What if you could get almost all of your residents using 100% renewable electricity?
It might be easier than you think… 37 municipalities in Massachusetts have already done it! There are a few paths to explore. And one vital last step - make your 100% renewable option the default for your residents.
Why is this key? Because in municipal aggregation programs, 90%+ of the consumers are typically using the default option. So, you can have the most significant impact, with minimal effort, by cleaning the default option. And, as the market stands today (June 2026), there is nearly a cost neutral approach to doing this called national wind RECs (details below).
What if your default program was 100% renewable? The DPU data shows that often more than 90% of subscribers sign up for (or stick with) the default option. Sometimes, those default options are a little more expensive than the other options. But people sign up for them anyway. Human nature is a wonderful thing! So why not leverage it for a more sustainable future? Your community could shift from incremental change to immediate, large-scale impact.
We at Green Beverly believe that a sustainable future should be the easiest choice for your residents. A 100% renewable default leverages the purchasing power of your municipality to stabilize energy costs, protect citizens from the volatility of fossil fuel markets, and drive a more sustainable future.
As things stand, electricity sold in Massachusetts must be at least 69% renewable. So, to have a 100% renewable offer, municipalities need to find a way to purchase the remaining 31% from renewable sources. There are a few possible paths, including:
Buying additional Massachusetts Class 1 RECs. A potentially powerful option, but this type of REC is expensive and can make consumers’ bills significantly higher. And that makes it a nonstarter as the default option for most communities. Historically, this higher REC price has been used to indirectly drive additionality, encouraging renewable energy developers to build new projects on our grid. However, obstacles to new renewable projects in New England remain. For example, federal government support for renewables has diminished, and land in Massachusetts tends to be more expensive than in many other parts of the country. So projects that should be incentivized by these RECs are currently less likely to be built. The value of paying a high price for Massachusetts Class 1 RECs isn’t clear at this point (June 2026).
Buying national wind RECs. This is a very cost effective way to claim 100% renewable energy. Although these RECs support the renewable energy industry, they typically don’t drive additionality (like their Class I REC counterparts) because they come from older projects. These wind projects typically come from a region that runs anywhere from down in Texas right up to the Dakotas. So, buying these RECs has no impact on cleaning the local grid. But, topping up to 100% renewable energy with national wind RECs can add less than 0.1 cents per kWh to residents electricity bills - making it a very cost effective solution as the default energy offering. Although not the ideal solution, it’s a step in the right direction and potentially a powerful way to get residents excited about taking a big step in their sustainability journey.
Buying out-of-state RECs focused on additionality. Many other states have RECs designed to drive additionality, similar to Massachusetts Class 1 RECs. So while MA Class 1 RECs can’t drive additionality at the moment, other states can potentially fill that gap. These out-of-state RECs include California’s PCC1 RECs, New York Tier 1 RECs, and PJM Tri-Qualified Tier 1 RECs. It’s worth remembering that other grids still burn coal for power generation; the Massachusetts grid (ISO New England) does not. So buying RECs from out of state could have a larger impact on reducing emissions overall.
Working with a developer to build a local solar project. A more sophisticated, but potentially very worthwhile approach. This solution could bring many benefits - although it does take more effort to execute. Called a Physical Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), it would enable a muni to lock in a long-term, stable, and competitive price for energy. In addition, working directly with a renewable energy developer on the project would guarantee additionality. Local job creation and increased tax revenues are also potential gains. Weighed against that, a municipality would need to commit to an energy price for much longer than a traditional municipal aggregation agreement.
Signing Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA). A Virtual Power Purchase Agreement is another powerful way to directly drive additionality. With a VPPA, the municipality would work directly with a developer to support a new renewable project out-of-state, on another grid. The long-term commitment of the muni (and often other buyers) is necessary for the developer to secure the finance to build the project. VPPAs are sophisticated financial agreements - much more so than a regular energy purchase. They provide the potential for municipalities to both generate revenue or to be a cost. They require careful evaluation, but the City of Cambridge selected that option.
The table below provides a summary of the attributes of the different solutions above.
We also have an FAQ with more insights.
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A: Yes, even if you choose 100% renewable energy, some of your electricity will come from fossil fuels. Your electricity supply is made up of electrons, and one electron looks and behaves just just like any other. They are identical. So when electrons get pushed into the grid, it’s impossible to know if they come from a renewable plant or a fossil fuel plant. Imagine you’re making a smoothie, with strawberries and blueberries. Once you blend the fruits together, you can never separate them out. Every sip you take will contain both strawberries and blueberries. And the same applies to electricity. Once electrons from fossil fuels and electrons from renewable plants are on the grid, you inevitably consume both. Fortunately though, RECs are used to help keep track of renewable energy generation and consumption.
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A: REC is short for Renewable Energy Certificate. Every time a chunk of renewable electricity gets generated a REC gets created with it. (Technically, that chunk is called a megawatt hour by energy nerds). RECs can be bought and sold in marketplaces, pretty much like any other commodity - stock in your favorite company, soybeans, natural gas, gold - and so on.
Whoever owns that REC can take pride in knowing that they have helped combat climate change. That’s because if you paid to buy a REC that shows that you paid to support the generation of renewable electricity. It’s true that some RECs are better at combating climate change than others (they aim to encourage additionality). But ultimately, the more RECs you have in your municipal aggregation program, the more you are supporting renewable energy and combating climate change.
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A: Massachusetts (MA) Class 1 RECs are not necessarily generated at renewable plants in Massachusetts! MA Class 1 RECs can come from any qualifying plant in what is called ISO New England (our local grid). Plus some next-door neighbors too…
ISO New England (ISO-NE) is the electricity grid that includes Massachusetts. But, the clue is in the name - ISO New England also includes Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and most of Maine. And those next-door neighbors would be northern Maine, New York, Quebec, or the Canadian Maritime Provinces. In New England, we get power from hydro generation in Quebec, for example. So, a Massachusetts Class 1 REC can be created in any of those regions. So in summary, if you sign up for MA Class 1 RECs your renewable energy may not be generated in Massachusetts.
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A: National wind RECs are both abundant and very affordable. So they are easy to source for long-term energy contracts at low cost. That means they can be added to municipal aggregation contracts with minimal impact on consumer rates. For example, the City of Beverly’s 100% renewable offer costs only 0.07c more per kilowatt-hour than the basic product that meets the state minimum requirements. Likewise, North Andover’s 100% renewable offer using national wind RECs is only 0.1c per kwh more expensive than the basic product. West Newbury’s is just a tad more expensive than that…
While buying national wind RECs clearly supports renewable energy, these RECs do have limitations. First, they come from outside New England, typically being sourced from renewable energy projects anywhere between Texas and North Dakota. So, they lack direct support for the region - no local taxes, no local employment, no lease payments to local farmers or land owners. On the other hand, most of the electricity grids outside New England are more carbon-intensive. They still burn coal for power generation. So RECs from outside New England may actually have a greater impact on carbon dioxide emissions overall.
National win RECs also have minimal additionality claims. True additionality means your REC investment directly leads to a new renewable energy project being built - one that simply wouldn’t have happened without your financial commitment. National wind RECs are generated by existing renewable projects, so the additionality claims are weak.
Additionality is desirable and we should strive for that. But, there’s a bigger picture - sustainability isn’t just about clean energy. Including low cost national wind RECs can help residents feel positive about their contribution to combating climate change. What if that was a powerful first step into sustainability and spurred them into other acts - recycling, composting, reducing water usage, composting, safeguarding habitats…?.
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A: Probably not. Even if you are in an aggregation plan that claims to deliver 100% renewable electricity, it almost certainly isn’t 100% renewable, 100% of the time. That’s because of the constant changes in electricity demand and supply that occur hour to hour, day to day, season to season. The grid that we’re part of in Massachusetts is ISO New England. Depending on the time of day, or day of the year, somewhere between 10% and 60% of the electricity is generated from natural gas. Energy nerds can see today’s fuel mix here.
In the US, a typical home consumes between 10 and 12 MegaWatt hours (MWh) of electricity a year. To keep the math easy, say your home consumes 12 MWh each year. If you are in a plan that provides 100% renewable energy, that means 12 RECsare bought and retired for you each year. But, that’s based on how much you consume over the whole year. It doesn’t allow for peaks in your (and other consumers) demand. So, at times of high demand, when more electricity is needed, you are almost certainly using electricity generated by natural gas. For example, during a recent hot day in June, natural gas supplied almost 70% of our electricity during the evening peak.
As the renewable energy industry matures, we’ll evolve from matching RECs to your annual consumption to what’s known as hourly matching. That will ensure that people with 100% renewable energy plans are 100% renewable all the time. We’re not quite there yet. If you’re in a plan that claims to deliver 100% renewable energy, thank you. You’re doing something very impactful to fight climate change.
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A: I’m so glad you asked! To tackle the climate crisis, we need to build more renewable energy generation as fast as possible. Any action we take that leads to additional renewable energy sources being added could be called additionality.
Add solar panels to the roof of your house? Nice, that’s additionality.
Commit early to a large-scale renewable energy as T-Mobile did? That’s additionality too.
Add a solar canopy to the high school parking lot? You’ve got additionality.
Other indirect ways are also used to try and encourage additionality. One of the most common is to keep REC prices high. This is the approach taken by several ISOs (the formal name for an electricity grid). For example, in New England we have Massachusetts Class 1 RECs. Other parts of the country have similar RECs too. For example, California has PCC-1 RECs, New York has Tier 1 RECs, PJM also has Tier 1 RECs. In theory, high REC prices attract renewable energy developers as they can generate more revenue from their projects.
But other factors - such as high land prices, difficult permitting processes, and long interconnection lead times - can create obstacles that prevent new plants being built. And, when you’re relying on high REC prices to drive additionality, the direct linkage between a REC and a specific renewable energy project is lost. So the additionality claim is not as strong as the earlier examples listed above.
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A: If you haven’t read about additionality, do that first. Because emissionality is additionality taken a step further. Additionality describes adding new renewable energy generation to combat climate change. Emissionality takes it a step further by deliberately adding new renewable capacity where it can have the biggest impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s great when we can add new renewable energy generation close to home, on our local grid (called ISO New England). But, ISO New England is already a relatively clean grid. We have natural gas fired generation, but no coal. Coal produces roughly twice as much carbon dioxide for every unit of energy generated, compared to natural gas. Many other places in the US - such as Texas, the mid-west, or Tennessee - still burn significant amounts of coal for power generation. So, ensuring additionality is focused in locations that generate large amounts of carbon dioxide (ie. use coal) can have a much greater impact on climate change overall. And that’s what emissionality is. Some renewable energy developers, such as Clearloop, specialize in building new renewable energy projects where they can have the greatest environmental impact.