2025-05-30T09:48:26-05:00 2024-12-31 010523282 Berry Dunn McNeil & Parker LLC 2211 Congress St Portland ME 04102 990 2024-01-01 010518193 Acadia Center ACAD 2072366470 PO Box 583 Rockport ME 048560583 Daniel Sosland President 2072366470 2025-05-30 1 1 Barbara J McGuan CPA P00219457 2077752387 2025-05-30 2024 2025-03-06 01:10:19Z Daniel Sosland PO Box 583 Rockport ME 048560583 4408048 0 X https://acadiacenter.org/ X 1998 ME Acadia Center advances bold, effective, and equitable clean energy solutions for a livable climate and a stronger, more equitable economy. 12 11 14 12 0 0 3382002 3789590 0 0 60421 124230 -751 0 3441672 3913820 120000 0 0 0 1503430 1666086 0 0 115098 480781 567112 2104211 2233198 1337461 1680622 5211484 6927629 179934 202970 5031550 6724659 X Acadia Center advances bold, effective, and equitable clean energy solutions for a livable climate and a stronger, more equitable economy. 1 1 353709 Energy Efficiency and Building Decarbonization:Acadia Center advocates for policies and programs to upgrade buildings to make them more efficient and healthier. The project advances energy efficiency programs that provide incentives and support to consumers to weatherize and improve the efficiency of their homes and businesses by substituting old energy-hogging equipment for new, more efficient ones. This effort is supported by shifting billions of utility dollars from purchasing expensive power plant contracts into low-cost energy efficiency programs, including through state energy efficiency planning bodies across the region and building energy codes. More efficient housing improves indoor air quality and public health. Using cleaner, efficient systems reduces energy bills. By improving the efficient use of electricity and fossil gas, reductions result in needing costly infrastructure. The project focuses on transitioning buildings to clean, efficient, all-electric heating and cooling systems, and it pursues this work through coalitions, state policies, a building-science approach, and innovative methods that make energy efficiency programs easier for consumers to participate in, specifically in environmental justice, rural and other historically underserved communities. These efforts encompass improving weatherization and addressing pre-weatherization barriers for the region's aging building stock, driving flexible loads and grid-interactive buildings, and synchronizing in-building electrification strategies with broader community- and neighborhood-level solutions like networked geothermal. The project further works to sustain and advance energy efficiency as a resource at a regional level, where it contributes some 12-14% of the region's power needs. 640740 Clean Energy and Infrastructure:Acadia Center advocates for accelerating the deployment of clean energy on the power grid, from large-scale resources like offshore wind to local, distributed renewables like community and rooftop solar. This work extends to the complex area of reforms to remove barriers to clean power in the regional electricity grid, where our goals include articulating the consumer, health, environmental justice, and climate case against persistent reliance on fossil fuel for electricity in the region. In addition to overarching power grid reform work, the organization is pursuing a suite of grid- and infrastructure-focused projects intended to improve the responsiveness of power grids to consumer, climate, and equity goals detailed below: the Northeast Grid Planning Project (NGPF) is promoting a dialogue among stakeholders and power grid operators in a large area of the northeastern U.S. (New York and New England) with Eastern Canada (Ontario, Quebec and eastern provinces); the Communities and Clean Grid project is a novel effort to plug municipalities into the important work of the regional grid operator and help raise their voices and participation in influencing decisions made in the power grid that advance local and state policy priorities; and developing a set of analyses on the barriers to and solutions for harmonious siting, financing, and community engagement around large-scale grid infrastructure projects.Clean Energy:Shifting electric power generation to zero and low-carbon resources is central to Acadia Center's core program work. As building and transportation sectors electrify, securing renewables and clean energy resources on the grid is vital to ensuring adequate renewable supply to keep pace with rising demand, power vehicles and heat pumps with clean electrons, and deliver economic and public health benefits to local communities. Acadia Center is focused on accelerating the deployment of diverse renewable resources that are and will be part of an optimized renewable portfolio for the region, including offshore wind, onshore wind, utility-scale solar, community solar, rooftop solar, clean hydropower, and beyond. The program undertakes policy advocacy and market reforms needed to remove barriers and spur adoption at the local, state, and regional levels from renewable portfolio standards to net energy metering rules, solar incentive programs, and large-scale procurements.Acadia Center has long advocated for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program, which has delivered over $6 billion in funds to invest in clean energy and consumer benefits in 11 participating states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region. We lead regional advocacy calls on RGGI, develop recommendations to the states and RGGI, Inc., and prepare analyses and reports on both the program's benefits and ways to improve it.Clean Grid:Acadia Center has long played an important advocacy role before ISO-NE, NEPOOL, and their respective stakeholder committees and bodies, such as the Consumer Liaison Group (CLG). In conjunction with this work, the organization launched a new Communities and Clean Grid project focused on providing energy education resource material about the power grid to municipalities in the region. The objective of this project is to equip and empower local communities to understand better and potentially engage in and influence deliberative ISO New England grid planning and management processes, aiming to 1) place local communities on an equal footing with other stakeholders seeking to influence ISO-NE grid planning and management, and 2) enlist them in the region-wide effort to implement equitable, affordable clean energy solutions. Acadia Center is also advocating for the creation of an Independent Transmission Monitor (ITM), to provide necessary review of billions of dollars in transmission upgrade projects that currently receive little or no public oversight yet are funded by ratepayers. We are advancing the concept of using modern technology to improve the grid, called Grid Enhancing Technologies or GETs. GETs can increase the capacity of the current grid in low-cost ways that avoid building high priced new transmission lines. GETs cost a fraction of new lines yet are not deployed because there is (1) no mandate and (2) they do not provide the same level of financial return to utilities and transmission owners. Northeast Grid Planning Forum:The Northeast Grid Planning Forum (NGPF) is a deliberative stakeholder dialogue designed to formalize and deepen collaboration across northeast U.S. states and Canadian provinces around interregional energy systems and grid coordination. Acadia Center and Nergica, independent US and Canada-based non-profit corporations serve as co-convenors for this effort. The dialogue will be convened via three distinct roundtable processes: 1) environmental justice and community mobilization, 2) interregional planning, and 3) clean energy procurement and market development. Interregional grid coordination in this context includes a range of planning, investment, market design, community benefits, and operational approaches. Northeast states already share electrical connections with their Canadian neighbors, but a more holistic approach to planning and implementing improvements to the regional energy system will deliver significant value to New England ratepayers.Infrastructure and Community Engagement:Acadia Center is addressing the issue that to meet climate goals successfully, a large increase in renewable generation will require sufficient transmission and other infrastructure to be built. That increase will occur when communities and stakeholders value and support infrastructure development. This will require improvements in permitting processes to be inclusive and trustworthy of community and stakeholder participation. One project Acadia Center is undertaking to understand better community needs in infrastructure siting and permitting is a partnership with colleagues at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). Acadia Center and CATF are working together to design and understand better and help overcome barriers to the responsible siting and development of clean infrastructure in the region, including barriers related to community engagement and needs in permitting and siting processes and ways to finance infrastructure needs so the financial burden does not always fall on ratepayers. 393432 Utility Innovation and Accountability: Acadia Center advances thought-leading reforms in state and regional utility regulation so all parties engaged in the energy system utilities, regulators, and consumers work together to achieve shared goals. The program builds awareness about how outdated financial incentives influence utility decision-making and can misalign with clean energy deployment, climate goals, and ratepayer benefits. The program has significant reforms of public utility commissions and state regulatory oversight so that they consider climate impacts and equity imperatives alongside reliability, affordability, and safety. Program goals seek to catalyze modernization of the grid and the utility system of the future, with a focus on performance-based regulation, utility performance incentive mechanisms, rate-design for electrification and DERS, integrated distribution system planning (gas/electric), non-wires alternatives, and inclusive stakeholder engagement. 590894 Climate Policy and Solutions:Every program and project at Acadia Center touches on climate policy and solutions. Climate Policy represents a dedicated set of activities specifically focused on addressing opportunities for states and the region to achieve overarching climate targets, which require deep, economy-wide decarbonization and phaseout of the use of fossil fuels. Program area activities include engaging with states on comprehensive climate planning studies, modeling, and energy system strategies. This work advances long-term, "big picture thinking," which is needed to ensure that comprehensive and cohesive strategies for decarbonizing entire economies are considered. Climate Policy includes work in Acadia Center's CLEAN-E Analysis team. It embraces three project areas that are essential to the achievement of near- and long-term climate targets at a state and regional level: 1) CLEAN-E/Analysis; 2) Fossil Fuel Phase-Out, and 3) State and Regional Climate Policies, which includes work on programs that set binding caps on emissions (e.g., RGGI, cap-and-invest).Climate, Energy, and Equity Analysis (CLEAN-E):Acadia Center develops analytic materials and independent, thought-leading recommendations across various clean energy and climate issues. Work products created by our Climate, Energy, and Equity Analysis program include 1) comprehensive, proactive reports, 2) analytically focused comments to government agencies and filings with regulatory bodies, and 3) rapid response offense/defense analysis. In recent years, we have produced groundbreaking reports about building electrification, the RGGI program, and issues around claims for clean fuels. Work performed in 2023 includes comprehensive assessments of the climate impacts of fuels such as hydrogen and "renewable natural gas; in-depth analyses of technical issues related to shaping an effective Clean Heat Standard for building decarbonization; and original research that found sizeable public health impacts of smaller fossil fuel powerplants that fall under the radar in policy arenas.Fossil Fuel Phase-Out:To meet climate goals, the region must almost entirely phase out its use of fossil gas, commonly referred to as natural gas and other fossil fuels. Acadia Center seeks to replace fossil gas with clean energy alternatives in electricity production, building heating, and transportation. This conversion necessarily requires the downsizing and decommissioning fossil fuel infrastructure and supply chain networks, such as gas distribution system transition. This project advances proposals to level the playing field for renewables and efficient electric technologies and shrink the reliance on fossil fuels across the region and all program areas. As the electric sector faces an approaching need to develop and deploy dispatchable, emissions-free resources (DEFR) such as long-duration storage, green hydrogen, and other potential resources, Acadia Center is engaging closely on the question of how to address reliability and resource adequacy role currently served by fossil fuels, including reliance on dual-fuel oil/gas and LNG resources for winter reliability.State and Regional Climate Policies:Since its inception, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has been a primary focus of Acadia Center helping to shape the design, implementation, and evolution of this important regional program to address power plant emissions. RGGI is undergoing its third program review, and we continue to lead the charge to improve RGGI and address pollution in communities suffering high asthma rates and a legacy of fossil fuel pollution. Acadia Center advocacy focuses on strengthening the program's emissions cap and adopting new equity protections. Acadia Center is further exploring a regional program to address economy-wide emissions and infrastructure needs.Transportation and Mobility:Acadia Center is working to accelerate the transition to low-carbon transportation. We advance policy approaches that address transportation emissions and invest in equitable access to clean mobility solutions, including solutions that specifically focus on disproportionate impacts and gaps in service in underserved urban and rural communities. The solutions we promote range from electric vehicles and zero-emission buses and trucks to transit, rail, and biking/walking infrastructure, among other measures to reduce emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). We strive to help states evolve the way they and their DOTs plan for and invest in their traditional transportation assets to a model that is compatible with emissions reduction requirements while also ensuring that the region's construction workforces see a vibrant future even as funding is shifted away from, e.g., highway expansion projects. Our vision also includes place-based decarbonization interventions at key hubs within the region's transportation system, including ports, freight terminals, and airports. After the Transportation and Climate Initiative's (TCI) cessation, Acadia Center continues to coordinate advocates working on transportation and equity issues. It may resume focusing on the potential for cap-and-invest to drive equitable transportation emissions reductions through broader economywide models.Equity and Environmental Justice:Embedded across Acadia Center's work is addressing climate and clean energy policies and solutions designed to improve the lives of all residents and specifically redress the detrimental impacts of a fossil fuel economy on lower-income urban and rural communities. Acadia Center internally applies diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice through staff discussions, materials, approaches, and engagement. Programs seek to connect and build relationships with community-based organizations and diverse stakeholders to improve energy system decisions and planning to be inclusive and responsive to community needs. These efforts seek to place and keep energy equity and environmental justice solutions at the forefront of state and regional initiatives that formerly overlooked this vital imperative.Communications and Public Engagement:A core focus of Acadia Center's approach to climate is to consider how the organization's program efforts should resonate with decision-makers, media, communities, and the broader public. To those goals, program work includes developing educational and explanatory materials that raise awareness about the benefits of a clean energy economy in accessible, digestible formats. Using top-notch graphic design, these innovative materials connect clean energy and climate progress with issues of concern to the public's daily lives, such as economic prosperity, equity, health, quality of life, and climate benefits. Acadia Center staff participate in numerous public forums and produce original analyses and reports. Acadia Center's Climate and Energy Explainer Series provides easy to understand materials on complex issues that the organization is addressing in its program work, such as clean energy technologies available on the power grid, the lifecycle implications of claims for "renewable natural gas; what a Clean Heat Standard is and why it can be a powerful building decarbonization tool if done correctly, and other topics. 590894 1978775 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 0 1 14 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 12 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 ME AR AL CA FL GA KS KY MA MD MI MN NC NH NJ NY OR RI SC UT VA WI CT X X X Daniel Sosland 2072366470 PO Box 583 Rockport ME 048560583 Phyllis Theermann Chair 1.00 X X 0 0 0 Eric Graber-Lopez Treasurer 1.00 X X 0 0 0 Joyce Kung Secretary 1.00 X X 0 0 0 Elizabeth Carroll Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 John DeVillars Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 Daniel Hildreth Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 Peter Rothstein Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 Mitch Tyson Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 Don E Wineberg Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 Daryl Wright Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 Bob McTighe Director 1.00 X 0 0 0 Daniel Sosland President 40.00 X X 243172 0 17489 Jamie Dickerson Sr Dir. Clean Energy/Climate Programs 40.00 X 131591 0 39982 Benjamin Butterworth Dir. Climate/Energy/Equity Analysis 40.00 X 110407 0 17492 Kyle Murray Dir. State Program Implementation 40.00 X 103667 0 18185 Oliver Tully Dir. Utility Innovation Program 40.00 X 100750 0 6630 689587 0 99778 5 0 1 0 0 969 3788621 3789590 124230 124230 494228 494228 0 0 3913820 0 0 124230 X 260661 235611 10061 14989 1143539 1033641 44139 65759 67782 62003 2245 3534 87057 79491 2956 4610 107047 97713 3650 5684 8500 6025 2475 54277 54277 25150 24774 188 188 336323 332350 1432 2541 7035 1589 1420 4026 32857 26963 5137 757 44403 40851 1776 1776 8467 8320 88 59 15631 15221 348 62 799 735 32 32 8108 2703 5288 117 Miscellaneous 12841 3043 280 9518 Communications 9733 6292 3371 70 Books and Subscriptions 2988 1450 162 1376 2233198 1978775 139325 115098 X 2496 2451 2300022 1412525 976165 1540871 25189 35159 145001 144196 1604 805 1886854 3925857 16239 7046 2915 2915 5211484 6927629 65111 65142 114823 137828 179934 202970 X 3464566 4494683 1566984 2229976 5031550 6724659 5211484 6927629 1680622 12487 0 X 0 1 X 0 0 X 2396957 2506882 1575151 3382002 3789590 13650582 2396957 2506882 1575151 3382002 3789590 13650582 5706956 7943626 11476 5379 8942 60421 124230 210448 13861030 11222 0.57310 0.62010 X RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED 0 25150 25150 2208048 2233198 261660 65415 0 0 257483 248577 255211 261660 1022931 1534397 35073 13775 13598 25150 87596 64371 62144 63803 65415 255733 383600 145001 144196 805 805 Deferred Compensation 130782 Operating Lease Liability 7046 137828 X 3926307 12487 12487 3913820 0 3913820 2233198 0 2233198 0 2233198 Part X, Line 2: The Organization is exempt from federal and state income taxes under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (the Code) and has been determined not to be a private foundation within the meaning of Section 509(a) of the Code. The Organization is required to assess whether it is more likely than not a tax position will be sustained upon examination on the technical merits of the position assuming the taxing authority has full knowledge of all information. If the tax position does not meet the more likely than not recognition threshold, the benefit of that position is not recognized in the financial statements. The Organization has determined there are no amounts to record as assets or liabilities related to uncertain tax positions. X X X 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Daniel Sosland President 243172 0 0 0 0 0 14640 0 2849 0 260661 0 0 0 Jamie Dickerson Sr Dir. Clean Energy/Climate Program 131591 0 0 0 0 0 7579 0 32403 0 171573 0 0 0 Part I, Line 4b During calendar year 2024, Daniel Sosland participated in a 457f plan but no contributions were made. Form 990, Part III, line 2 Acadia Center expanded coverage of selected high value issues, including increased work on electric power grid reform issues, addressing additional areas on improving public oversight and input and in the area of energy costs. We prepared a new report on household energy burden that is anticipated to be part of an expanded program on energy costs and energy burden. A core website on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative transferred to Acadia Center. Acadia Center began an expanded project around a regional/multistate climate program building on its prior advocacy on programs such as RGGI. Form 990, Part III, line 3 Acadia Center expanded staff capacity to address pressing issues on utility rates, grid system and stakeholder engagement. It solidified an organizational chart for current and prospective staffing to ensure capacity to meet program goals. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, line 11b A copy of Form 990 is provided in final draft form to the board upon receipt from the independent accounting firm. The board is provided an opportunity to review the 990 and discuss it at a regular or special board meeting. Acadia Center then files Form 990 after board comment and review. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, line 12c Conflicts are monitored by requiring staff to identify any activities they seek to engage in during or outside the scope of employment that might impact Acadia Center. These issues are brought to the president's attention, who then determines whether there is a conflict; the finance and operations director is also included in that process. Acadia Center staff participate in standing conference calls each week that offer opportunities to raise questions around any issue that might raise an actual or appearance of conflicts and are discussed with the team on the call. Acadia Center has a standing policy to not solicit donations or other revenue from private corporations, including but not limited to utilities and other energy companies, and to selectively seek government funding only when it supplements and furthers the Organization's mission and does not present any actual or appearance of conflicts. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, line 15 The board's Executive Committee reviews the president's salary level in a closed session. Acadia Center management researches and provides the board with summary memos comparing the salary level to positions at other non-profits. The president's compensation is compared to similar positions at regional organizations, program directors at national organizations, and organization founding officers. For other employees, Acadia Center's procedure is for the president and supervisors in the staff Executive Committee to establish individual compensation levels supported by input from other staff, peer groups, and field research. Acadia Center reviews compensation levels of employees of compatible non-profits and government positions through the information available in 990 filings, GuideStar, conversations with other organizations, and salary surveys when available. Form 990, Part VI, Section C, line 19 Acadia Center seeks to fully comply with any public inspection requirement, provides materials on its website, and offers to make materials available for public inspection upon request. 990 returns and annual reports are available to the public. Form 990, Part IX, line 11g Consultants: Program service expenses 332,350. Management and general expenses 1,432. Fundraising expenses 2,541. Total expenses 336,323. Form 990, Part X, Line 10: Land, Buildings, and Equipment Section 1.263(a)-3(n) Election: Acadia Center PO Box 583 Rockport, ME 04856-0583 EIN: 01-0518193 Acadia Center is electing to capitalize repair and maintenance costs under Regulation Section 1.263(a)-3(n).