Contact: Marla Marcum, marla@climatedisobedience.org
For the past two years, the No Coal No Gas campaign has been fighting to shut down the Merrimack Generating Station, end ISO forward capacity payments to fossil fuels, and build the community of resistance necessary to taking on climate injustice. Here is our response to ISO-New England’s Forward Capacity Auction results for FCA 15 (for capacity commitments in the 2024 - 2025 cycle):
ISO-NE’s Forward Capacity Market (FCM) awards billions of ratepayer dollars to the least economical and most polluting fossil fuel-powered electrical generators. This ensures that they will be available during times of peak demand in the region. Without these subsidies, many of these power plants would be retired permanently, and those funds could be used instead to modernize the grid and to promote efficiency, conservation, low-income assistance, and renewable energy projects.
Continued operation of Merrimack Station is not necessary to ensure electrical reliability. A 2017 Rhodium Group report found that, “between 2012 and 2016, there were roughly 3.4 billion customer-hours impacted by major electricity disruptions. Of that, 2,382 hours, or 0.00007% of the total, was due to fuel supply problems. Interestingly, 2,333 of those customer hours were due to one event in Northern Minnesota in 2014. And it involved a coal-fired power plant.”
ISO-NE’s reliance on coal and other fossil fuels for electricity decreases reliability by driving climate change, which leads to more frequent extreme weather events, the primary cause of power outages. It is irresponsible, dangerous, and poor grid-management to prop up fossil fuel generators that cannot compete with other generators or generate electricity without contributing to climate change. ISO-NE is free to restructure its long term planning for grid reliability. New England operates with a higher reserve margin than any other region of the country, meaning that the available generating capacity comfortably exceeds the highest projected demand for electricity on any day of the year. By retiring or restructuring the Forward Capacity Market, ISO-NE would allow the dirtiest legacy generators to retire and shift subsidizing payments to projects that increase reliability, create jobs, reduce pollution, and contribute to a more sustainable climate.
