Al Norman’s recent column on the proposed Wendell megabattery is spot on [“Your home’s power plant could save our energy grid,” Recorder, May 1]. Investing in more centralized grids in an era of technological miniaturization is building backward.

Gov. Maura Healey and the state’s attorney general are following the Biden administration’s anachronistic playbook written by the utilities that own the grid, have blocked climate action efforts for decades, and then push fake solutions that protect or increase profits.

A moribund Legislature and captured regulator have brought the state to a crisis: They have not delivered on adopted climate goals. Without legislative leadership and regulatory discipline, climate action became a farce: when corporate profits collide with climate mandates, the profit prerogative always wins.

Since deregulation in the late 1990s, captured regulators have allowed the utilities to retain a controlling position in markets they were supposed to let go of. They blocked or outright ignored efforts of communities with municipal aggregation programs to control their own energy-efficiency funds as allowed by state law, leaving those funds in the hands of utilities.

They left obsolete rules in place blocking microgrids and other carbon-reducing technologies. They harmed municipalities seeking to lead on climate. They stonewalled municipalities implementing green municipal aggregations for years. For decades, regulators and legislators maintained fraudulent Renewable Energy Certificate trading processes that have sown confusion and damaged public trust in green power.

Then they declared an emergency and now impose draconian preemption of communities, accusing us of NIMBYism. Wagging the finger. Carbon levels aren’t going down! We have to sacrifice your town, and of course, for the greater good! Do your part!

Never mind the “emergency” was created solely by them, under their authority, and went on for 30 years. The crisis is you! And never mind there are numerous technologies and service providers out there today, such as virtual power plants, widely proven elsewhere, that could be implemented here if regulators weren’t in the way. Never mind all that — just take this megabattery. It’s gaslighting. They are counting on our ignorance and credulity to go along with this.

This all goes back down to utility profits. Good regulators try to limit them. Bad ones protect them. Climate change presents a little problem for the corporations that cause it: How to remain profitable while appearing to comply with climate laws?

If to actually reduce carbon, energy is actually saved, such as by effective efficiency measures or software coordination of many smaller building-based solar, battery or electric vehicle installations using a virtual power plant, then that means people will consume less power from the grid. Under real climate measures, the utility will get paid less for less use of its grid, which after all is the cause of climate change.

On the other hand they see opportunity for new profit: If electrification of heat and vehicles creates huge new demand for power, the utilities want to own this new demand, and regard those offering services now as competitive threats to their potential future profits.

So they stall the real solutions at the state level, cause a policy crisis, and spend millions promoting the idea of a “green grid” to the feds. Not controlling failed state regulators, the feds buy it.

Megabatteries are a key component of a fake green grid by getting regulators to rate base the new demand, backfilling the utilities’ obsolete, carbon-intensive grid with new ratepayer debt. But they are not the only utility component. The others are new transmission lines, painted green.

Centralized grid climate solutions will require two to four times the grid! Never mind the absurdity of centralization. But the utilities lost their right to be electrical monopolies when they embraced electric restructuring adopted by Massachusetts in 1997. They have no right to own the coming electrification and decarbonization.

Many today recognize that true decarbonization must happen in buildings and vehicles, not forests and farmlands. Through interoperability, not duplication. Energy saved is many times lower carbon than renewable energy generated. We need to transform the way energy is used in our homes and businesses. All around the country and world, this is happening. Massachusetts, which considers itself a leader on renewables and efficiency, has fallen behind. The governor’s transmission binge reflects a poverty of mind in the Boston establishment.

Virtual power plants, nanogrids, microgrids, geothermal loops, bidirectional EV chargers — all represent true climate solutions that utilities fear because they will not own them. But unlike megabatteries, which compound the problem of load growth on the grid, these solutions actually solve the climate problem.

Communities should reject the fake emergency mentality. We need to assert our rights not to be sacrificed to utility boondoggles like the Wendell battery project, but also step forward to lead on hyperlocal renewable energy technologies like these instead.

Paul Fenn of Haydenville is president of Local Power LLC.