Healey turns attention to the sun

 

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Healey convenes solar leaders in search of energy answers   September 30, 2025 By Jordan Wolman

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Gov. Maura Healey and her administration  — on the hunt for energy solutions — received a clear message from the solar industry on Monday: Get more power from the sun into Massachusetts, and move faster to do it.

Solar industry officials urged Healey at a Monday summit to make it easier to build solar and reverse a decline in deployment of the renewable energy source in the state in light of federal rollbacks, slipping climate goals, and high energy costs.

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The discussion, which also featured Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper and Energy Resources Commissioner Elizabeth Mahony, comes as President Trump has stifled Massachusetts’s offshore wind projects and pulled important federal tax incentives for renewable energy projects. It’s left Healey searching for new ways to both meet the state’s clean energy targets and lower energy costs as winter looms and power demand is on the rise.

“The solar we build now will be the most affordable solar that we will be able to build for some time,” said Jess Robertson, director of policy and business development at New Leaf Energy, a Massachusetts-based renewable energy developer. “Solar and storage are the only new resources that we can bring online fast enough to address both reliability and affordability in this era of rising electricity demand.”

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The overarching industry asks that Healey and her team heard Monday are to site and permit solar projects faster, cut the costs and red tape for solar power to enter the electricity grid, and ensure incentives are aligned to produce more of the green energy source.

The challenges facing the state around boosting solar power are intersecting with Healey’s energy affordability legislation now sitting with the Legislature. That measure has sparked debate about Healey’s proposals to cut the net-metering incentives for large solar energy developments and bring more solar projects into the state’s recently updated SMART solar incentive program, provisions which the industry is opposing.

“Everything’s on the table,” Tepper, the energy and environmental affairs secretary, said when asked if the administration would consider changing those aspects of its energy legislation. “We’re talking about everything. We didn’t get everything perfect, but we’re here today to talk to people about that.”

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More Context Utility companies cut heat pump incentives from Mass Save program (April 2025)

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More from CommonWealth Beacon New Codcast: CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith talks with Harvard professor Larry Lessig about the ill-fated attempt to restrict super PAC contributions in Massachusetts and the successful effort in Maine that was struck down by a lower court. OPINION: As bad as the Massachusetts health care crunch is, it isn’t the crisis. It’s the storm clouds and heavy rain that precede the hurricane, writes Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy, and management and director of the Health Reform Program at Boston University School of Public Health. Preparing for the storm of federal spending cuts requires stronger remedies than the ones on the table, he writes.

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