It’s Hard to Create New Power Sources. But There Are Solutions.

The following article first appeared in the opinion pages of Hearst Connecticut Media newspapers.

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Most Connecticut residents interact with the electricity market in two ways: When they turn on a light and when they pay a bill.

The simplicity of those interactions obscures the complexity of engineering and economics that underpin the energy system, one that is evolving and starting to feel strain.

Energy has long been compared to a three-legged stool that must balance reliability, affordability, and environmental stewardship. In recent years, the affordability leg has been neglected.

The question facing Connecticut is now how to rebalance the stool. It won’t be easy, but it can be done with thoughtful leadership.

The answers to our energy challenges include sensible siting, building new resources, and preserving our existing infrastructure, which already plays a critical role in reliability, affordability, and carbon reductions.

Supply Mix

One of the challenges facing the grid is a tightening supply mix, which drives volatility and ultimately higher prices for everyone.

The most direct way to reduce that volatility is to bring more supply online, whether solar, wind, gas, nuclear, or other.

However, expanding supply in Connecticut and the broader New England region is a genuinely difficult problem.

Federal policy shifts have created deep uncertainty in offshore wind investments.

New power sources, renewable or otherwise, require transmission expansion that often draws significant local opposition.

For example, the Fairfield-Congress project, a plan to replace 60-year-old transmission infrastructure between Bridgeport and Fairfield, has been tied up in regulatory reversals and legal challenges for years.

On the supply side, grid-scale solar expanded quickly into easy-conversion sites such as former landfills, but new projects near residential areas or in open space face growing resistance.

Recent federal policy shifts have created deep uncertainty in offshore wind investments.

Demand Challenges

There is also concerted effort at the state and regional level to reduce fossil fuel consumption, which makes pipeline expansion politically difficult.

All three major interstate gas pipelines serving Connecticut already operate at or near capacity, yet the Iroquois compressor expansion in Brookfield, which would increase throughput without laying any new pipe, has drawn bipartisan local opposition and is tied up in litigation.

A slower rise in electric bills—3.8% in 2025—is of little consolation to hard-hit residents and businesses. Costs remain a major barrier to addressing our slowing population, with consumers spending an average $2,485 on electricity last year. #reimagineCT https://t.co/lfSCwQ0LKl

— Chris DiPentima (@ChrisDipentima) March 20, 2026

This matters enormously as Connecticut continues electrifying transportation and heating, which account for the majority of the state’s emissions.

Shifting more of that energy consumption onto the electricity grid puts an increasing importance on future electric reliability and affordability considerations.

Winters are getting milder, but a cold winter like 2026 is a reminder that the system still needs significant capacity to handle severe weather.

Policy Environment

So how can we solve this quandary? One way is to support policy that maintains our existing generation assets as we transition to a renewable future.

A failure to do so could create tremendous uncertainty for our grid and our economy.

Unfortunately, the existing policy environment erodes confidence for generators that reinvestment is a prudent decision.

The region faces growing reliability risks as retirements outpace new capacity.

As a result, more than 7,000 megawatts have retired or been slated for retirement across New England since 2013.

Meanwhile, ISO New England’s leadership has warned that the region faces growing reliability risks as retirements outpace new capacity.

One senior federal policymaker described the New England grid as operating “on a knife’s edge.”

Regulatory Framework

The economic challenges faced by the existing grid powerhouses reflect a broader failure to support policy that enables key generation to remain online without public subsidy.

Existing in-state generation assets are already interconnected and permitted and give consumers a reliable source of electricity today.

Beyond the value they provide to the grid, generators support nearly 30,000 jobs and over $10 billion in direct economic activity across the region. Many are among the largest taxpayers in their communities, paying hundreds of millions each year to local municipalities.

Maintaining this infrastructure while adding cleaner resources is a practical way to manage risk during the energy transition.

Let’s not lose sight of what supports our economy and way of life today, and will for years to come.

Connecticut has already achieved substantial reductions in power-sector emissions, and we should not jeopardize the adoption of new technologies by exposing investment decisions to unnecessary uncertainty.

If we are serious about affordability and reliability, the state needs a regulatory framework that can balance local concerns with regional energy needs on a reasonable timeline.

We cannot control what the federal government does, but we can move faster on permitting, enable fuel diversity during the transition by maintaining current generation, and avoid sacrificing the grid we have in pursuit of the grid we wish for.

While there is often a temptation to focus on the “new,” let’s not lose sight of what supports our economy and way of life today, and will for years to come.

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About the authors: Dan Dolan is president of the New England Power Generators Association, representing roughly 90% of the region’s electric generation capacity. Pete Myers is a senior policy director with CBIA. Dustin Nord is the director of the CBIA Foundation for Economic Growth & Opportunity.