Energy & Climate Action Committee

Fun fact —
Shutesbury is one of the 17 Commonwealth municipalities with hybrid or zero-emission vehicles accounting for greater than 10% of its total registered vehicles.  With 11.5%, Shutesbury has the second highest percentage among towns in Franklin County (Leverett has the highest with 13.4%).  For more fun facts, check out the Massachusetts Vehicle Census at https://geodot-homepage-massdot.hub.arcgis.com/pages/massvehiclecensus.

Current Exploration

Community Choice Aggregation 
Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) is a program that allows Massachusetts municipalities to voluntarily bundle or "aggregate" the electrical purchasing power of its households, effectively creating a town-wide buying group. By doing this, the town can establish contracts to obtain electrical services that are more responsive to community interests — either lower cost or "greener" sources of the electricity supply.  By aggregating, a town gains leverage to negotiate better individual rates with competitive suppliers, as well as determining various options for green power sources.  The household gets to pick the type of service it wants — this is the "choice."

Community Choice Aggregation, Warrant Article 3, was unanimously approved at Annual Town Meeting, June 3, 2023.  That means that the Select Board is now authorized to initiate an exploration of the CCA program, allowing Shutesbury to investigate electricity suppliers, to seek competitive bids on source options, and eventually to contract an electrical supplier that meets our needs (or to reject all bids and keep the status quo).

So what's next?  Steps in the investigative process and their expected timeline are spelled out in the slides presented at the December 2022 information forum (you can view the forum video here).  You can check CCA FAQs here.

Past Projects

Household Energy Survey —
Online from May 14th through midnight, June 12th.
Survey results are tabulated here.

Resources

Go Electric! Rewiring America's Guide to the Inflation Reduction Act

What subsidies are available in the Inflation Reduction Act?  You can calculate your savings here.

Environment America's Clean Energy Home Toolkit has ideas for weatherizing and electrifying your home.

What is MassSave?  How does it help?
Click on MyENERGY/Home at (the top of) MassSave and enter your zip code for 01072-specific info.