New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has made no secret of his lofty goals when it comes to reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. He has enacted a series of executive orders outlining the state’s plan to reduce harmful emissions by 50 percent by 2030. But perhaps the most ambitious move is Murphy’s proposed clean heat standard for the state.
What is a clean heat standard, and what does it mean for consumers? The details are complex, but the goal is simple: Build a set of regulations to incrementally reduce emissions by using a marketplace to incentivize certain behavior. The heat standard sets the goalposts and then gives fuel producers and consumers time and financial incentives to get to the goal.
For example, Vermont’s clean heat standard rewards energy providers with credits for taking specific actions that reduce emissions—like helping customers install low-emission heating units—or buying credits from other entities that are performing that kind of work. Colorado’s program is focused on emissions from natural gas, but operates the same way, by holding natural gas providers to an increasingly stringent set of emissions standards and giving them the option to buy emissions credits on a marketplace.
In New Jersey, like those other states, none of this would mean that large-scale energy consumers like universities, hospitals or municipalities will be required to immediately change out their oil- or natural gas-fired boiler systems for zero-emission systems. The clean heat standard program is designed to encourage those kinds of switches over a much longer time span. But in the short term, the new
program could well mean that taking advantage of cleaner-burning fuels could pay off in the form of clean energy credits that can be sold on a state clean heat credit market.
That’s where Truburn comes in. Truburn is a clean heating fuel derived from waste cooking oil that burns more than 80 percent cleaner than conventional heating oil. Given its plant-based origins, it is considered a carbon-neutral fuel—which means switching to it can qualify as an emission-reducing action. Better yet, Truburn is a direct replacement for conventional heating oil and requires no expensive modifications to equipment.
Massachusetts-based Lifecycle Renewables collects waste cooking oil from thousands of restaurant clients in the Northeast, transforms it into Truburn renewable heating oil and delivers it to clients as diverse as Harvard University and the City of Philadelphia. And given its presence in the markets of states like Vermont and Massachusetts—two of the more than 20 states that are in some stage of establishing clean heat standards—it understands how to help clients navigate the regulatory landscape.
Stricter rules are coming, but that doesn’t have to be disruptive for education, hospital, municipal or other large-scale heating oil consumers in New Jersey and across the Northeast. Learn more about your options with a free analysis from a Lifecycle Renewables energy consultant.
