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The following commentary was written by Larry Glover, a Maryland-based energy marketing & communications subject matter expert and community engagement specialist. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
We just lived through the hottest summer in recorded human history. From coast to coast, the United States set heat records, the brunt of which underserved communities felt the most.
One thing we were fortunate enough not to experience this time were rolling blackouts due to energy shortfalls. But we came close. In Texas, for example, rooftop solar helped keep the state’s grid online during the hottest summer on record.
Despite its benefits, the real value of rooftop solar isn’t always acknowledged as a solution to climate change and the needs of our electricity grid. We have seen some states take the lead, but we must act quickly to leverage resources to benefit underserved communities.
As climate disasters become more normal, our state and national grids will be tested more often. We can resolve this sad reality, however. Ensuring our nation’s clean energy movement is both inclusive and empowering has never been more important.
Here’s what I believe: Rooftop solar and batteries have a proven track record to deliver economic, community, and environmental benefits to everyone – and have the potential to positively impact our entire grid distribution for the better.
Not only are individual rooftop solar and battery systems critical for our clean energy future, but this technology can be connected and serve as a massive, distributed, power plant. Called a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), these networked systems can help bring value and grid stability and contribute to our clean air goals by reducing CO2 emissions.
For example, ConnectedSolutions has solar and battery system programs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The goal is to lower grid costs for all residents. Replicable programs such as these make it easier for home and small businesses to share their clean electrons when the grid needs it most, bolster climate and clean energy goals and help to mitigate unnecessary costs to grid infrastructure.
If we take the best of what we know and apply it to low-income and underserved communities, we can create energy solutions with enormous benefit to the communities that need it most. Harnessing the benefits of VPPs and connecting rooftop solar and batteries will deliver benefits with far greater impact than any of those initiatives applied individually. Bills introduced in Michigan this year (HB 4840 and HB 4839) proposed not only to create a virtual power plant, but also provide additional, targeted incentives to get batteries into the low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities that have experienced the most severe impacts of power outages.
In 2022, more than 140 million people across the US were impacted by either rolling blackouts or calls to conserve power due to extreme weather. The proven reliability of local solar and batteries is paramount to ensuring that all of our communities stay safe.
Building virtual power plants in LMI communities offers immense potential for positive change. In fact, the Department of Energy recently just released a new report about the benefits of VPPs, and they found that tripling VPP capacity from 80 gigawatts to 160 gigawatts by 2030 could save ratepayers $10 billion per year in grid costs. Earlier this year, Brattle released a report that found that VPPs could save utilities $15-$35 billion in capacity investments over the next 10 years. Regardless of which study turns out to be accurate, the opportunity before us is immense. It can provide reliable and affordable electricity access while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We should easily conclude that rooftop solar is a necessary element in the energy solution for communities.
There is a risk, however, that these innovative solutions may inadvertently exacerbate existing inequities if not implemented with careful consideration. The first step is ensuring equal access to virtual power plant programs. This means providing opportunities for participation regardless of income level or location. By doing so, we can avoid creating a situation where only certain privileged individuals or communities can benefit from these advancements in energy technology.
It is imperative that we address equity concerns to ensure that all community members can reap the benefits of virtual power plants. Ensuring equitable access is crucial in creating a sustainable and inclusive energy future for LMI communities. Virtual power plants have the potential to revolutionize our energy systems by enabling decentralized generation and distribution of electricity.
It is important to consider the specific needs and challenges faced by marginalized communities. By actively involving communities in the planning and implementation processes, we ensure that their voices are heard, and their unique circumstances are considered.
The benefits of implementing virtual power plants with rooftop solar and batteries in LMI communities is a game changer. How else can we address energy affordability, grid reliability, reduced energy costs, job creation and community empowerment all within one focused initiative. We know it comes with its challenges and obstacles. However, as we search for long term solutions that prepare all communities for the great energy transition this is surely a way to leave no community behind.
Like it or not, the next presidential election is just a year away. And while President Biden is sure to campaign on the Inflation Reduction Act, it may not win him too many voters — because they don’t know much about it.
In a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll from July, more than two-thirds of Americans said they hadn’t heard about new tax credits incentivizing solar panel, electric vehicle and heat pump purchases passed under the IRA — even though a majority said they’d support these things. Nearly three-quarters hadn’t heard of the IRA at all.
Another newer poll from data sciences firm BlueLabs Analytics had similar results, finding that 40% of all Americans say they know nothing about federal subsidies for electric vehicle purchases.
Whether residents know it or not, the IRA is bringing big investments to the swing states Biden will try to win over next year, E&E News reports. In Georgia, electric vehicle and solar panel manufacturing is taking off with backing from the IRA and support from the state’s Republican governor. Michigan and North Carolina are likewise seeing a surge of new electric vehicle investments.
But as advocates and officials tell E&E News, Biden and his allies have a lot more work to do if they want voters to know how those investments came about.
🚗UAW reaches milestone deal: The United Auto Workers reach a tentative deal with General Motors after doing the same with Ford and Stellantis, but it’s unclear how well the agreement will protect workers as electric vehicle sales slow and automakers trim their EV investments. (Inside Climate News, E&E News)
🖊️ Redefining clean energy: As states struggle to meet their own clean electricity goals, some are changing definitions to include nuclear, natural gas and biomass generation. (E&E News)
⚖️ Who’s behind protest criminalization: Fossil fuel companies have spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign donations to state lawmakers who’ve enacted laws that penalize protests near pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure. (Guardian)
🛢️ Captured carbon’s oil-boosting fate: At least 60% of carbon captured annually fossil fuel plants around the U.S. is used to extract more oil through so-called “enhanced oil recovery.” (Washington Post)
🏭 Meet our biggest polluters: Coal and oil power plants top a list of the U.S.’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters last year. (Inside Climate News)
💵 Governments buy clean: Federal and state Buy Clean programs aim to use governments’ massive purchasing power to drive manufacturing of low-carbon steel, cement and other building materials. (Canary Media)
🌎 Climate denier of the House: Newly elected Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has a long track record of supporting fossil fuels and denying their contributions to climate change. (The Hill)
🗣️ Scientists speak out: Climate scientists who once stayed out of the public eye are increasingly raising their voices to warn the world of a worsening climate emergency. (Washington Post)
Climate and clean energy advocates in New Hampshire say a pending proposal to define nuclear power as clean energy could undercut solar and wind power in the state.
Though the details are still in the works, state Rep. Michael Vose, chair of the legislature’s science, technology, and energy committee, is drafting a bill that would allow nuclear power generators, such as New Hampshire’s Seabrook Station, to receive payments for contributing clean energy to the grid.
“The broad idea is that, long-term, we can hope and expect that that reliable source of baseload power will always be there,” Vose said. “It won’t be driven out of business by subsidized renewable power.”
Some environmental advocates, however, worry that the proposal would provide unnecessary subsidies to nuclear power while making it harder for solar projects to attract investors.
“It’s just another way to reduce support for solar,” said Meredith Hatfield, associate director for policy and government relations at the Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire’s renewable portfolio standard — a binding requirement that specifies how much renewable power utilities must purchase — went into effect in 2008. To satisfy the requirement in that first year, utilities had to buy renewable energy certificates representing 4% of the total megawatt-hours they supplied that year. The number has steadily climbed, hitting 23.4% this year.
New Hampshire was the second-to-last state in the region to create a binding standard — Vermont switched from a voluntary standard to a mandated one until 2015. New Hampshire’s standard tops out at 25.2% renewable energy in 2025, but the other New England states range from 35% to 100% and look further into the future.
Vose, however, worries that even New Hampshire’s comparatively modest targets could put the reliability of the power supply at risk.
“Until we can have affordable, scalable battery storage, the intermittency of renewables is going to guarantee that renewables are unreliable,” Vose said. “And if we add too many renewables to our grid, it makes the whole grid unreliable.”
That idea has been widely debunked. Grid experts say variable renewables may require different planning and system design but are not inherently less reliable than fossil fuel generation.
The details of Vose’s clean energy standard bill have not yet been finalized. A clean energy standard is broadly different from a renewable energy standard in that it includes nuclear power, which does not emit carbon dioxide, but which uses a nonrenewable fuel source. Those writing the legislation, however, will have to decide whether it will propose incorporating the new standard into the existing renewable portfolio standard or operating the two systems alongside each other.
Clean energy advocates say they are not necessarily opposed to a clean energy standard, but argue it is crucial that such a program not pit nuclear power and renewable energy against each other for the same pool of money. And they are concerned that that’s just what Vose’s bill will do.
“While we would welcome a robust conversation about how to design a clean energy standard, I fear that’s not what this bill is,” said Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of nonprofit Clean Energy New Hampshire.
If a clean energy standard is structured so both nuclear and renewables qualify to meet the requirements, clean energy certificates from nuclear power generators would flood the market, causing the price to plummet. Seabrook alone has a capacity of more than 1,250 megawatts, while the largest solar development in the state has a capacity of 3.3 megawatts. Revenue from renewable energy certificates is an important part of the financial model for many renewable energy projects, so falling prices would likely mean fewer solar developments could attract investors or turn a profit.
At the same time, nuclear generators could sell certificates for low prices, as they already have functioning financial models that do not include this added revenue. Nuclear could, in effect, drive solar and other renewables out of the market almost entirely, clean energy advocates worry.
“The intention of the [renewable portfolio standard] has always been about creating fuel diversity by getting new generation built, and a proposal like that would do the opposite,” Evans-Brown said.
A single standard that combines nuclear and renewables could also hurt development of solar projects in another way, Hatfield said. When New Hampshire utilities do not purchase enough renewable energy credits to cover the requirements, they must make an alternative compliance payment. These payments are the only source of money for the state Renewable Energy Fund, which provides grants and rebates for residential solar installations and energy efficiency projects.
“If you add in nukes and therefore there’s plentiful inexpensive certificates, then you basically have no alternative compliance payments,” Hatfield says. “It could potentially dry up the only real source we have in the state for clean energy rebates.”
Though Vose and the bill’s other authors have not yet released the details of the proposal, he has indicated that he would not like the new clean energy standard to significantly increase costs for New Hampshire’s ratepayers. The existing standard cost ratepayers $58 million in 2022, when utilities were required to buy certificates covering 15% of the power they supplied, according to a state report issued last month.
The legislation may meet the same fate as last year’s effort, Vose acknowledged, but he is still eager to get people talking about the issue.
“Even if we can’t get such a standard passed in this session,” he said, “we can at least begin a serious discussion about what a clean energy standard might look like.”
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Capital Sun.
Todd Fischer, an electrical engineer, has lived in his North End home since 1988. Built in 1905, the Victorian-style home is a juxtaposition between Boise’s historical architecture and modern energy technology.
On the inside, the home is aligned with wooden columns and a wooden staircase, but on the outside sit 16 solar panels on the south side of his rooftop that generate electricity for his home.
In an interview, Fischer said he installed his solar panels in 2016 and receives monthly credits for providing additional energy to Idaho Power’s grid. In the winter he pays $5.24, and in the summer months he pays $0.24.
“My power bills are beautiful,” he said, while holding a stack of power bills he has collected since installing the panels.
Fischer’s solar panels are a part of Idaho Power’s “legacy” system, meaning he qualifies for the company’s original credit system for homeowners providing extra energy to the grid. Fischer does not get paid for over generation, but instead he accumulates credits from Idaho Power that compensate for the cost of his energy usage from the grid at another time.
But soon, homeowners who are a part of the “non-legacy” system, meaning they installed solar panels after December 2019, could face changes in the amount of money Idaho Power credits to their account.
Idaho Power is awaiting a decision from the Idaho Public Utilities Commission on a proposal to decrease the amount it credits customers who sell their rooftop solar back to the grid. Fischer, who is compensated under the “legacy” system, would not be affected by the changes if approved by the utilities commission.
But along with local environmental advocates, Fischer argues that Idaho Power’s proposal disincentivizes home owners from installing solar panels.
On Aug. 5, the Idaho Climate Justice League, a youth environmental advocacy group, held a rally outside of the Idaho Power building in downtown Boise addressing concerns about the company’s proposal to reduce its credit rates for solar.
In a letter to Idaho Power CEO Lisa Grow, the youth advocates said the proposal is contradictory to the company’s 100% clean energy goal by 2045.
“We, the youth, demand change,” the justice league letter said. “We are the ones who will face the future consequences of your inaction. As the climate crisis intensifies, and as the date on your commitment to 100% clean energy draws closer, we will not stand idly by.”
But Idaho Power negates the justice league’s claims. In a response letter to the justice league, the company said it is committed to reliability and affordability for all of its customers.
“We support solar and we’re seeking to pay a fair market price for it, whether that’s from a large solar array or a customer’s rooftop,” the Idaho Power letter said. “We are proud to have some of the lowest energy costs in the nation, but we can only maintain that by making sure we’re looking out for the interests of all customers while we invest in our clean energy future.”
Jordan Rodriguez, the spokesperson for Idaho Power, told the Sun that residential solar power brings many benefits to the company, but that its current credit system, established 20 years ago, is outdated.
Rodriguez said Idaho Power supports customer choice, and it acknowledges that residential solar saves the company money on expenses that it would take to generate and distribute that same energy using other sources.
However, the proposal to change its credit system is meant to be more equitable to customers without solar, Rodriguez said – noting that the number of customers with solar generation in the company grid has grown significantly in recent years.
The number of Idaho Power customers with residential solar power has increased from nearly 1,000 in the Idaho Power system in 2016 to more than 13,000 in 2022, according to a company report.
Rodriguez said the rise in Idaho homeowners with solar panels is largely driven by the decrease in costs associated with installing solar.
Solar installation costs have declined by more than 50% over the past decade, so in addition to a decrease in installation costs, the desire to run on clean energy or save money on electric bills is driving solar adoption across the country, according to an article from the Solar Energy Industries Association.
“An average-sized residential system has dropped from a pre-incentive price of $40,000 in 2010 to roughly $25,000 today (2022),” the article said.
“We are looking to change the way we credit customers for energy they generate because the current credit structure is unfair to the 98% of our customers without solar panels,” Rodriguez said. “Customers without rooftop solar currently pay an unfair share of grid maintenance and improvement costs.”
The change would more accurately reflect an on-site generator’s use of the electrical grid, he said.
If approved by the utilities commission, the changes would include:
Idaho Power requested an effective date of Jan. 1, 2024, but the case is ongoing and the timing of the order is at the discretion of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission.
Rodriguez said the outcome of the utilities commission case will not impact the company’s 100% clean energy by 2045 goals, adding that the company has several large-scale solar projects under construction.
“We support solar energy — our proposal is intended to ensure our customers don’t pay more for solar energy from one source than they would from another,” he said. “Looking into the future, Idaho Power expects solar energy will continue to be an important part of our energy mix and clean energy goal.”
In late 2022, Idaho Power began purchasing energy from the Jackpot Solar Project at some of “the lowest prices for solar energy in the nation,” Rodriguez said. The project brings up to 120 megawatts to Idaho, providing energy to roughly 24,000 homes, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.
Rodriguez said the company is also working on pairing the solar projects with batteries. The batteries would help store power generated during periods of lower use and deliver the power during peak energy consumption times, which he said are typically during hot summer evenings when the sun has set but energy use remains high.
Rodriguez said misinformation about residential solar plays a role into public discontent with the company’s credit rate proposal.
“Customers are encouraged to get the facts about solar energy before making a financial commitment,” he said. “Any Idaho Power visits to customers’ homes will be preceded by a phone call or other communication. Idaho Power employees will arrive in a company vehicle clearly marked with Idaho Power’s logo.”
Idaho Power is hoping to dispel misinformation and scams related to residential solar power on its website.
Common tactics being reported include solar sales representatives:
While Fischer believes a new credit system at Idaho Power would disincentivize homeowners from installing solar panels, he said his decision to install solar panels was “definitely not a financial” decision—adding that installing them cost him about $17,700.
Additionally, the amount of time it will take to get a return on the investment is so long, assuming that he will be living in the same home until then, he said.
Fischer said he acknowledges that Idaho homeowners already enjoy a low electricity rate because of the state’s rich hydroelectricity production.
As such, he said investing in solar panels is not as “financially viable” as it would be in a state like California, which ties with Maine as the state where electricity prices are increasing the fastest in the country. Both states have seen a rise in electricity prices by 78% in the last decade, according to the Sunpower Solar Energy Report.
So what motivated Fischer to install solar panels? The decision was based on curiosity, he said.
As an electrical engineer, Fischer said he was “intrigued by solar power,” and wanted to get firsthand experience with it. He said his biggest concern when deciding to install solar panels was finding a reputable installer.
After installing the solar panels, he said there were other costs outside of the installation that he did not initially take into account such cutting down trees, replacing his roof and fixing water damage in his home after the solar panels were incorrectly installed.
“My advice would be to talk to your friends that have solar, find out if they were happy with the quality of work that installer did,” he said. “They can fall off your roof in a windstorm, and they can cause a leak in your roof.”
Despite the lessons he learned along the way, Fischer said he has no regrets after installing his solar panels.
“There’s a lot better investments you could do than solar panels,” he said. “If you wanted to spend that much money to have a lower carbon footprint, I suspect there are better options than solar panels.”
The following commentary was written by Alli Gold Roberts, senior director for state policy at Ceres. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
As the harmful economic and financial effects of climate change become increasingly clear, investors and companies around the world are rapidly adjusting their business models — not just to reduce the risk and their exposure to climate catastrophes, but to capitalize on the industries of the future.
That’s why, across the U.S. and in Colorado, businesses and investors are doubling down to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in innovative and sustainable clean technologies. And as that technology has advanced to make it easier and more advantageous for companies to cut their pollution, policymakers at both the state and federal level have worked to incentivize exactly these kinds of investments — to ensure their economies benefit from this windfall as they build for the future.
In Colorado, we have seen officials take bold policy action to accelerate the adoption of clean electricity, clean transportation, clean buildings, clean appliances, and even clean lawn tools — an impressive suite of policies that have helped the state keep pace with other national climate leaders. Now the state has an opportunity to trailblaze in another sector of the economy, one that has so far lagged in pollution reduction: heavy industry and manufacturing.
Under Colorado’s ambitious climate and environmental justice laws, the state is required to slash climate pollution from industrial sources — like factories and plants — by 2030. To achieve that goal, policymakers are in the process of crafting what will be a first-in-the-nation regulatory program: Phase II of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Management for Manufacturers, otherwise known as GEMM II, will be adopted later this year and go into effect as soon as next year.
At a time when cleaner products are growing their competitive advantage in the global marketplace, GEMM II gives the state a real chance to be at the vanguard of clean manufacturing. But to reap the economic benefits promised by this transition, Colorado must get the policy right.
The sustainability nonprofit I work with, Ceres, partners with companies and investors to capture the economic benefits of clean energy and reduce the financial risks of climate change. Having done this work for more than 30 years, Ceres has developed a robust understanding of how public policy can best help the private sector achieve these goals so that they can benefit entire state economies. Even companies that are not part of the manufacturing sector have a strong interest in reducing emissions from within it, because they often rely on its products — from microchips to glass bottles — within their supply chains and know they cannot fully clean up their own operations without policy support.
That is why Ceres recently submitted a letter to state officials outlining what we believe are the best ways to successfully achieve the goals of GEMM II. Chief among them is simplicity. Colorado is on the clock to meet its climate goals, and 2030 is coming up fast. Policy clarity is essential to helping manufacturers prepare.
This is not the time to introduce complex programs that essentially allow manufacturers to keep polluting at the same rate. Instead, GEMM II should prioritize rules that directly reduce climate pollution from manufacturing sites, encouraging them to adopt innovative yet proven technologies that will achieve the program’s goals while better positioning industry to thrive into the future.
The GEMM II program must also strongly favor solutions that reduce not only pollution that harms the climate, but also air pollution that harms people and often comes from the same sources. Air pollution is a serious issue in its own right, causing increased rates of heart disease, lung disease, and other serious health problems in nearby communities. Almost all of the facilities that would fall under the GEMM 2 policy are located in communities that currently suffer from disproportionately high levels of pollution. Beyond its health effects, the threat of air pollution to their health and livelihood is also a drag on local economies. In addition, Colorado law requires that these communities must benefit from GEMM II — and reducing their exposure to toxic pollution is a clear benefit.
While GEMM II may sound like a challenge to some manufacturers, it should be better understood as an opportunity. New incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and other recent federal climate investments, as well as state tax credits and grant programs for the industrial sector, have made it more feasible for manufacturers to clean up their operations. What’s more, they have also sparked a rush of investor and corporate interest in clean manufacturing, and a number of success stories as industry leaders move to embrace clean solutions.
We urge Colorado policymakers to seize this momentum and help manufacturers capture the swelling interest by adopting the most ambitious version of GEMM II possible. This is a chance to set a gold-standard policy that will make the state’s industrial sector more competitive, its climate goals more achievable, its air cleaner, its communities healthier, and its economy better positioned for the decades ahead.
Massachusetts officials are proposing policy solutions to address a bureaucratic backlog that municipal leaders and clean energy advocates say is bogging down one of the state’s most successful drivers of clean electricity purchases.
Nineteen communities across the state are waiting for public utility regulators to rule on proposed community choice aggregation plans, in which local governments negotiate with power suppliers for lower prices or a higher share of renewables.
Some of these municipalities have been waiting for more than two years to launch their programs. Another 16 are waiting to see if the state will let them modify existing programs. As the proposals languish, municipalities are missing out on chances to save residents money and cut carbon emissions.
In response to this backlog, the state energy department has proposed a new system to streamline the process, though many advocates are highly skeptical of these guidelines.
“I’m not sure that the way they’ve drafted them is really going to address the backlog,” said Martha Grover, sustainability manager for the city of Melrose, which first adopted community choice aggregation in 2015 and has held off updating the program in recent years because of the delays.
In addition, state Rep. Tommy Vitolo has introduced a bill that would require faster response times and allow municipalities to make some changes to programs without seeking state approval.
Massachusetts was the first state to introduce these programs, as a part of electricity restructuring legislation passed in 1997. The policy allows individual cities and towns or groups of municipalities to use the promise of a built-in customer base to negotiate with power suppliers for prices. Generally, residents are automatically enrolled but can opt out at any time.
The Cape Light Compact, a group of 21 towns on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, formed the state’s first aggregation program in 2000. The idea was slow to catch on, however, until electricity prices started rising in 2013 and 2014, prompting more municipalities to seek alternatives. Today, there are 168 municipal aggregation plans active in the state, saving consumers more than $200 million annually, according to a report from the nonprofit Green Energy Consumers Alliance.
Though not explicitly an emissions reduction program, aggregation also allows municipalities to include more renewable energy in their portfolios than legally required. And many of them do exactly that: 76 of Massachusetts’ aggregation programs included extra renewable content in 2022, according to the consumers alliance. Another 40 communities let individual residents opt-in to higher levels of renewable energy. In 2022, Massachusetts’ green energy aggregation programs increased demand for renewable energy in the state by more than 1 million megawatt-hours, the Green Energy Consumers Alliance calculated.
“There is no other program in the commonwealth that produces cleaner electrons without subsidy,” said alliance executive director Larry Chretien.
The delays were first caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a statement from the state energy department. Additionally, the complexity of the rules and requirements for a successful application have also slowed things down, state officials and municipal leaders agree. Each time regulators rule on a plan, any new precedent set by that ruling must be complied with by all future applicants. This requirement makes it hard for municipalities to understand the rules and forces frequent revisions. It also makes it more painstaking for the state to ensure a proposal meets the ever-changing slate of requirements.
“There are now 168 approved plans and we are held accountable to rules and ways of operating that are buried in the footnotes,” Grover said.
The state has responded to the backlog by releasing draft guidelines that summarize and simplify the detailed requirements. It has also issued an application template and proposed an expedited approval process for municipalities that use the template.
“Addressing these delays is a top priority for the [Department of Public Utilities], and we look forward to announcing finalized guidelines that will help facilitate a timely review of applications,” said department chair Jamie Van Nostrand.
For many municipalities, however, the guidelines make no changes to the process, but only formalize the existing approach, which many say amounts to micromanagement. At least eight cities and towns have filed testimony so far arguing that the proposal erodes local control and would be unlikely to speed up approvals. The draft guidelines would make the process “more burdensome and less efficient,” testified Michael Ossing, city council president in Marlborough, which adopted community choice aggregation in 2006, saving residents an estimated $26 million over the past 17 years.
“Aggregation should be under municipal control,” said Anthony Rinaldi, an Amesbury city councilor. “We should control how we implement the program, how we inform our citizens. But they want to control every little thing.”
Vitolo’s bill offers an alternative approach. It would address the delays by requiring the state to issue a decision on aggregation applications within 90 days. If this deadline is not met, a program would automatically be approved. If regulators rejected a program, and applicants resubmitted an amended plan within 30 days, the state would then have 30 days to issue a decision.
The bill would also allow cities and towns to make certain changes — including periodic changes to prices and product offerings, means of providing notifications to customers, and sharing translated materials — to their programs without returning to utility regulators for approval. Vitolo points to Boston, which launched a community choice program in 2021, as an example: the city wants to distribute translations of its information materials, but can’t do so without getting in the slow-moving line for approval.
“It’s been frustrating,” Vitolo said. “We want to allow these aggregators to make simple straightforward changes without going to the [state].”
Vitolo’s bill had a committee hearing in late September. Now supporters must wait to see if it gains traction in the legislature.
Shuttered during the pandemic, the historic Strand Theatre in Pontiac, Michigan, faced an uncertain future. But previous energy efficiency investments provided a lifeline.
The Strand was able to use C-PACE — commercial property-assessed clean energy financing — to retroactively fund and refinance those investments, essentially rolling the cost into their property taxes to be paid over time and freeing up cash for them to wait out the pandemic.
While the pandemic and worker and supply chain shortages have made the last two years rough across countless sectors, Michigan’s C-PACE program nonetheless enjoyed its best two years ever in 2020 and 2021, with 28 projects closed including the Strand.
This year at least five local jurisdictions in Michigan saw their first-ever C-PACE project, and four more are expected to do so this year or in early 2022. That’s according to Todd Williams, president and general counsel for Lean & Green Michigan, the company that administers C-PACE in the state, and recent winner of the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council’s Business of the Year Award.
“PACE was a form of rescue capital for [the Strand]. It allowed them to refinance some loans, delay some payments, maintain the business through hopefully the end of the pandemic,” Williams said. “It was like a second mortgage on your house. You’ve already completed the projects, they’ve already been funded, and this is a method in which they were able to draw some capital back out. It was not necessarily a large project, but without it, it’s completely possible an asset in that community would have closed.”
As the Strand’s experience shows, C-PACE can be a tool not only to install solar or make energy efficiency improvements, but to provide financing in general, since it can free up capital immediately that businesses might otherwise have used on investments that qualify as clean energy or resiliency-related. This potential may be even more attractive in uncertain and rocky economic times like the current moment.
“Commercial PACE can be your financing tool to fill a financing gap and meet energy efficiency goals at the same time,” said Cliff Kellogg, executive director of the C-PACE Alliance, at a panel during the Urban Land Institute’s annual conference in Chicago in October.
Mansoor Ghori, co-founder and CEO of Petros PACE Finance, said during the panel that since many businesses didn’t know how long the economic uncertainty and recession caused by the pandemic would last, they “refinanced their equity using PACE, and used that money to make sure they had enough capital to get through however long it would take.”
“Covid for the PACE industry was actually an accelerant,” Ghori continued. “When other sources of capital seized up or pulled back, [businesses] had to find other ways to get projects done. All of a sudden PACE became much clearer in their eyes, they figured out what it does, how they can use it. We grew our business 300% during Covid.”
C-PACE is especially well-suited for businesses hard-hit by the pandemic, like hotels and entertainment venues, and indeed hospitality is the sector that has most utilized C-PACE funding thus far, followed by office and retail, according to the trade organization PACE Nation.
During the Chicago panel, Kunal Mody, CEO of Blueprint Hospitality — which works on PACE financing with hotels — noted that during the pandemic the tool “helped us move our trapped equity back out and refinance.”
Ryan Hoff, project manager at the engineering firm Bernhard, during the panel pointed to a number of hospitality projects his company has worked with nationwide, including a 60,000-square-foot hotel in Wisconsin that tapped $4 million in C-PACE financing. A Marriott hotel in Columbus, Ohio, in 2018 worked with Petros to retroactively tap $16.3 million C-PACE funding, a project that was the second-highest value C-PACE project in the country that year.
Williams noted that Treetops Resorts, “a classic golf and ski resort,” became northern Michigan’s first C-PACE project, with a retrofit that had been in the works for several years. The resort leveraged $2.9 million in C-PACE funding for a comprehensive energy efficiency overhaul projected to greatly reduce its carbon footprint and improve visitors’ experience. A Michigan Comfort Inn & Suites also tapped C-PACE for improvements last year.
Michigan also saw C-PACE used for new construction, including for The Henry, luxury townhomes near Ann Arbor that leveraged nearly $2 million in PACE financing for solar panels, LED lighting and other energy efficiency measures, in line with marketing the complex to environmentally aware young professionals. In September, construction started on a residential and commercial project in Detroit’s Greektown that, at $13 million in C-PACE financing, is the largest C-PACE project in the state. A fifth of the project’s rental units will be affordable housing, and it is seen as key in revitalizing that part of the city.
Williams said senior living facilities are especially well-suited to C-PACE funding, and Michigan has closed four such deals this year with another in the works.
“That’s become a trend nationwide where senior living projects are taking advantage of PACE,” he said. “They tend to be extremely long-term facilities; it fits well with the design of the property and how the property will be used.”
In all, Michigan has seen C-PACE support 52 projects totaling $115 million since 2015, with 17 projects this year alone. The investments included at least 13 solar installations, three EV charging stations and two green roofs, plus numerous energy efficiency and energy storage overhauls. Williams said he still sees C-PACE as in the early stages, but quickly growing.
“It’s just starting to self-perpetuate a little more. We’re not having to wave the flag quite as heavily — a lot more flags are being waved,” he said.
At least 38 states have laws allowing commercial PACE financing. Once a state passes such enabling legislation, then local jurisdictions need to pass their own ordinances to actually carry out the program. In the Midwest, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota have robust programs, Illinois has a nascent program and Indiana, Iowa and Kansas do not currently have C-PACE enabling legislation, though efforts are underway in Indiana, according to the C-PACE Alliance.
Wisconsin’s growing C-PACE program saw at least one major project during the pandemic, as developers of the former Oscar Mayer headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, used $7 million in C-PACE refinancing to overhaul windows, lighting and other efficiency measures in the mixed-use OM Station, which now leases to industrial, office and “creative” tenants.
Chicago, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are among cities that have launched their programs in recent years. The need for local legislation means the process of actually rolling out C-PACE projects is slow, but advocates hope it gains prominence and becomes more of a priority for local leaders especially given the particular potential it offers in the current economy.
“C-PACE financing involves no public dollars whatsoever,” Ghori said. “The role of the state and local government is simply to approve the availability of this kind of financing.”
The trade organization PACE Nation says on its website that in all more than $2 billion has been invested in 2,560 commercial projects nationwide, with energy efficiency making up 49% of the investment and renewable energy representing 23%. Cumulative investment has grown from just over $100 million in 2014. California led the cumulative investment tally with $625 million, followed by Ohio at $376 million. Minnesota and Michigan ranked sixth and seventh, and Wisconsin ranked 11th, though current investment totals are likely higher.
Illinois passed legislation enabling PACE in 2017 and updated it in 2019 to include resiliency as among the categories eligible for financing. In 2019, before the pandemic set in, Eric Alini, CEO of Counterpointe Energy administering C-PACE in Chicago, predicted that “2020 will be the year of PACE in Chicago.” In May 2020, a hog slaughterhouse owned by the company JBS in Illinois launched its 2.6-megawatt solar installation made possible by C-PACE financing.
Alini said that about a dozen capital providers have signed on to provide financing for Chicago C-PACE projects, environmental groups have been helping to raise awareness, and the queue for potential projects is growing.
“Commercial PACE is a strong financing option in any market because of its ability to fill a gap in a development’s capital stack or help transform a capital expense into an operating expense,” Alini said. “ In this market though, that becomes even more true as you see mortgage lenders taking a more conservative approach to their portfolios.”
“We’re now at the tipping point,” Ghori said, “where we’ve got enough states and enough programs that are live — we’re starting to grow this market exponentially.”
The experts on the Urban Land Institute panel said they hope companies think bigger in terms of the potential for C-PACE, considering it for larger operations. Ghori pointed to his company’s $90 million C-PACE deal at the high-end office building 111 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, calling it a “seminal moment for PACE.”
And the investments that C-PACE makes possible may be more helpful than ever given climate-related goals and the difficulty of attracting and retaining commercial tenants in the post-pandemic business landscape, with many people still working from home.
“The good news is we can have our cake and eat it too with commercial PACE financing,” Kellogg said. “Having properties that are energy efficient are desirable in attracting tenants, and also from the regulatory side, it’s a demand most of us are experiencing as a must-have. In other words, we are both getting pulled into this need for energy efficiency and we’re getting pushed into it at the same time, both as good business practice and regulatory requirement.”
Smaller, regional banks and credit unions are increasingly looking to help homeowners finance solar installations in a sign of growing recognition of the opportunities in clean energy finance.
In the Midwest, Iowa-based Decorah Bank & Trust is among the latest to begin marketing loans for solar and other clean energy projects. The community bank recently relaunched a digital subsidiary called Greenpenny to serve residential and commercial customers in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
It joins longtime Twin Cities clean energy lender the Center for Energy and Environment and a handful of credit unions and other community banks offering products in a space traditionally dominated by larger, national firms.
Clean energy advocates are hopeful the availability of local lenders will increase options for borrowers and provide a greater comfort level for those who might be less inclined to trust online lenders or large national banks.
Jeremy Kalin, a partner with Avisen Legal who helped the Minnesota Credit Union Network create its CU Green solar loan program, said typical residential borrowers are sensitive to “long-term value and trust” when looking for lenders. A personal connection to a bank or credit “makes a difference.”
The process often starts with referrals from solar installers. St. Paul-based All Energy Solar offers Greenpenny and Center for Energy and Environment loans to customers, as well as national lenders. “Historically, we find the national players pushing the envelope here very consistently with innovations and competing with each other to offer a diverse array of financing options that will help each customer to get the most value out of their project,” said Ryan Buege, All Energy Solar’s vice president of sales and marketing. Still, he said, if more banks developed clean energy loans, more consumers would likely become more comfortable installing systems.
Jessica Reis, vice president of communications and marketing for Greenpenny, said the bank creates a transparent loan process with no hidden fees or upfront charges, a contrast with some national lenders who use such fees to lower interest rates. The bank calls every customer who applies and communication continues via phone or email.
Greenpenny relaunched last year after struggling with an earlier rollout during the pandemic. Now the Iowa credit union has been adding staff to manage a growing portfolio. Decorah Bank & Trust CEO and President Ben Grimstad said his father, Larry, had started lending to organizations doing renewable energy projects decades ago because of his environmental interest.
Decorah, home to Luther College, has a strong ecological ethos that allowed the bank to gain experience financing more than 100 local projects, most of them solar. Grimstad wanted to expand the bank beyond Decorah and decided to create a digital offering to leverage the bank’s experience with clean energy.
“We are about a year and a half into it and it’s gone pretty well,” he said.
Greenpenny provides solar loans and a green mortgage product for efficiency, geothermal, battery storage and other carbon-reducing projects. The digital bank serves residential customers as well as small- to medium-sized commercial and industrial projects, but not utility-scale wind or solar farms.
The loans are secured by the value of the equipment, from panels to storage devices. Greenpenny President Jason MacDuff said the bank tries to set up loans that match the amount clients save monthly on their utility bills from a new solar or HVAC system. The loans require no money down.
“These borrowers, by definition, are all homeowners that tend to skew pretty sophisticated and because they’re making a pretty big investment in their home, they tend to have the means to be able to do that,” MacDuff said.
A unique short-term solar loan Greenpenny offers matches the tax credit a customer receives. The customer pays a small interest payment and then pays off the loan when the federal government disperses the 26% tax credit. A second loan covers the remaining 74% of the project’s cost.
The average residential loan size is $40,000, with commercial projects from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. He noted that the bank may soon finance as many as seven community solar projects in Minnesota. But plenty of deals fall through because of low reimbursements for energy by utilities or other issues.
When he joined the company in 2021, he was surprised to find so few banks offering clean energy loans. “For us to accomplish the renewable energy transition this country needs, we need more banks to be in the game helping finance these projects,” MacDuff said.
In Minnesota, the largest local option remains the Center for Energy and Environment, which has established partnerships with several cities and neighborhoods and last year financed $22.7 million in projects. Of those, 145 loans totaling $3.5 million were for residential solar, up from 89 loans in 2019. Lending services director Jim Hasnik said the organization had been lending for years for efficiency improvements before it developed a solar loan in 2014.
The loans vary in term and loan-to-value size, with interest rates increasing as the length of loans climbs. Project sizes have grown, and business has been brisk this year as the popularity of solar has grown. The center requires installers to have a builder’s contractor license following a recent string of solar company bankruptcies in the state.
Solar loans remain a niche product. The Minnesota Credit Union Network’s CU Green program launched with two credit unions — Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union and Hiway Credit Union — and has seen no others join the effort. Mara Humphrey, chief advocacy and engagement officer for the network, said some credit unions have begun discussing whether to add solar loans to their portfolios, but she believes many still lack understanding of clean energy projects and will have to see demand grow before creating products for customers.
Affinity Plus had a rocky start before dropping a requirement that homeowners first hire someone to conduct a home appraisal. Members can now apply digitally for loans and receive the money the same day.
Chief Retail Officer Corey Rupp said the new solar loan program did more volume in six months than the home equity-based one did in four years.
“I think homeowners are a little more comfortable with it,” Rupp said. The credit union is now studying loans for electric vehicles, commercial efficiency, and solar projects.
Correction: The $22.7 million CEE lent was for about 1,200 loans.
Wisconsin solar advocates want regulators to look to Iowa’s example as they consider the latest skirmish over how solar projects are financed in the state.
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission is considering two petitions seeking authorization for third-party-owned solar projects, in which the entity that owns the array is different from the property owner that will use the electricity.
The financing mechanism makes solar viable for many cities, schools, and nonprofits, as well as residential customers who can’t afford the upfront cost of a solar array. It’s also been the subject of a long legal and regulatory battle between solar advocates and Wisconsin utilities that see it as a threat.
That was once true in Iowa, too, until 2014 when the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed that a third party can own a solar array and sell the power, or make lease payments, to the owner of the property without becoming a public utility. In the eight years since then, experts and advocates say utilities’ fears over such ownership opening the door for “deregulation” or other negative impacts have not materialized.
“Iowa is still very much a utility-dominated state with a vertically integrated utility structure, and with less than 2% of generation from distributed resources,” said Karl Rábago, an energy consultant based at Pace University School of Law, testifying on behalf of the advocacy group Vote Solar in one of the pending cases. “Moreover, since the 2014 court decision, I am not aware of movement in the state toward deregulation or retail choice.”
(Rábago also provides occasional editorial feedback to the Energy News Network as a member of a reader advisory committee. See our code of ethics for more information.)
Iowa’s court decision resulted from Dubuque-based developer Eagle Point’s lawsuit challenging Alliant Energy’s refusal to interconnect a third-party-owned array to the grid. Eagle Point has also been central to the standoff in Wisconsin, after utility We Energies refused to interconnect solar co-owned by Eagle Point and the city of Milwaukee.
The latest petitions related to third-party solar in Wisconsin were filed in May. Vote Solar asks that the Wisconsin Public Service Commission allow a Stevens Point family to enter a third-party ownership arrangement for an 8.6-kilowatt system. The petition notes the energy savings would help them pay for college for their two teenage children, and a third-party structure is necessary to avoid upfront costs. That family lives in territory served by Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, which like We Energies is a subsidiary of utility company WEPCO.
The Midwest Renewable Energy Association petition asks the commission for a declaratory ruling clarifying that third-party solar is legal, and notes that it would be too expensive and difficult for every customer who wants the arrangement to file their own petitions.
Public hearings for both proceedings will be held on Nov. 2, and public comments are being accepted through Nov. 9.
“There is simply no reason to believe that Wisconsin’s experience with third-party-financed distributed energy systems would track any differently than what we’ve seen in Iowa,” said Michael Vickerman, program and policy director for Renew Wisconsin. “Third-party financing will not usher in mass defections from the grid, nor will it, by itself, push energy rates higher. But it would certainly broaden the customer base that Wisconsin solar contractors would serve, including low- to moderate-income households who will have less success accessing federal tax credits than their more affluent counterparts.”
A 2021 report by Iowa’s state auditor showed that a total of 80 public entities had installed solar, mostly since the 2014 court decision, saving an average of over $26,000 a year on energy as a result. The report noted that schools have hired an extra teacher, avoided closing and otherwise benefited from the savings.
Since the Iowa ruling, Eagle Point has developed dozens of third-party-owned installations for Iowa schools and municipalities, including recent arrays installed on the fire station and water treatment plant in the city of Hills, Iowa, and a 300-kilowatt array for Upper Iowa University. Eagle Point CEO Jim Pullen said the company has signed about 20 contracts with municipalities just this fall.
“It’s not that complicated,” Pullen said. “By and large I don’t believe the utilities have made any statements about [third-party ownership having] deregulated the market or destabilized the market. They treat a third-party project exactly the same as a customer-owned project. There’s no difference from our perspective when we’re interconnecting, and they don’t seem to care anymore.”
The utilities that had opposed third-party ownership in Iowa — Alliant Energy and MidAmerican Energy — did not respond to questions about their past opposition to third-party financing or its current impact. Spokespeople for both utilities said the companies support renewable energy and offer options for customers to access renewables, including an Alliant program wherein the utility pays customers to place utility-owned solar on their rooftops.
“Alliant Energy focuses on making renewable energy accessible for everyone — in order to keep it affordable for everyone,” says a statement provided by Alliant. “We support energy policies that ensure a fair, affordable and reliable energy network for all customers and communities. … We support our customers’ interests in solar through a variety of mechanisms, including utility-scale solar, community-based solar and interconnection of customer-owned systems.”
The Iowa state auditor’s report notes that Iowa has 99 counties and 330 school districts. “If each county, each county seat, and each school district created a solar installation of the average size of these installations [already developed with third-party ownership], over the installations’ lifetimes Iowa taxpayers could expect to net over $375 million in savings,” the report says.
The Iowa state auditor also surveyed schools and cities about public reaction, and found significant public support. The Bennett Community School District, for example, credited its $53,000 energy savings for helping to keep the school open to its 88 enrolled students. The city of Cedar Rapids received feedback that its panels — developed with Eagle Point — were unattractive, and planted trees to improve the view.
“At a high level, third-party ownership is doing exactly what we thought it would do” in Iowa, said Josh Mandelbaum, a senior attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center: “Providing greater choice and flexibility for individuals and organizations that want to pursue solar.”
We Energies and other utilities have argued that third-party ownership undermines the utility’s ability to keep up the grid and serve its customers, since the third-party owner is essentially competing with the utility and the customer is paying less to the utility. The Wisconsin Utilities Association offered expert testimony during the petition proceedings — including from a former California utility commissioner — regarding the negative impacts of net metering and solar proliferation.
But Environmental Law & Policy Center senior attorney Brad Klein argued that this “cost-shifting” argument, often made by utilities nationwide, is separate from the legal question of whether a third-party owner is functioning as a utility.
“Some of the arguments you see are not specific to the legal question regarding whether providing financing options creates a public utility; they are more broadside attacks on distributed energy resources generally,” Klein said. “We saw that in Iowa — a mischaracterization of the impact of third-party financing.”
Meanwhile, the idea that distributed solar unfairly shifts costs to customers without solar and jeopardizes grid reliability has been widely challenged with evidence showing more distributed solar generally makes the grid more efficient and resilient, benefiting all customers.
“The impact of third-party financed solar on Iowa’s electric rates? Negligible,” said Renew Wisconsin’s Vickerman. “If anything, the gap between Iowa’s and Wisconsin’s electric rates has widened since 2014.”
The Environmental Law & Policy Center cites a 1911 Wisconsin Supreme Court case, Cawker v. Meyer, wherein the court ruled that a company selling heat and power to several neighbors did not constitute a public utility because of its limited scope. Case law says utilities’ rights to operate as regulated monopolies must be protected for the interest of customers, not the utilities’ competitive interests, furthering the argument for third-party solar as advocates see it.
Once third-party financing becomes commonplace, the success and popularity of such arrays depend in part on net metering policies that typically apply equally to directly owned and third-party-owned projects.
In Iowa, advocates say utilities have done nothing since the Supreme Court decision to impede third-party-owned arrays specifically, but struggles over distributed solar continued. The Environmental Law & Policy Center and other advocates were upset with a 2019 utility-backed bill that would have gutted net metering for all distributed solar, including third-party-owned arrays. Ultimately 2020 state legislation established inflow-outflow billing that will transition to a value-of-solar tariff. That compromise was supported by clean energy groups, though they have clashed with utilities over its implementation.
Third-party ownership allows nonprofits like schools, government agencies, churches, hospitals and social service agencies to collect tax benefits even though they do not pay taxes, since a private developer owns and operates the solar installation, passing their tax savings on to the customer. The model also makes rooftop solar feasible for private residents or other entities that cannot afford the upfront capital, and lower-income families who do not earn enough to owe taxes that could be slashed through the credit. Third-party ownership becomes even more important since the Inflation Reduction Act extended the federal investment tax credit for solar, advocates say.
“We’re focused on getting more folks and organizations and farmers and businesses to own more of the energy that’s around their properties — whether wind, solar, geothermal,” said Jason MacDuff, president of Greenpenny, an Iowa-based, sustainability-focused bank that funds many third-party-owned solar projects. “They should be able to harness the power and be able to deploy it so they can preserve their own resources. That’s important for economic development, especially in rural areas.”
The Bad River Tribe in northern Wisconsin was able to install three solar-powered microgrids with battery storage through third-party ownership, since they are not regulated by the Public Service Commission or subject to state law as a Native American tribe that gets power from an electric cooperative. The nonprofit that partnered with the tribe on the project, Cheq Bay Renewables, argued in a public comment in the Vote Solar case that third-party ownership is a social justice and equity issue.
“Equity has risen in importance across all Federal and State decisions, and should be applied to TPF [third-party financing],” Cheq Bay Renewables president William Bailey wrote in the public comment in the Vote Solar case. “TPF is just another financing tool to allow a more rapid and equitable expansion of clean energy. … This docket is not about one family, but rather could set policy throughout the state.”
A Cleveland, Ohio, green bank is leading a multi-state effort to secure a chunk of $7 billion in funding for low-income residential solar installations under the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
Growth Opportunity Partners, a community development corporation focused on underserved, low- and moderate-income communities in Ohio, is spearheading an application by about 20 counties in seven states that are collectively seeking $250 million to help low-income residents access solar power. It operates the GO Green Energy Fund, the nation’s first Black-led green bank program.
Growth Opps CEO Michael Jeans recently spoke with the Energy News Network about how GO Green Energy fits into the nonprofit organization’s broader mission to help underserved communities.
Through consulting and capital services, Growth Opps is “providing financial solutions in communities that have been underinvested in and disadvantaged,” Jeans said. As Growth Opps worked in those communities in Ohio’s urban and rural areas, however, he and colleagues saw that people’s health and well-being were a big concern.
Conversations with health executives, foundations and others led to the concept of the GO Green Energy Fund as a way to address some of the causes of health problems at a community level, as opposed to a case-by-case basis.
“We may, at a systems level, be able to create access for those who would like to see a better life for themselves, who would like to see cleaner communities,” Jeans said.
Growth Opps was incorporated in 2015, and the GO Green Energy Fund began in 2020 — two years before Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Among other things, the law authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to implement its $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which the EPA says is meant to mobilize “financing and private capital for greenhouse gas- and air pollution-reducing projects in communities across the country.”
“Thankfully for us, there’s natural alignment,” Jeans said.
“We are the Industrial Heartland Solar Coalition,” Jeans said. “It’s a county-by-county regional focus across multiple states and an opportunity for there to be equity in the process.”
Growth Opportunity Partners is the lead applicant. The coalition’s members include roughly 20 counties and their communities in Ohio and states from Missouri, Indiana and Michigan to parts of Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia. Group members in Ohio are Cuyahoga, Summit, Franklin, Hamilton and Montgomery counties, which include the cities of Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton.
The coalition hopes to get $250 million under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund’s $7 billion Solar for All category, which aims to tackle barriers to disadvantaged communities’ participation in distributed solar generation.
“These dollars need to be catalytic. This is a seed investment for this work,” Jeans said, meaning the funding is meant to spur additional funding from other sources, including capital markets, businesses, philanthropy and other sources. Otherwise, “we will have undercapitalized the effort this is going to take.”
Jeans said the group hopes to hear back from the EPA sometime in the winter, with a possibility for funds to start flowing in July. With disruption in Congress, however, those goalposts could move.
“There are other things that come along with that,” Jeans said, including whether rooftops are ready for solar. Also, “under the rest of our legacy work at Growth Opps, are there other things we should be considering? Should we look at appliances for upgrades? Weatherization to further save money? There are incentives and rebates that are available at the household level.”
“If we can get [distributed solar power] to the homes that have high energy burdens — meaning too much of their check is going to pay for the cost of utilities, then we can have significant impacts here,” Jeans said.
The work can provide job benefits for people in disadvantaged communities, too. “We’re in a position to add skills, increase income and increase opportunity while cleaning up the environment for our families and our neighbors,” Jeans said.
“There’s a level of trust that has to be earned,” Jeans said. “When places have been underinvested in and people have been disinvested in, then it’s difficult to believe that the next knock on the door is one that’s welcome.”
Earning that trust calls for caring and listening to people about their needs and lived experiences, Jeans said. “We know these people. We know many of the occupants in these communities. We have a diverse team, and we’ve grown up in many of these communities.”
“The second barrier is: things have price tags. And when you are early in market it’s going to cost more,” Jeans said. For him, that’s why the Inflation Reduction Act’s funding opportunities matter — to bridge gaps and act as a catalyst to create markets.
“This is every bit a decisive decade for us,” Jeans said. “We need to reduce emissions and begin to make a turn by 2030.”
Global greenhouse gas emissions need to be slashed by 43% by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last year. And global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak before 2025 to limit warming to either 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius. The world is already experiencing the impacts of climate change, but limiting emissions can help avoid the worst consequences.
Funding under the Inflation Reduction Act will call for reports to the EPA or other agencies. And grants to nonprofits like Growth Opps generally require reports on how funds were used. For Jeans, though, success is about more than reports.
“Our impact is our measure,” he said. “How those whom we serve are better off is how we measure significant return on investment.”
Editor’s note: Growth Opportunity Partners receives support from the George Gund Foundation, which also provides funding to the Energy News Network. Foundations and other donors to the Energy News Network have no oversight or input into the editorial process and may not influence stories. More about our relationship with funders can be found in our code of ethics.
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