “green” initiative. No one should confuse this however, with municipal distribution of electricity. Newton should replace NSTAR [in some cases National Grid] with a municipally owned company that distributes electricity to all residents and businesses. Such a move would add up to $50M per year in revenue for the city.
Can anyone answer this: Newton contracted for a specific volume of green energy from a network of green providers, right? Those providers send green energy into the Northeast grid. In this scenario, nothing changes in the type of electricity that reaches Newton; the flavor of electricity remains as it always has. In addition, green electricity is something that is consistently being produced, with or without demand. The provider does not need to purchase fuel, by definition — the electricity continuously flows. with no incremental cost..
SO the question is: For our $150,000, hasn’t Newton simply made a donation to this industry as opposed to making an actual purchase? And if so, is that what gov’t should be doing — we make no similar money donations to good causes.