“At a time when greenhouse gas pollution from energy continues to increase at alarming rates, FirstLight is proud to join with world-class partners to take immediate action against looming climate catastrophe by driving systemic change and accelerating the transition to a carbon-free electricity sector,” said Alicia Barton, President and CEO of FirstLight. “The 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact is in full alignment with FirstLight’s mission to accelerate the decarbonization of the electric grid by owning, operating, and integrating large-scale renewable energy and storage assets to meet the region’s growing clean energy needs and to deliver an electric system that is clean, reliable, affordable and equitable.”
Clean energy will benefit communities and economies across the world. Crucially, 24/7 Carbon-free Energy will drastically reduce pollution and improve economic and health outcomes for those most impacted by the effects of climate change. With the largest clean energy generation portfolio in New England, FirstLight is working to enable the conversion to a clean energy future faster by delivering clean, locally made hydropower, and by leveraging large-scale storage facilities such as Northfield Mountain to integrate renewable energy and store it for times when it is needed. In addition, FirstLight is building on a strong legacy of environmental stewardship and clean energy leadership to help lead the drive to a more sustainable future in the years ahead.
In service of accelerating this transformation, the 24/7 CFE Compact is a commitment to the following principles and actions:
Local Procurement: Energy buyers commit to moving beyond 100% renewable energy annual matching goals and adopting, over time, 24/7 CFE procurement approaches that lead to new clean electricity generation to match hourly electricity demand on local/regional electricity grids where their consumption occurs, in line with the 24/7 CFE principles.
Market Mechanisms: Suppliers and solutions providers commit to provide offerings that enable increasing access to 24/7 CFE, including by developing contractual arrangements, market products, or other innovations that enable the delivery of round-the-clock clean electricity.
Policy: Signatories commit to publicly advocate and support energy policies that accelerate the decarbonization of electricity grids. This can include policies that help develop, commercialize, and deploy CFE generation and demand optimization technologies; policies that expand and interconnect electricity grids to integrate CFE; policies that expand and enhance electricity markets; and policies that provide direct access to purchases of CFE, among others.
Technology: Signatories commit to supporting the advancement of CFE technology to decarbonize electricity grids, including by any one or a combination of the following actions: enabling the deployment of commercialized CFE generation and demand optimization technologies; enabling the commercialization of next-generation CFE generation and demand optimization technologies; developing or enabling supporting electricity grid infrastructure or technology that integrates carbon-free energy; developing or adopting software solutions that advance decarbonization of the electricity sector.
Data and Transparency: Signatories commit to advocate and support widespread access to the energy data required to enable all consumers to set and measure 24/7 CFE goals, support the optimization of CFE technologies to demand, and maximize the decarbonization impact of consumer actions.
Each signatory will capture their specific commitments in their own Energy Compact, an innovation introduced by SEforALL and backed by UN-Energy as a key outcome of the UN High-level Dialogue on Energy. The Energy Compacts are public and trackable commitments, with specific actions, made by governments, companies and others to achieve energy transition goals by 2030 – including universal access to affordable and clean energy. For more on the Energy Compacts registry, visit https://www.un.org/en/energycompacts/page/registry.