Ten years later, Massachusetts is still trying to plug into its energy potential

It was a pleasant, sunny afternoon on the State House's seldom-used west lawn, and a song by The Apples in Stereo was blaring through the speakers.

"And the world ... is made of energy, and the world ..."

"... is possibility."

Possibility is what clean energy -- offshore wind and hydropower, specifically -- represented to the crowd of lawmakers, advocates and administration officials who gathered on the grass 10 years ago Saturday to watch Gov. Charlie Baker sign the law that pushed Massachusetts into its post-Cape Wind era of renewable energy.

They had reason to feel good. The bill Baker signed that day ordered up 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind and hydropower, pitched as replacements for the coal and nuclear plants then headed into retirement. It was, the governor's office declared, the largest commitment to offshore wind by any state in the nation. A themed playlist set the mood and a bipartisan crowd applauded.

Baker, and others, kept returning that August 2016 day to words that would echo awkwardly as the last decade unfolded.

The governor declared the law "will set Massachusetts' course for the future in a proper and appropriate way to ensure that we continue to reduce our carbon footprint and at the same time deliver reliable and competitively priced energy for the people of this region."

Competitively priced. Reliable.

The possibility Baker and everyone else celebrated has only just partially arrived, nearly a decade late. The hydropower the law promised only began flowing into the region this January. The first offshore wind farm it launched finished construction in March and no others are yet under contract.

And the anniversary lands as Beacon Hill contends with the very thing the law was sold as an antidote to: a full-blown fight here over energy bills.

Massachusetts hasn't only lost the environmental and job creation benefits of offshore wind. Without the clean energy resources the 2016 law promised to move things in the other direction, Bay State ratepayers have watched their energy bills continue to grow, reaching frustratingly expensive levels and putting pressure on Beacon Hill to force affordability however possible.

For electric customers, bills have increased from roughly $130-$160 per month in 2016-17 to peak at around $250 per month in 2023 or 2025, depending on the utility, according to filings with the Department of Public Utilities. Gas customers have seen bills climb from about $140 in the winter of 2016-2017 to $320 or more this past winter, the filings said.

The utilities, which analyzed some root causes as part of an ongoing DPU affordability investigation, did not cast blame on the 2016 law directly. Instead, they said the trends began with 2008's Green Communities Act and have been perpetuated or accelerated by state mandates to fund things like efficiency programs and solar and electric vehicle incentives.

But the law also did not function as the brake on out-of-control energy bills like Beacon Hill's establishment expected in 2016.

The law was premised on the idea that offshore wind would arrive quickly and keep getting cheaper -- each round of contracts was legally required to come in cheaper than the last. Costs went the other way, the wind power didn't arrive on schedule, and in 2022 lawmakers repealed the 2016 law's central cost guardrail rather than let it block new projects.

State government here has committed to reducing carbon emissions by at least 50% compared to 1990 baselines by 2030, by at least 75% by 2040 and by at least 85% by 2050, with tag-along policies to get the state to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.

As of 2022, the most recent year with data available, state officials reported that they had lost ground. Compared to 1990 levels, emissions through 2022 were down 26% -- a backslide from the 28% reduction reported as of the end of 2021. The pandemic was credited with helping Massachusetts meet its 2020 commitment and total state emissions have remained below pre-pandemic levels.

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Offshore wind was the centerpiece of the 2016 law, and utilities were directed to sign contracts for 1,600 MW of it. That was supposed to be enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes with turbines in the waters south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and to stand up an entire new industry from scratch on the South Coast.

Ed Krapels, founder of transmission developer Anbaric, offered what sounded in August 2016 like a sober estimate: "At the minimum, we're looking at 2021," he said that day 10 years ago, and for offshore wind specifically, "more like 2025."

He turned out to be the optimist.

Vineyard Wind 1, the first project selected under the law and still the only one delivering power to Massachusetts, sent its first electrons to the grid in January 2024 after years of on-again, off-again whiplash.

But that July, one of a turbine's massive blades shattered and scattered fiberglass across the ocean and Nantucket's beaches, a debris field that gave offshore wind's critics tangible evidence of their concerns.

Construction wasn't declared finished until this March, nearly a decade after Baker's pen hit the paper.

Everything since then has been stalled well short of even the starting line: Two projects that went under contract in 2021 terminated their deals in 2023 as inflation made it impossible for them to recoup the same return from the projects at the prices they had promised; and the next steps for the 2,678 MW worth of projects selected in 2024 have been delayed at least six times amid federal permitting turmoil under the Trump administration, with contracts now not expected to be agreed to until the end of January 2027.

State officials once said Massachusetts needed to be bringing about 1 gigawatt of new offshore wind power online each year in the 2030s to meet its binding decarbonization targets, but Vineyard Wind 1 is likely to remain the only offshore development providing power to the state until at least the start of that decade.

Baker's bill signing was three months before Donald Trump, a longstanding wind energy antagonist, was elected president. No one on the lawn that 2016 afternoon was expecting to see the news this week that a federal judge ordered the Pentagon to resume statutorily required reviews of proposed land-based wind projects for potential national security concerns. The Pentagon had largely stopped doing those reviews, effectively halting onshore wind development.

Energy has become an every-session issue on Beacon Hill, and one of the gnarliest for policymakers to find agreement around. The House and Senate have often been at odds over energy policy and negotiations in recent sessions have led to bitter disputes between branches.

Alluding to the complexity of the new law 10 years ago, House Speaker Robert DeLeo quipped on the lawn, "I can't wait until the next energy bill. This was so much fun. Very clear and concise issue, I just can't wait."

The latest round of energy talks is underway now, with representatives and senators eyeing the fall for a potential resolution that could save ratepayers money at some point -- no one has been able to say how much or how soon relief will be felt. And in an election year, political pressure is mounting on negotiators who got off to a rocky start.

"It is absolutely outrageous that, at a time when the people of Massachusetts are struggling to pay their energy bills, utility spending, profits and shareholder payouts are skyrocketing," Gov. Maura Healey said last week as she urged energy negotiators to send her a deal quickly. "Enough is enough."

Healey was in her second year as attorney general when Baker signed the energy law and she has been a major offshore wind booster, though she does not appear to have directly commented on the law or its signing at the time.

Colin A. Young can be reached at [email protected].

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