TEMPLE SHIR TIKVA

Let's Talk Electricity Rates
with Harvey Michaels
Faculty MIT Sloan Sustainability
TST EAC (Environmental Action Committee)
JCAN-MA

Monday July 22 at 7:00PM-8:30PM
Free and Online
REGISTER HERE
though JCAN, the Jewish Climate Action Network - MA.

With summer air conditioning season underway, let’s discuss: what makes MA electricity costs so high? Rates in this state are about twice the national average. Is that because we consume less? Because we have the best energy programs?

How can we respond, in personal choices, as well as with policy changes? And how do high rates impact the state’s transition to heat pumps and electric vehicles, essential for climate? 

Electricity providers may soon offer time-varying electric rates with new electric meters now being installed. Shifting when we use electricity could reduce power grid peaks, lower electric rates for everyone, and allow some high-emitting peak power stations to be closed permanently. Heat pumps and EVs would become more financially compelling, benefiting the climate.

But will these new rates benefit justice communities? Are they too complicated? Or might new AI-enabled apps and devices make this easier to do? Let’s consider the possibilities.