Every year, ISO New England - our energy grid operators - host an "auction" to determine what energy facilities get subsidies (a.k.a. forward capacity payments) to be ready to be online. This process is complicated and messy but has lots of silly rules that end up favoring fossil fuel plants and keeping things like the Bow coal plant ready to produce energy into the future.

SO - we're hosting our OWN auction of horrible things!

This is a yearly satire event where we gather to make fun of ISO-NE’s ridiculous Forward Capacity Auction, which uses our ratepayer dollars to prop up fossil fuels on the grid (an example of a truly “Horrible Thing”!).

To make our own Auction a success, we need your help! Between now and February 1st, we will be collecting submissions of ridiculous, horrible items to (jokingly pretend to) auction off (for currencies that participants will make up on the spot). What do you have lying around that is almost as absurd as the continued funding of fossil fuels? Can you dream up anything as terrible and silly as the Merrimack Generating Station?

Here are some highlights from the 2022 Auction to get you started! If you’d like to see examples of past Horrible Things, you can check out these examples here and here.