Renewables Helped Prevent Blackouts on New England’s Hottest Day This Summer

Renewable energy sources, such as solar power and battery storage, have helped keep power on in New England, even during peak demand on the hottest day of summer.

According to a recent report from the nonprofit Acadia Center, more than 5 gigawatts of behind-the-meter solar provided additional support during peak demand times, despite the temperature in New England exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit on June 24. 

ISO New England, a grid operator, issued a Power Caution on June 24 due to the heat, and that evening, peak energy demand reached 26,024 MWh, the highest peak since 2013.

Based on Acadia Center’s findings, as much as 22% of power usage in New England on June 24 came from behind-the-meter solar.

Thanks to residential solar, customers did not have to face energy blackouts and even saved money on skyrocketing electricity prices during the heat wave. The report from Acadia Center noted that while wholesale electricity prices reached more than $1,000 per megawatt-hour (MWh), customers with behind-the-meter solar saved more than $8.2 million collectively. This estimate may even be much lower than reality, with Acadia Center explaining that behind-the-meter solar may have saved customers $19.4 million in energy costs on June 24 alone.

“Solar was helping not just deliver megawatt-hours but also suppressing demand for the entire region,” Jamie Dickerson, senior director of clean energy and climate programs at Acadia Center, said in a statement. “Basically helping ensure that the grid could keep the lights on, could keep the air conditioning running.”

But total energy and cost savings were likely even higher thanks to other clean energy improvements, such as battery storage and higher energy efficiency. According to Acadia Center, energy efficiency helped reduce peak demand by about 2 gigawatts.

As Canary Media reported, extensive battery storage in Vermont further reduced grid strain during peak demand. Green Mountain Power, a utility provider in Vermont, was able to reduce strain on the grid via residential and EV batteries, saving customers around $3 million.

“Green Mountain Power has proven that by making these upfront investments in batteries, you can save ratepayers money,” Peter Sterling, executive director of the trade association Renewable Energy Vermont, told Canary Media. ​“It’s something I think is replicable by other utilities in the country.”

Acadia Center warned that recent cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act for clean energy investments will likely limit states’ and utility providers’ abilities to quickly, efficiently respond in similar peak energy demand scenarios, which would increase risk of power disruptions to consumers.

“Those resources are susceptible to equipment failure and to outages, and there is correlated outage risk across the very large fleet of natural gas generation in the region,” Dickerson said. “All the more reason why we need to diversify the region’s portfolio.”

Relying solely on fossil fuel energy sources alone will not be enough to meet demand, especially during heat waves like the one observed in New England on June 24.

“Taken together, the June 24 heat wave event was a clear example of a successful portfolio-based approach, using multiple complementary clean energy resources — solar, energy efficiency, energy storage, transmission imports, and beyond — to help ensure resource adequacy for the grid and relieve extreme prices for the region’s consumers,” the Acadia Center report concluded. “Unless further thwarted by counterproductive federal proposals, the northeast will see an increasingly diversified clean energy portfolio called upon to meet similar peak demand events in the years ahead, minimizing the reliance on aging, inefficient fossil fuel power plants to serve peak demand.”