November 2018

Wildfires in California and How to Build a Resilient Power Grid

Some say the effects of climate change are already upon us. The wildfires in California this year are the most destructive on record. There are already 80 dead and 1,000 missing, and the fires are still going. Changing precipitation patterns, higher summer and spring temperatures, and earlier snowmelt are creating longer wildfire seasons and drier conditions for more intense burns. Aside from what’s going on in California right now, we can expect more droughts, fatal heat waves like the one in Europe earlier this year, more intense hurricanes, water supply shortages, flooding and erosion from sea level rise, and more impacts that we can’t yet predict. The question looms ever larger – what can be done to fight climate change, and how do we prepare for it?

We’re seeing the consequences of how we generate and use energy, and we know things will get worse if we continue with business as usual. How much carbon we emit will impact how extreme the changes we face will be. In addition to changing our fuel source and trying to mitigate future damage, we also need to increase the resiliency of our power grid. It needs to be able to respond to disruptions, bounce back from disasters, and function more independently than it does now.

Community solar solves both the short term need to cut carbon pollution, and it also increases the resilience of our power grid in the long term. Solar farms reduce dependence on the long and interruptible supply chains that currently feed our natural gas and oil power plants. It is also much more flexible to install than other types of power generation. Solar systems are increasingly being installed with batteries and in Massachusetts the new SMART program incentivizes projects that include batteries which provide backup for the grid and support production during peak demand and brownouts. Community Solar has a promising track record so far, and it’s ready to scale up and provide power to much more of our population than rooftop solar or wind farms are. Last year alone our installed capacity nearly doubled from 387 MW to 734 MW, with more in the works and encouraging signs for its growth in many states.

The impacts of climate change have begun, and they’re impacting our safety. We have solutions we can use to mitigate the damage, and we’ve started planning ahead for how to recover. It’s more important than ever to think about our energy future and take action with the tools we have.

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in Climate Change / Community Solar / Solar Energy 0 comments

Midterms and the Future of Clean Energy

In light of the recent midterm elections, it seems like a good time to look at what makes good energy policy and what we might expect as a result of voter choices going forward. Policy plays an important role in the success of clean energy. As more states set targets for a future powered by renewables, there’s some trial and error in how to integrate new types of shared power to the existing grid, as well as how to support their growth and ensure ratepayers see the benefit of cleaner, less expensive energy. Community solar, when it’s supported by a state’s policies, is a very accessible and relatively inexpensive solution to these challenges.

Twenty nine states have a mandatory amount of clean energy utilities have to use, called a “Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)” while eight more have a voluntary clean energy target. These regulations have different ambition levels and methods of reaching their goals. Of these, only nineteen states have a shared renewables program.  Shared renewables are those, like community solar, which allow everyone to participate in the benefits of clean power. Shared renewables programs allow new power sources like community solar to scale up. To compare how different states stacked up, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) made a scorecard for states with established community solar programs. They evaluation criteria included such things as if the program is accessible to underserved and low income communities, if all residents are eligible to use the program, if it promotes subscription portability and transferability (being able to “take it with you” or give it to the next resident if you move) and how much benefit residents can get from joining a solar farm.

Massachusetts has one of the strongest programs in place to allow community solar to grow. It allows offset of both distribution and supply charges, targets benefits to low and moderate income customers, and has recently changed its program to remove barriers between utility load zones. This makes farms more accessible and beneficial to more residents, and it makes subscriptions much more portable.

At the polls this week, there was more good news for the future of clean energy. With a shift in congress, Democratic leadership has promised to “resurrect the defunct select committee on climate change.” Nevada also voted for a measure to use 50% renewable energy by 2030, and has seen increasing investment in clean energy recently.

Overall, states, rather than the federal government, continue to lead the charge against climate change. Experimenting with different programs to find the best practices paves the way for other states to follow suit. And as states with strong renewable energy programs reap rewards such as economic growth, financial savings, and environmental benefits, hopefully more policymakers and voters will come around.

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in Community Solar / Energy legislation / Solar Energy 0 comments