Community members sent 97 public comments decrying ISO-NE’s decision to continue to support the Merrimack Generating Station, the last coal-fired power plant in New England. Commenters from the No Coal, No Gas campaign expect responses from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission within the next month.
Through a system called forward capacity payments, the Merrimack Generating Station receives subsidies from ratepayers’ electric bills. On average, 10-20% of electric bills go to these fossil fuel subsidies, which pay electrical generators to keep the least economical and often dirtiest power plants connected to the grid and ready to fire up at times of peak demand.
Activists delivering coal from the Merrimack Generating Station to ISO-NE Headquarters. Photo: Johnny Sanchez.
This February, ISO-NE held an auction to determine future forward capacity payments, and cleared the Merrimack Generating Station and other fossil fuel power plants to receive payments to remain open through 2025. In total, over $813 million was committed to fossil fuel generators to remain available to generate electricity on-demand from June 1, 2024 through May 31, 2025. Now, these proposed payments sit before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will decide whether to approve the auction results. In the past weeks, activists organized to send nearly one hundred public comments to the commission, demanding that they reject forward capacity payments to fossil fuels.
“I’m asking you, as one human being to another human being, to do whatever you can — no matter how unorthodox, how uncomfortable, how unconventional — to help prevent our ship from sinking.” wrote Cody Pajic, 22, of Swanville, ME. “The ISO-NE can meet its obligations just fine without subsidizing fossil fuels. Forward Capacity Payments could easily be directed towards renewable energy solutions instead of towards a dirty coal plant.””
The No Coal, No Gas campaign has been working since 2019 to shut down the coal plant, employing direct action such as blockading coal trains, removing coal from the plant, and ratepayer strikes against ISO-NE. In their comments, community members stressed the injustices and dangers of climate change and the increasing risk that extreme weather events pose to grid reliability.
“Each of the states in the New England grid has set aggressive carbon-pollution-reduction goals, yet they act as though they have no power to change the generation mix because they’ve handed off the authority to ISO-NE. Changing this system has to start somewhere; if FERC takes seriously its responsibility to oversee environmental matters related to gas projects, it should reject the results of this auction, and send responsibility back to the states.” said Jeff Gang, 33, of Somerville, MA.
FERC usually receives few (if any) public comments on these kinds of transactions; The No Coal, No Gas campaign has made it clear through this wave of comments that the public is paying attention to these injustices.
