Utility giant Eversource says it will spend the next 10 years working to reduce and offset the carbon dioxide emitted by its operations so that it reaches “carbon neutral” status.
The company, co-headquartered in Hartford and Boston, described its new pledge as aggressive, and said it would be the first investor-owned utility in the country to achieve carbon neutrality.
“We’re a big company,” said Jim Hunt, Eversource’s senior vice president of communications, external affairs and sustainability. “We want to walk the talk, we want to lead by example in our own operations.”
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes — along with methane, ozone and others — to climate change.
Hunt said Eversource’s operations currently produce 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s down sharply from the 1990s, when Eversource owned multiple power plants, which it has since sold off.
The company is already on pace to further reduce its emissions over the next decade, but its current path might achieve only 60 percent of its overall goal, Hunt estimated.
“There are some major changes [still] needed,” he said.
The effort to reduce emissions is specific to Eversource’s own operations, including its 69 facilities and more than 5,000-vehicle fleet spread across three states.
Hunt did not provide a cost estimate for the initiative, but said Eversource will focus on the most cost-efficient ways to get there.
“We will always be prudent with customer funds as well as shareholder dollars,” he said.
Major parts of the initiative will include efficiency upgrades to buildings and converting trucks and other vehicles to electric power and other environmentally friendly models.
Also key, Hunt said, will be infrastructure upgrades to reduce the amounts of natural gas and energy lost from pipeline leaks and from power lines when electricity converts to heat energy and dissipates before reaching the end user.
Only a few percent of the total volume of natural gas transmitted in Connecticut each year ends up unaccounted for due to leaks, theft or errors, according to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (the Sierra Club has suggested that leaks are more frequent than the data suggests.)
Leaks pack an outsized environmental punch, as natural gas contains methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Hunt said Eversource will continue to replace aging cast-iron and steel pipes to reduce leaks.
Eversource is also exploring ways to reduce the amount of sulfur hexafluoride, another potent greenhouse gas, in its substations, where it is used to insulate switchgear.
Hunt said the focus will be on reducing emissions as much as possible up front, but if Eversource still has a carbon footprint at the end of the coming decade, it will invest in carbon offsets (emissions-reducing projects in other areas) to zero it out.
The company’s effort to neutralize net emissions from its own operations doesn’t mean the electricity it sells from power plants will be carbon neutral, at least not yet.
The 2030 effort is distinct from Gov. Ned Lamont’s recent executive order instructing the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to explore a potential path to making the electric sector 100 percent “zero carbon” by 2040.
Definitions vary, but such a strategy could involve eliminating, or at least offsetting, all carbon dioxide emitted by energy generators, and would mean a much heavier reliance on renewable technologies like wind and solar.
Hunt said Eversource is talking with the state about the 2040 goal, and said the utility’s recent foray into offshore wind ventures will play a key role in helping get there.
“That’s one of the most ambitious strategies in the country and the governor should be applauded for that,” Hunt said.
Asked about Eversource’s 2030 goal, DEEP spokesperson Kristina Rozek on Wednesday said the agency applauds the company.
“We’re encouraged by this announcement which is in line with Governor Lamont’s commitment to achieving a zero carbon electric grid by 2040,” she said.
