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Governor Healey’s Energy Affordability, Independence, and Innovation Bill

Written by: Isabella Gambill, Assistant Director of Climate, Energy, & Resilience

July 23, 2025

In May 2025, the Healey-Driscoll administration filed an energy affordability bill known as An act relative to energy affordability, independence, and innovation. In the press release for this bill, Governor Healey shared that her Administration filed it largely in response to crippling high energy bills for residents in the winter of 2024-2025, alongside increasing costs for housing in Massachusetts. Although the energy affordability bill does not contain funding or bond authorizations like the environmental bond bill, the Administration claims that the bill could result in cost savings of over $10B for ratepayers over the next 10 years. The energy affordability bill was taken up by the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy in June, with a marathon hearing lasting about 6 hours.

The energy affordability bill has multiple policies relevant to A Better City’s 2025-2026 E+E Policy Agenda. As a whole, the bill seeks to address increasing energy bills and especially energy burdens in Massachusetts, or when ratepayers pay a disproportionately high amount of their salary towards energy bills. While this is not a comprehensive summary, some key items relevant to ABC’s work and climate policy priorities include:

• 3^rd Party Competitive Electricity Suppliers: although it does not include a full ban on 3^rd party electric suppliers for the residential sector as the 2024 Climate Act initially tried to pass, this bill offers compromise language to protect consumers from competitive electrical suppliers and prevent nefarious practices. Such changes include: eliminating automatic renewals and variable billing rates, establishing licensing requirements for door-to-door telemarketing, increasing transparency on typical energy rates, improving DPU oversight, and requiring clearer rate disclosure from competitive suppliers and aggregators.
• Utility Shutoff Protection: Massachusetts already has utility shutoff protections for ratepayers in winter months, and the energy affordability bill establishes a moratorium on utility shutoffs due to inability to pay, when temperatures are forecast to be 85 degrees F or above for 3 or more consecutive days.
• Mass Save: this bill updates the statutory language for Mass Save’s mission, reframing it to become an energy efficiency and building decarbonization program, and removes gas utilities from serving as Mass Save program administrators (PAs). It also streamlines Mass Save’s Three-Year Plan process, with pooled funding across customer types and service territories.
• Electric Sector Modernization Plans: this bill requires that utilities file a climate vulnerability and resilience plan and holds them accountable to the Grid Modernization Advisory Council. The bill language also enables and encourages the development of virtual power plants and enhanced load management in peak demand.
• Interconnection & Grid Modernization: this bill directs EEA and EOED to convene stakeholders to develop solutions to address interconnection delays and connects these efforts to economic development and housing opportunities. It also tasks the DPU to release guidance for electric distribution companies on developing a flexible interconnection program within 6 months.
• Net Metering and SMART: this bill requires SMART program participation for behind-the-meter solar projects.
• Clean Energy Procurement: this bill establishes a new clean energy procurement division within the Department of Energy Resources.
• Geothermal Loops for Individual Customers: in addition to opportunities for networked geothermal projects, this bill enables gas utilities to also sell geothermal energy to individual customers (once approved by DPU).
• Microgrids: this bill directs DPU to review existing barriers to the deployment of facility microgrids and offer solutions to these barriers. It also enables public sector and critical facility microgrids, to own and operate microgrids that can also be connected across public right of ways.
• Electric Rate Reduction Bonds: this bill creates a state financing entity that can underwrite rate reduction bonds issued by utilities to finance transition costs associated with the transition to a decarbonized grid and economy. Rather than having ratepayers pay for such transition costs through higher energy bills in a shorter amount of time, this allows the investment to be spread out for longer repayment periods (up to 30 years), and to leverage lower cost bonds.

A Better City attended the hearing for this bill in June and submitted written comments in early July 2025. ABC’s recommendations for bill amendments suggested that the bill: incentivize, rather than require, SMART program participation for behind-meter solar; create incentives to retrofit and decarbonize the building sector; fast track interconnection projects in stressed load zones; add district energy representation to the building decarbonization and energy efficiency advisory council; and explore the feasibility of establishing a statewide clean power prescription program. For any questions, please contact Isabella Gambill.