This post describes the changes to Mass Save proposed in the Senate energy bill. I do support the approach taken in the bill. It does not make any immediate cut in the Mass Save budget, but will, in the long run, improve Mass Save affordability. Of course, the Senate bill speaks to much more than Mass Save — see this Senate fact sheet for an overview.
Background
“Mass Save® is Massachusetts’ statewide energy efficiency and electrification initiative.” Mass Save helps people pay for energy efficiency measures like insulation and for decarbonization measures like heat pumps. Mass Save’s budget is approved in a three year planning cycle. In the 2025-27 cycle, Mass Save is authorized to spend a total of approximately $1.5 billion each year assisting both residential and commercial customers. Charges on gas and electric bills fund this spending. These charges work out on average to roughly $150 per year for residential electric customers and an additional $300 per year for residential gas heating customers.
The benefits and costs of Mass Save have been a focus in the conversation about energy affordability. In the fall, the House proposed to cut the Mass Save program deeply: Section 69 of House 5175 required Mass Save to reduce spending by $1 billion from the current three year plan as of July 1, 2026. From the perspective of last fall, July 1, 2026 was the middle of the current three calendar-year planning period, so all the cuts would have come in the back 18 months of the program, likely mostly in the final year of the program. So the reduction could have been by as much 2/3 in the final year.
The Senate Approach
The Senate energy bill does not follow the House in making deep and immediate cuts in Mass Save’s current three year plan. However, the Senate does propose to rewrite the statutory planning rules for Mass Save to put a greater emphasis on affordability for rate payers. Mass Save planners and the Department of Public Utilities do carefully follow the words in these rules, so the changes will have a material effect on the affordability of the coming plan three year plan (2028-2030).
Mass Save’s planning process is guided by Section 21 of Chapter 25 of the General Laws. Pursuant to this section as it currently reads, Mass Save must fund and seek to implement efficiency programs that are cost-effective (meaning that the estimated benefits outweigh the costs). Following the law, Mass Save conducts a deep and thorough analysis of the cost and benefits of all of its proposed measures in each three year planning cycle. This is a very complex exercise engaging essentially every feature of our energy system as well as every feature of the design of energy savings and decarbonization measures. For more on some of the issues raised in Mass Save benefit-cost analysis, see posts on my Heat Pumps and Building Energy page.
The Senate rewrite appears in Section 15 of Senate 3143 and does the following to encourage a leaner Mass Save program:
- Requires that the plan analyze ratepayer impacts and “be prepared with substantial consideration of impacts on ratepayers’ bills and the prudent use of ratepayer funds.”
- Eliminates language that requires that the plan meet administratively-defined green house gas reduction goals regardless of cost-effectiveness (existing section 25(d)(4)) and adds softer language requiring that the plan “help meet statewide greenhouse gas emission limits and sublimits.”
- Preserves the requirement that the plan be cost-effective (with the computation of benefits continuing to include the social value of greenhouse gas emissions reductions).
- Requires DPU to assure that the plan minimizes administrative costs and utilizes competitive procurement to the fullest extent practicable.
- Limits administrative costs to to 5% of the total energy efficiency expenditures of the plan.
- Makes performance incentives for the utilities an optional, as opposed to a required, element of the plan.
- Disallows mid-term plan modifications that effect a net-increase in costs.
In addition to these language changes to the planning process that tend to encourage lower costs, the senate bill includes measures to benefit low-income customers. Among those, it:
- Requires that not less than 20% of the statewide plan funds shall be allocated to the low-income residential sector.
- Proposes a sliding scale of subsidies for homes based on the home’s assessed value to help improve program uptake among low- and moderate-income households.
Further, the Senate proposes to restructure Mass Save. Mass Save is actually a collaborative of the major utilities, each having their own plan and program. The Senate cuts gas utilities out of the program management and pools funding across utilities into a single statewide program.
Finally, the Senate Plan strengthens the oversight body for Mass Save (the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council):
- Adding members “experienced in the management and fiscal control of large private-sector business organizations.”
- Creating a “subcommittee dedicated to the issues of affordability and ratepayer bill impacts”
- Requiring that the Council give “substantial consideration to the affordability and ratepayer bill implications” of the plan as part of its evaluation.
Altogether, I think that the senate language offers hope that Mass Save will become leaner, more affordable, and more cost-effective in future plan years.
I will not have time to review this before tomorrow.
I would have appreciated hearing your thoughts ahead of time, so, as your constituent, I could share my thoughts and concerns with you. I know you’re a leader on this issue.
Will removing gas utilities from project management have an impact on community geothermal pilots?
Yes, I was also wondering why gas utilities were removed altogether.
Some positive changes, but not enough. These types of market corrupting programs lead to constant issues of unexpected and unforseen issues. Also, keeping nebulous and likely disproved measures such as social value of greenhouse emissions is dangerous. This allows use for almost anything people can dream up. Lastly charging gas customer 2 x the cost of electric users is unfair. The electricity is generated primarily from gas and has greater inefficiency in the cycle of generation via burning the gas, transmission and storage and then the efficiency of the actual appliance. I think we should scrap the whole thing and go to a carbon tax type of approach. Simpler and less susceptible to corruption and bureaucracy.
Thank you for your comment Mike. Very well stated. This bill is not as thoughtful and meaningful, for either residents’ or businesses’ bottom lines, as I would have hoped. And we are truly in a crisis of affordability here in Boston.
I also don’t like that this legislation increases natural gas costs more than electric, when natural gas continues to fuel the majority of the electricity in the state.
This Senate bill falls unduly short regarding what residents and businesses need most now, which is affordability.
We need more affordability across the board, for everyone. And we need more efficient forms of energy (i.e. small cell nuclear). Windmills, and heat pumps, which this bill shifts more costs onto residents and businesses across Massachusetts to pay for, are Band-Aids. Costly Band-Aids. We need genuine, long-term, affordable and reliable energy solutions, and this bill does not offer that.
I don’t agree with a carbon tax Mike.
That’s not equitable. And it’s punitive.
It’s also market interference, which is exactly what you’re saying you a oppose.
Because of the state of affordability in Massachusetts, the Senate needs to be laser focused on affordability at this time. We don’t need any new taxes on energy for residents OR businesses already struggling financially in a myriad of ways.
Your post states you support expenses to Mass Save that will cost $150 more per year for electric customers, and an additional $300 per year for National Grid customers.
This is not welcome news in an environment where housing affordability remains a very challenging issue for so many Massachusetts residents. I don’t agree with your support for these energy cost increases, on top of the double digit residential tax increases we have experienced the last couple years in Boston. Double digit tax increases that are projected to continue next year, and beyond that.
You did not support Mayor Wu’s plan to shift the multi-year residential tax increases onto commercial businesses. Generally speaking, I agreed with you on that, due to the very challenging economic climate the commercial real estate sector is currently in.
Having said that, I am disappointed that the Senate’s bill will lead to significant additional energy costs to many Boston households and businesses.
I think the Senate’s top priority an energy policy at this moment should be to focus on making energy costs more affordable for residents and businesses across Massachusetts.
You have posted on your blog that current heat pump technology is not any “greener” than the natural gas steam radiators I used to heat my home. I have heat pumps, that I paid for out of my own pocket, in 2018. I did not receive Mass. Save discounts for my heat pumps. I mostly reserve them for air conditioning, in part because of their inefficiency to provide the same comfort as my (original to my home) steam radiators, and in part because my electric bills have recently skyrocketed.
While I appreciate that continued decarbonization goals are beneficial in many ways, I think the state of Massachusetts should take a closer look at both the state of the economy for individuals and businesses, and also the state of the current technology available, before the State continues to waste (in my opinion) taxpayer money to provide “carrots” ($) for energy customers to decarbonize before there’s really a net benefit to do so, based on our current technology.
There’s money to continue building offshore wind farms in this bill, even though there are already so many problematic occurrences with them, including the rate at which they kill migrating birds, and also the alarming rate that the newly installed windmills have already malfunctioned (one washed up on the shores of Nantucket, another one went soaring into a cranberry bog in a Massachusetts in a residential neighborhood.)
The state senate should really only be looking to endorse a bill that will result in a net reduction of energy costs for residents and businesses at this time.
Speaking of energy, Will:
Then-AG Maura Healey — on tape and quoted many times — proudly said she STOPPED 2 gas pipelines from coming into Massachusetts.
As governor she now denies she ever stopped them.
In other words, Will, our governor is a shameless liar, but you don’t care and your Democratic constituents don’t care either.
Here is what AI says about Maura “the Liar” Healey:
=============================================
. The Original Boast (2022):
While serving as Attorney General, Healey explicitly took credit for blocking the projects, stating on video, “Remember, I stopped two gas pipelines from coming into this state.”
. In October 2025, she reversed her stance during interviews, claiming, “I never stopped pipelines.”
===============================================
These are the types of Democrat liars that people elect.
As a retired Energy Efficiency consultant and now an energy coach for Needham, I’d like to offer the following suggestion. It would be helpful if Mass Save could document the effectiveness of the program, relative to money spent on a project (home) by mass save. I believe they have all the data they need. Analysis would be straightforward. Mass save has the audits which document the proposed ECMs, their cost and savings (including energy savings (btu, kwh) and $$. Mass save also has the same info for what was actually implemented after customer sign off. Mass save knows when the project is completed. They get sign off at the end. 12 months after completion of the work, mass save has actual energy consumption data from the utilities (won’t include FO customers). Mass save could then easily determine effectiveness of the program for individual projects and in the aggregate. I think this would be a reassuring determination for the average utility customer. On the other hand, on some projects, the savings might be less than the mass save estimated savings and the programs desired ROÍ. That’s fine. Use it to explore “what went wrong” on a particular project. Use that information to determine how to improve the accuracy of energy savings estimates program-wide. That’s the complicated part, but necessary. Again, the public will be reassured by the attention being given to insure fiscal discipline and public disclosure
I didn’t take Will’s post as supporting the $150/300 costs to consumers. I understood those costs to be what we are paying now. Am I wrong about that? The language doesn’t seem to state how much the costs will be reduced. I don’t understand why gas utilities have been removed.
I benefitted from Mass Save many times, including getting my home insulated this year. However, although the people who did the actual work were excellent, the administration was horrible: disorganized and incompetent (this was Home Energy Works). They never did come to check on the final outcome (they tried but only before it was finished which seemed ridiculous–communication was nil). I welcome the oversight committee but hope they are responsive to the customer. And I think Edward Quinlan’s suggestion of some kind of quality control and documentation of results is warranted.
I am all in on energy conservation. However, the push towards heat pumps is premature. I don’t think they are there yet; the systems are expensive and ugly and there are so many costs that aren’t factored in when people are cheerleading for them (houses without ducts, upgrading electricity, etc). Also the heat is so dry. I’d have to factor in the cost of humidifiers in every room. I am waiting for window units to be sold, and for humidifiers to be part of the package (dehumidifiers are already-let’s get China working on it).
I hope someday all utilities are municipally owned. That is the only way to keep them from shaking the customer down.
Marcia…..I had the same impression as you on the 150/300 figure