Beyond infrastructure: Building a supportive community and policy environment
This piece is co-authored by Jamie Dickerson, Dan Sosland, and Carolyn Dykema from the Acadia Center.
Introduction to the Energy is About to Shift report
A recent report by Clean Air Task Force (CATF) and Acadia Center examines the critical role community engagement will play in the build out of new, clean generation and transmission to meet New England’s 2050 decarbonization goals. This blog is the second in a two-part series, focusing on how to build a supportive, community focused environment for the region’s energy transition. The first blog focused on the clean energy needs of New England’s future grid. To learn more, read the full report, and attend our webinar coming up soon on January 16!
New England’s energy system must undergo an immense transformation to meet ambitious climate goals. Across the region, most states have adopted targets to reach 80 to 100% emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2050, economy-wide. For this to happen, the region will need to shift away from aging, polluting, unabated fossil fuel infrastructure toward a cleaner, efficient, and electrified grid. This transformation is going to reshape the region’s landscape and require a myriad of communities to host clean energy infrastructure. These communities are at the center of the region’s energy transformation.
For New England to build out its infrastructure at the speed and scale needed to unlock an energy transition, it will take buy-in, acceptance, and trust from the communities that will host these clean energy resources. This will require proactive and meaningful community engagement of the region’s 1,300+ cities and towns, as well as numerous business districts, regional organizing networks, community organizations, and residents so they can be active participants with a voice in the unfolding transition. This is for good reason, as the stakes in siting, permitting, and grid planning have important repercussions in how land use is prioritized, where clean air is enjoyed, who pays for infrastructure, and how other benefits and burdens are distributed. A community-centered decarbonized grid requires developing a system for engagement designed for the urgency of the climate crisis that values community access and standing in meaningful ways, including by offering communities the tools needed to provide input, express preferences, and participate.
The barriers to community-centered deployment
To date, New England’s track record on community engagement has been lackluster – with a trail of failed projects and lawsuits to show for it. This challenge transcends engagement practices at the individual project level; there are a variety of community-based barriers to energy infrastructure deployment at play. These barriers include policy, process, and institutional capacity challenges; land availability and competing uses of land; and community attitudes toward clean energy deployment. The sections below overview lessons and opportunities for each of these broader challenges, informed by six case studies on various clean energy projects around the region that exemplify project successes, challenges, and failures. To holistically address these challenges, the region’s policies and processes for siting, permitting, and community engagement must be improved and strengthened to unlock a clean energy transition. For more in-depth case studies and recommendations, see our full report.
Project Case Studies
| Project Case Study | State/Location | Technology Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Vineyard Wind | Massachusetts and Federal Offshore Lease Area | Offshore Wind |
| King Pine Wind and LS Power Grid MaineAroostook Renewable Gateway | Aroostook County, ME | Electricity Transmission and Onshore Wind |
| East Eagle Substation | East Boston, MA | Electric Substation |
| Cranberry Point Energy Storage | Carver, MA | Battery Energy Storage |
| Johnston Winsor Solar III | Johnston, RI | Solar |
| Twin States Clean Energy Link | New Hampshire and Vermont | Electricity Transmission |
Policy, process, and capacity challenges
In New England, there is generally a division of siting responsibilities, where smaller-scale generation resources are subject to local government approvals while larger projects and other infrastructure (e.g., substations or transmission and distribution lines) are subject to state-level approvals. Where siting decisions are made at the local level, restrictive permitting and zoning regulations have the potential to slow clean energy development. Local officials, zoning boards, and town councils, when confronted with siting and permitting a new technology, may understandably lack in-house technical capacity, including the funding, staff, and resources needed to fully consider how a project may fit into their communities.
In turn, localities may enact bans, moratoria, or other regulations that effectively limit the ability to develop clean energy. While some moratoria are temporary, allowing cities and towns to update their codes to accommodate the new land use, others are indefinite to effectively prohibit project development. Approval and permitting processes can be time intensive and add great complexity for responsibly developed and well-sited projects, even if those processes are intended to filter out projects evoking legitimate local concern. Finally, a project in compliance with necessary permitting and regulatory requirements may not receive the necessary permits due to shifting regulatory goal posts or local leadership changes.
Where the state has authority over siting decisions, concerns may arise over a lack of opportunity for meaningful community engagement, lengthy and cumbersome review processes, and under-resourced state agencies. However, if well-designed, state siting policies can effectively balance state and local authority to meet state goals and ensure local engagement, as exemplified by recent legislation passed in Massachusetts. The new law consolidates multi-jurisdictional reviews of clean energy projects into a single permit, enhances community reviews to ensure engagement and participation (including via intervenor compensation), and improves transparency via an online clean energy infrastructure dashboard.
Options and opportunities:
Policies and programs to site and permit projects in a timely manner while incorporating meaningful community engagement opportunities include:
- Enacting statewide permitting reforms for clean energy and grid infrastructure that balance urgency and clear, consistent non-discretionary standards with early and robust community engagement.
- Improving siting and permitting processes by creating avenues to expedite approvals, streamline appeals, and increase coordination across state agencies, and between state agencies and local governments.
- Increasing government capacity by hiring staff with technical expertise at permitting entities, providing financial resources for technical consultants, and establishing state-local liaisons to improve coordination and assistance.
- Providing technical support to local governments through financial incentives, educational workshops to local governments, and robust informational resources for community members.
Case Study: Johnston Winsor III Solar Project, Rhode Island
In early 2022, Green Development, a renewables developer, proposed five solar farm projects, including Johnston Winsor III, in Johnston, Rhode Island, but all were rejected by the local zoning board after failing to obtain the supermajority of votes required for approval. Green Development appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which ruled that special use permits require only a simple majority, allowing the project to be reconsidered by the Zoning Board. The project faced strong public opposition over deforestation and development on residential land. Stop Johnston Solar, a community opposition group, attempted to pass a ban on all large-scale solar development, but eventually failed. Green Development then proposed a scaled-down version of Johnston Winsor III, but it was unanimously denied by the Zoning Board in January 2024 after further public hearings. Green Development appealed the decision to the Superior Court, which found in July 2024 that the Zoning Board did not adequately detail its decision and remanded the cases. The future of the project remains uncertain. Rhode Island aims for 100% renewable electricity by 2033, but debates like Johnston Winsor III highlight challenges in locating larger-scale solar farms near residential communities, while demonstrating a dynamic where permitting delays can allow for mounting opposition. New state legislation passed in 2023 disincentivizes solar development in core forests while promoting preferred sites.
Land use and siting challenges
Where land may theoretically be well-suited for clean energy deployment, project-specific considerations may limit a potential site’s practical feasibility, effectively reducing the amount of land suitable for development. Many factors go into siting a single energy facility. On top of the resource capacity to power energy generation projects (i.e., suitable solar or wind resources), a potential site must also have proximity to transmission or distribution lines, the appropriate landscape and subsurface characteristics, and a large enough parcel size or the ability to aggregate multiple parcels. Even if a site is deemed suitable, it still may face challenges like high land prices, local zoning regulations, landowners uninterested in selling or leasing their land, or opposition from community groups. For transmission projects, developers must secure rights-of-way from all landowners along the proposed route, spanning multiple jurisdictional entities with their own regulations.
Conflicting tensions around how land is used, and the conversion of land from one use type to another, create additional friction around clean energy development. Land is a finite resource, and competing land use interests, such as agriculture, conservation, industry, and urban development further restrict the availability of sites for clean energy infrastructure. In New England, concerns around conversion of agricultural and forested land are particularly prevalent.
Options and opportunities:
Policy and programmatic solutions for addressing land use challenges of clean energy projects include:
- Integrating clean energy into land use planning to provide opportunities for self-determination, align development with the long-term goals of the community, and reflect the tradeoffs of siting energy resources.
- Prioritizing low-impact development and account for cumulative impacts through incentives and state review processes.
- Balancing farmland and wildlife protections with energy deployment by providing developers with best management practices to minimize impacts to wildlife and agricultural lands, or through the adoption of mitigation hierarchies.
Case Study: King Pine Wind and Aroostook Renewable Gateway Transmission Line, Maine and Massachusetts
King Pine Wind is a proposed 1,000 MW onshore wind energy facility in northern Maine and LS Power Grid Maine is a proposed transmission line to interconnect the wind energy facility with southern Maine and the ISO-NE grid. These projects are collectively called the Aroostook Renewable Gateway. In 2022, the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) selected these projects through a request for proposals, and both King Pine Wind and LS Power secured power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Maine and Massachusetts, which was also interested in the Northern Maine procurement. Although the King Pine Wind project was received positively due to a combination of careful siting at a remote location on previously disturbed land and its economic benefits, the transmission line faced significant public opposition and siting challenges, including moratoria from at least 11 towns. Ultimately, the Maine PUC terminated the transmission line procurement due to unresolved cost disagreements with LS Power, who requested a price adjustment amid project delays. Despite this setback, Longroad Energy remains committed to advancing the King Pine Wind project. Most recently, a separate but similar project, the Aroostook Renewable Project, received a capacity contract of $425 million from the federal government in October 2024.
Social barriers and historical impacts
Clean energy infrastructure is bound to have some impacts, both positive and negative, on a community; but failures to communicate these impacts and procedurally address community concerns can exacerbate tensions. Furthermore, community opposition to a project can galvanize longer-term community attitudes and even build local level organizing networks that may engage on future nearby siting matters, potentially in an unconstructive posture. Failure to address community concerns is both an acute challenge for individual projects and a chronic challenge the region must find systematic ways to address.
Lack of information, misinformation, and poor engagement practices on behalf of developers can further increase opposition from communities. A 2022 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that 30% of opposition to renewable energy projects in the United States stemmed from a lack of procedural equity, meaning the process of community engagement, such as the community’s ability to influence project outcomes, was inadequate.
A failure to diversify the region’s energy mix has perpetuated its reliance on fossil fuels and contributed to chronic fuel shortages, high electricity rates, and risk of winter energy shortfalls, contributing to distrust of energy projects generally. Decades of investment in fossil fuels resulted in heavily polluting infrastructure with real impacts on the health and well-being of communities, especially marginalized and disadvantaged communities. This legacy has created baseline sentiments of public and community-group distrust in institutions like ISO-NE, investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and transmission owners, and some project proponents. These sentiments of distrust can be difficult to repair and can make future developments additionally challenging.
Options and opportunities:
Ways to rectify past procedural equity issues and galvanize more community support for projects include:
- Facilitating proactive developer communication and engagement with communities that convey positive and negative impacts of proposed infrastructure development, as well as opportunities to mitigate impacts.
- Delivering meaningful benefits for communities through a community-led process that not only informs the structure of community benefits program but also incorporates community input into the design of the project itself.
- Modifying permitting standards and processes to account for cumulative impacts of projects to limit further burden on communities that have historically housed energy or other industrial infrastructure.
Case Study: East Eagle Substation, Massachusetts
The East Eagle substation, part of Eversource’s Mystic East Eagle–Chelsea Reliability Project, was proposed in 2014 to address (at the time) growing electricity demand and relieve pressure on the Chelsea substation in Boston, Massachusetts. The project’s location is in East Boston, a densely populated and largely working-class and immigrant community that has existing industrial activity, and environmental and noise pollution from Logan International Airport. The site itself is across the street from a playground, a newly constructed police station, a fish processing facility, jet fuel and heating oil storage tanks, and abuts a water resource – Chelsea Creek. The project faced significant pushback over the course of ten years. Community and activist concerns include safety for children and neighbors, flooding and fire risks, and further burdening an environmental justice community – along with significant procedural failures on the part of the utility. Legal challenges and protests have persisted throughout the project’s development, but the project has continued forward and is under construction.
A community-centered energy transition
In New England, “the energy is about to shift” has a dual meaning: the region’s physical energy systems must rapidly shift from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy, and the region’s policies and processes for siting, permitting, and community engagement must also shift to be improved and strengthened commensurate with the task ahead. For all the infrastructure build-out that must occur to unlock New England’s energy transition, none of it will be possible at scale and on time without genuine buy-in, acceptance, and trust from the people whose communities will host the many clean energy resources that must be sited and constructed.
