Massachusetts has always been an innovative place, Yvonne Hao said as she explained the thinking behind the state's latest climate change initiative.
“We've invented a lot of stuff,” she said. Newsweek“The birth control pill, the first mutual fund, the internet, basketball,” he said, rattling off a laundry list of seminal “firsts” that occurred at least in part in the state where he serves as economic development secretary.
State officials like Hao hope that a new multibillion-dollar economic development program will channel that inventive spirit toward the climate issue and help the Bay State meet aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals.
“The best way to fight climate change and achieve these ambitious goals is through innovation,” Hao said.
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Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey's Mass Lead Act would invest $1.3 billion over 10 years to strengthen the state's research capabilities, policy leadership and culture of entrepreneurship in clean energy. Hao said the goal is to make Massachusetts a hub for climate technology, just as previous state policies have attracted and grown more than 1,000 companies in biotechnology and life sciences.
“We can create tools to accelerate and help people take more risk and scale things faster,” she said. Those tools include access to capital investment, tax incentives and workforce training.
Two high-profile conferences this month demonstrated the state's commitment to climate issues. A three-day gathering called ClimaTech brought together state officials, business leaders, and top scientists from MIT and other major research institutions. Harvard University's recently founded Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability hosted a climate action week featuring local lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a leader in climate policy.
“We've set a very high bar,” Markey said at a Climate Action Week session on June 10. “We intend to be a national leader.”
New England's new energy
Penny McLean Conner is executive vice president of energy strategy and customer experience for Massachusetts-based Eversource, which provides electric, water and gas service to approximately 4 million customers in three New England states.
Eversource is NewsweekThe company ranks fifth in the energy and utilities sector on America's Most Responsible Companies list.
MacLean-Connor said the company was looking at emerging climate technologies that could help decarbonise as demand for electricity increases for appliances, home heating and charging electric vehicles.
“This next decade will see the most rapid and dramatic change for all of our clients,” McLean Connor said. Newsweek.
It's a problem many utilities are grappling with, but one that's unique to New England, she said, where many homes rely on fuel oil or propane gas for heating. As more homeowners switch to electric heat pumps, electricity demand is changing, and utilities will need to change, too.
MacLean-Connor said the company is interested in additional energy storage technologies to better deliver renewable electricity generated by solar and wind when needed. New information technologies also have the potential to change the relationship between energy customers and utilities, MacLean-Connor said, a phenomenon he called “grid rejuvenation.”
“Not only can they take an active role in managing their own energy usage, but they can also help optimize the system,” she said.
The next generation of “smart” electric meters gives the company the opportunity to provide customers with better information about energy choices that will help save them money on their electric bills and make the power grid cleaner.
Eversource plans to switch over to new smart meters within the next three years and is in talks with Cambridge-based Sense to make the most of energy usage data that will soon be available.
“We're committed to doing better for consumers and helping them be better participants in this new decarbonized energy world,” said Sense CEO Mike Phillips. Newsweek.
Sense uses machine learning to analyze your home's energy usage, and Phillips opened the Sense app to a screen showing real-time data from your home: A bubble graph with one circle showing how much electricity your rooftop solar panels are generating, and other circles expanding and contracting to show how much energy your appliances are using.
“You can look at the patterns and see when the heat pump is running and when the water heater is running,” he says.
Some of the energy-intensive appliances in your home may operate during peak power usage periods, which can make your electricity bills higher.
“Once consumers know this, they can make changes and save money,” Phillips explained. These changes give utilities like Eversource more flexibility in how they plan to meet electricity demand and provide more clean energy options.
Provided by Sense
MacLean-Connor said technology like this makes this the most exciting time of her energy career.
“What I'm always thinking about is how do we move our company forward on this clean energy journey,” she said.
Creating a climate technology ecosystem
Sense's relationship with local utilities is an example of the climate technology ecosystem that has developed in Massachusetts, which includes institutions of higher education, small start-ups and deep-pocketed investors.
Phillips is a former MIT researcher who represents a growing field of entrepreneurs looking at clean energy.
“I decided that someone like me, coming from the tech world, had to take this climate issue seriously,” he said.
In 2011, a few MIT graduates founded a climate tech incubator in Cambridge called Greentown Labs, which now has hundreds of startups. The region's venture capital and finance communities are climate savvy and are investing in companies tackling some of the biggest climate challenges.
Form Energy makes utility-scale batteries for energy storage, Boston Metal is developing “green steel” technology, and a company called Sublime has a low-carbon cement process, to name just a few.
“I want to do everything in the state's power to think about climate technology and how we can keep it here in the state,” Hao said.
Massachusetts also has a long track record of some of the strongest climate change policies in the country: in 2006, state officials won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case. Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency This legislation established the government's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. The state has been a pioneer in reducing emissions and innovative policies to achieve it, all of which aligns well with the goal of creating a climate tech hub.
The word “hub” itself has particular resonance in Massachusetts: In the 19th century, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, perhaps jokingly, that Boston's cultural and intellectual assets had made it “the center of the solar system,” and the moniker has stuck ever since.
While the “center of the solar system” may be a bit of an exaggeration, the “center of the solar energy system” seems within reach.
Rare knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, seeking common ground and finding connections.
