Twenty-five years of New England electricity data reveal persistent fossil dependence and growing cost and reliability risks as demand begins to rise.

A new whitepaper released today by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation finds that despite 25 years of major changes to New England’s electric grid, the region remains essentially as dependent on fossil generation today as it was in 2000.

In New England’s Energy Transition: Colliding with Reality, energy policy analyst Lisa Linowes examines a quarter-century of regional electricity generation data and finds that fossil fuels supplied 55.4 percent of New England’s internal generation in 2025, compared with 54.6 percent in 2000. You can read the full study here. 

“After decades of policies aimed at reducing fossil use, New England still relies on fossil generation for more than half of its electricity,” said Paul Diego Craney, Executive Director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation. “The real change has been a shift from coal and oil to natural gas.”

The study finds that coal and oil have been largely displaced from New England’s generation mix, while natural gas generation has expanded and become the region’s dominant source of internal generation. At the same time, two nuclear plants have closed, and weather-dependent wind and solar generation have grown substantially.

A growing disconnect is also evident between the resources New England depends on today and those being proposed for future development. In January 2016, natural gas represented 63 percent of proposed new capacity in ISO New England’s interconnection queue. By January 2026, proposed capacity consisted of 46 percent battery storage, 44 percent wind and 10 percent solar.

“New England policymakers and regulators are imposing a narrow policy vision on a highly complex energy system. They are forcing natural gas out of the region’s future resource mix as though New England’s dependence on gas has already been eliminated. It hasn’t,” said Linowes.  

“New England is moving away from investment in the dependable resources its grid still relies on before demonstrating that replacement resources can provide the same level of reliability at a cost consumers can afford,” said Craney. “That is a serious gamble to make at the same time that electricity demand is expected to rise.”

Another concern is the increasing cost of operating the region’s existing fossil generation due to policy choices. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) allowance prices rose from an average of $13.49 in 2023 to $35 in June 2026, while carbon-pricing programs increased average wholesale energy prices by approximately $9 per megawatt-hour in 2025, adding roughly $1.1 billion to regional energy costs.

Consumers could end up paying for two power systems: new wind, solar, batteries, transmission and imports while still supporting enough natural gas and other dependable generation to keep the grid reliable.

“Affordability has to be measured at the system level,” said Craney. “If New England builds a new system but still needs the old one to keep the lights on, families and businesses will be stuck paying for both.”  

The study recommends reopening the option for new high-efficiency natural gas generation and supporting fuel infrastructure, preserving dependable resources until equivalent replacement capability has been demonstrated, reassessing policies that increase the operating cost of existing generation, reviewing behind-the-meter solar cost allocation, and requiring all-in cost and reliability comparisons for competing resource portfolios.

“New England’s energy transition should be guided by what actually works, not by arbitrary climate mandates and timelines,” said Craney. “Before policymakers make dependable energy more expensive or force it off the grid, they should be able to show ratepayers what will replace it, how reliable that replacement will be, and what the total cost will be.”