A recent ruling by a Wisconsin appeals court closes the door on the long-standing battle for third-party-owned solar in the state — at least for the near future, as disappointed advocates see it.

On Jan. 3, the court dismissed ongoing legal proceedings regarding a Stevens Point family’s efforts to buy electricity from solar panels that would have been installed on their home but owned by a solar company. The arrangement, known as third-party solar, allows customers access to solar power without the upfront cost of installing panels.

The family moved before their case concluded, though, making it “moot” in the court’s opinion. Advocates had hoped a court decision could still clarify that under existing law, third-party-owned solar is indeed legal, but those hopes are now dashed.   

“I think this road is at a dead end at this point,” said Will Kenworthy, Midwest regional director for Vote Solar, which had brought a petition before the Public Service Commission on the family’s behalf, asking the commission to affirm their right to do the project. “We had a chance to resolve it once and for all, and we made the effort to get it this far, then had the carpet pulled out from underneath us.” 

In late 2022, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission ruled in favor of the family, who wanted to install rooftop solar that would be owned by North Wind Renewable Energy Cooperative, a developer based nearby. 

After the commission decision, the Wisconsin Utilities Association filed a lawsuit challenging the commissions’ ruling, arguing such arrangements violate utilities’ monopoly rights to provide power. 

A trial court remanded the issue back to the commission for further information. Vote Solar, represented by the Environmental Law & Policy Center, appealed that ruling, and hoped the appeals court would affirm the commission’s decision. 

But when the Public Service Commission members found out that the family had moved without installing solar, they withdrew the decision on their case. 

“It closes this phase of the very long and ongoing saga here to clarify the law for third-party financing,” said ELPC senior attorney Brad Klein. “What’s frustrating with this setback is a lot of work went into teeing up a strong legal case for the commission and the courts. It got knocked out on a procedural non-substantive issue on the status of the customers, which leaves the rest of Wisconsin customers in the dark on the lawfulness of this tool.” 

The commission’s decision on the Stevens Point case had applied only to that particular project. But advocates thought the move could pave the way for others to do third-party-owned solar. 

Why it matters

“The hope with that decision was it would serve as a precedent — if this one family can do it, then a second family, a third family, a fourth family could do it too,” said John Albers, a director at Advanced Energy United, which filed an amicus brief in the case. “The frustrating part is none of this should be happening. Wisconsin is an outlier — you’ve got Michigan, Illinois and Iowa that all allow third-party ownership.” 

Nationwide, third-party ownership makes solar more accessible for many households, nonprofits, churches, schools and government agencies, since the solar developer or other third-party owner pays the upfront costs and reaps the tax incentives, while providing power and passing on energy bill savings to the resident or nonprofit.     

The direct-pay provision in the Inflation Reduction Act makes third-party ownership less crucial for nonprofit entities including government agencies, since direct payments —unlike tax incentives — can be tapped even if one doesn’t pay taxes. But the paperwork requirements for direct pay can be onerous, and under the Trump administration, pieces of the IRA may be rolled back. 

Advocates have long argued that existing Wisconsin law actually does allow for third-party-owned solar. But without clarity from a government authority, utilities have refused to interconnect third-party-owned solar arrays, and developers have been reluctant or unwilling to explore the arrangement with customers. 

A legal battle over Eagle Point Solar’s plans to do a third-party-owned solar project with the city of Milwaukee, for example, has been before the public service commission and in the courts for years. 

Kenworthy said advocates were hoping the commission and appellate court would offer “an interpretation of statute that avoids this preposterous outcome that someone putting a small solar array on someone’s roof is suddenly constituting a utility.” 

“We think it’s as urgent as ever to get third-party ownership available to the people of Wisconsin, we’re still interested in trying to figure out if there’s a way we can address it,” Kenworthy continued. That could mean another resident attempting third-party-owned solar, a lengthy and frustrating undertaking, as the Stevens Point family saw.   

“It was illustrative of the problem people are facing,” Kenworthy said. “Getting solar on a residential rooftop is a tough choice anyway, and when you have that type of uncertainty out there it really is a deterrent.” 

In an amicus brief, Advanced Energy United had made the case that residential third-party-owned solar would benefit all ratepayers, and could reduce reliance on planned new gas plants in Wisconsin. The group is among many that have filed testimony opposing a $1.2 billion new gas peaker plant that the utility WEPCO plans to build at the site of its Oak Creek coal plant. 

“Really, the more behind the meter solar you have in Wisconsin, the better for all ratepayers,” he said. “Utilities wouldn’t need to spend as much on new generation if homeowners were able to generate at home.” 

In years past, advocates have pleaded with the legislature, courts and commission to offer clarity on third-party ownership, so far to no avail. The Public Service Commission declined to rule on a petition from the Midwest Renewable Energy Association seeking to develop third-party-owned solar, noting that the association did not have a specific project contract. 

“The problem remains unresolved and it’s going to require some additional work over time, but we are going to continue pushing,” Klein said. “I’m confident in the long-term outcome because I think we’re right on the law. We don’t know if the next effort will mirror this one, which was an attempt to be responsive to the commission’s request to bring a specific case to them. We may do that again, or there’s other avenues. Certainly the legislature could act, there are other ways the commission could act. We’ll be exploring all of those options.”

A Wisconsin family’s case could have helped clarify a nagging solar ownership question. But then they moved. is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

As long-distance transmission line capacity emerges as a bottleneck for Illinois’ clean energy transition, state lawmakers and advocates are drafting legislation to establish state incentives for power line projects.

One proposal under consideration would allow independent transmission developers to access subsidies through the state’s Renewable Energy Credit (RECs) program, the same mechanism that has fueled the state’s solar boom.

“Merchant transmission developers are essentially building a road — generators pay to put their electricity on that road and send it to customers,” said James Gignac, Midwest senior policy manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a member of the coalition working with legislators on an energy bill building on 2017’s Climate & Equitable Jobs Act, or CEJA.

The Illinois legislation being prepared for this spring’s session would create another source of revenue for such projects, lowering the cost burden on wind and solar developers looking for a more direct route to power customers. Unlike projects funded by utility ratepayers, merchant lines do not need to go through the lengthy planning and financing process overseen by regional grid operators such as MISO and PJM.

“These [high voltage, direct current] lines can serve a different purpose,” Gignac said. “It’s an overlay or additional feature of the transmission system. They can provide important benefits that supplement the [regional transmission organization] plan.”

A regional need 

CEJA mandates that almost all of the state’s fossil fuel generation cease by 2045. Especially with the boom in data centers, some are worried Illinois won’t be able to meet its energy needs with renewables and nuclear if coal and gas plants close.   

“Transmission is a huge part of the equation, it will be important in helping us take inefficient coal and gas plants off-line, and it will help bring on extraordinary amounts of clean energy,” said Christine Nannicelli, Sierra Club Beyond Coal senior campaign representative. 

In December, MISO, which manages the grid for most of Illinois and a large part of the central U.S. spanning from the Dakotas to the Gulf Coast, approved a batch of 24 long-distance transmission projects on top of 18 interregional transmission lines approved in 2022. But these lines will likely take a decade or more to build, given lengthy bureaucratic processes. 

Merchant lines can be constructed much more quickly, as they do not need to be studied and deemed necessary through the regional transmission organization process. They just need to be interconnected to the regional grid system, as well as receive certain approvals in the states they pass through. Illinois advocates have also proposed that legislation designate merchant lines as public utilities, giving them an easier path to eminent domain powers. 

Merchant lines including the Grain Belt Express, which would stretch from Kansas through Missouri to the Illinois-Indiana border, have faced opposition from landowners concerned about the routes and eminent domain. Merchant lines also introduce competition for utility companies, which have pushed for legislation in various states to limit such competition. 

Some advocates argue competition can be good for ratepayers and the environment. Merchant lines could bring renewable power into Illinois from other states, and also make it easier for new renewables to be built in Illinois and connected to the grid. There can be long delays for new wind and solar farms to get approval to be connected to the MISO grid. These renewables could connect to merchant lines without delay. 

Grain Belt Express developer Invenergy, based in Chicago, is among the backers of a transmission incentive bill. 

Another merchant transmission line seeking to deliver power to Illinois is SOO Green, a proposed 350-mile underground cable between Iowa and Illinois following a railroad right-of-way. 

Both projects would facilitate sharing power between MISO and PJM grids, a necessity especially as extreme weather events increase, experts say. Last May, the two organizations for the first time agreed to coordinate on their long-range planning, 

The Clean Grid Alliance, a national organization, advocates for grid expansion both through the regional transmission organizations’ planning processes, and through merchant lines. The alliance supported a proposal during the last Illinois legislative session that would have created RECs for merchant transmission. Clean Grid Alliance vice president of advocacy Jeff Danielson said he does not know of any other states that have created RECs for this purpose. 

“We encourage states to help in any way possible to get the electric interstate superhighway built,” said Danielson. “It really is up to the states to secure their own economic future around a resilient and commerce-friendly grid. Whether it’s a REC concept, direct power purchase agreements, permitting reform, we encourage all of it. We literally need to build the transmission everywhere all at once.” 

Financial lift 

Since projects like Grain Belt Express and SOO Green cover multiple states, it may seem unfair for one state to carry more of the financial burden by offering subsidies. But Danielson said that may be necessary to tip the balance and make sure transmission gets built; and other states should follow Illinois’s lead. 

“There’s the idea it will just get built,” without state action, Danielson said. “But it won’t, it hasn’t. Merchant lines are incredibly difficult to build. A governor has to understand the value to his state, his colleagues in other states have to understand this is what’s going to drive economic growth. Every time they’re in a meeting they should be saying, ‘We have to get to yes.’ It’s a shared opportunity and shared responsibility.” 

A March 2024 study by the Illinois Power Agency estimated that credits for the SOO Green line would cost ratepayers $430 million per year, while reducing utility bills to save them $178 million per year. The line would also add $414 million in economic benefit to the state’s economy, the agency found. 

The Laborers’ International Union of North America is among the labor unions supporting a transmission-incentives bill. The union’s Midwest governmental affairs director, Sean Stott, noted that Invenergy’s Grain Belt Express, for example, is projected to create 1,500 construction jobs in central Illinois. 

“They’ve made a commitment to employing residents of central Illinois to do that work, including members of the Laborers union,” he said. “Any time you do that, you’ll have money in the pockets of workers. It would definitely generate a significant amount of economic activity in the local community.” 

He doesn’t think union members would resent the additional charges on electric bills to fund transmission incentives. 

“There are no free lunches in life, there would be a small charge, however they would receive by virtue of an influx of lower-cost power, downward pressure on their electric bills,” he said. 

The Illinois Manufacturers’ Association also supports such legislation. 

“We’ve seen warnings for the last couple years both in PJM and MISO of potential brown-outs,” said association president Mark Denzler. “When there are challenges, the first folks they ask to reduce load are industries. Transmission projects are one place where the state has the ability to work on making sure we have reliability.” 

The legislation might also include a component known as “next generation highways,” allowing transmission lines to be co-located with highways, a situation currently prohibited under Illinois law. Minnesota last year passed similar legislation.

“We want to at least allow utilities the option to consider that,” said Gignac. “It’s something states can do, allowing some flexibility in the location of transmission lines.” 

Danielson framed the relationship to highways as symbolic on a larger level. 

“We have never thought about our grid in an integrated interstate commerce way like we thought about the highway system in the 1950s, and we really need to,” he said. “Because resilience to weather events and connecting economies through clean energy and 24-7 internet commerce are going to be the reasons Midwest states and the U.S. in general are going to be an economic leader in the future.” 

Illinois explores use of renewable energy credits to juice independent transmission projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Jane Thornton tried and failed to stop the wood pellet plant from being built within earshot of her home in Faison, a tiny farming town in eastern North Carolina where she’s lived for over 60 years.

Now, some eight years later, she and her neighbors have a smaller but critical aim: getting the facility to better control its dust and the nuisance it creates.  

Silver-haired and soft-spoken, Thornton is quick to wax philosophical about the forces that have fueled the pellet industry’s rise, largely driven by a decades-old carbon accounting loophole that countries use to allege climate progress. The unintended consequences are concentrated in the U.S. Southeast, which has emerged as a hub for the industry.  

“It’s not green,” she said, referring to industry claims of sustainability. “Because when you cut the trees down, you lose the effect of them taking the bad stuff [out of the air]. And then we send them to Europe and use a lot of diesel fuel, which is not good. And they burn it and pollute their air. So how do they think it’s green?” 

A host of advocates, scientists, and data backs up Thornton. Producing pellets, shipping them to Europe and Asia, and burning them in power plants all creates carbon pollution greater than that of burning coal. Too often, pellets are made from whole, hardwood trees that were absorbing carbon dioxide while they were alive. Their replacements, often pines, can’t regrow in time to make up for it. 

As global climate negotiators debate the fuel’s carbon cycle, today Thornton and others in Faison are focused on dust. Indeed, neighbors of five wood pellet mills in the Southeast, including two operated by Enviva Biomass in North Carolina, list dust as their top concern, according to research conducted by the Southern Environmental Law Center and several other groups.  

“That is the number one thing I have heard from almost every community I’ve talked to about pellet mills. It’s incessant dust,” said Heather Hillaker, senior attorney at the law center.  

“We’re up against limited regulatory opportunities,” she acknowledged. But the state could force Enviva to tamp down the problem. “This is one area where there is a regulation that applies to an issue that is very prevalent for the community.” 

At her home last month, Thornton described watching suppliers roll past on their way to Enviva’s factory. 

“I’ve seen more log trucks come by today,” Thornton said. “They clear-cut everything. You get the oaks and the maples and the sycamores and whatever else is out there, and then you come back and plant pines. So, we’re going to have pine forests — or pine plantations.”  

She added, “They’re not forests, because a forest is whatever the Lord puts out there.” 

Public health impacts 

The practice of burning pellets for power isn’t economical without massive government supports, which don’t exist in North Carolina or elsewhere in the U.S. What’s more, the Biden administration’s new rules for the Clean Electricity Tax Credit make it extremely unlikely that wood pellets could qualify. 

Still, many countries count burning wood pellets as a positive on their climate ledgers, and the United Kingdom heavily subsidizes the fuel source. While those incentives are set to expire in 2027, the industry is campaigning heavily to get them renewed. 

Often overlooked in the climate accounting debate is the experience of the disproportionately low-income communities of color in the Southeast, where pellet mills are invariably located. From the get-go, neighbors have sought to alleviate dust and noise from the mills. 

Enviva’s first facility in North Carolina, in Ahoskie in Hertford County, began operating in 2011, and regulators required the company to control its dust soon thereafter. 

“That pellet mill is a right smack dab in the middle of town,” said Hillaker. “So, it makes sense that they would have had some pretty significant dust issues immediately.” 

Success in other communities has been more elusive. 

A former professor at the University of Mt. Olive, Dr. Ruby Bell is an organizer with the nonprofit Dogwood Alliance in Faison. She lives far enough from the Sampson County mill that she doesn’t notice many impacts at her own home. Not so when she’s closer to the facility. 

“When I first started this position,” Bell said, “I decided to go visit the people who live across the way. I sat outside for 20 minutes… When I left, I was sniffing. My nose was running. I had mucus beginning to form in my throat.” 

Tiny air particulates invisible to the human eye are thought to be the most insidious to human health because they can burrow deep into the lungs and bloodstream. But large dust particles can cause the issues Bell described, because they tend to get trapped in the upper respiratory tract. 

They can also exacerbate symptoms in people with pre-existing respiratory conditions. More than 100 households in the 300-person survey by Dogwood, Southern Environmental Law Center, and others, reported having asthma. Over half said they simply avoided outdoor activities like grilling and gardening to avoid the dust. 

That’s part of why organizers want state regulators to require dust management plans at Enviva’s mills in Northampton, Richmond, and Sampson counties – not just the one in Ahoskie.  

‘Better than nothing’ 

To be sure, the plan wouldn’t address every concern with the Faison facility. Neighbors complain about the noise from the mill’s 24-7 operations. They also blanch at the constant truck traffic, from the delivery of downed trees to the mill to the transport of the finished pellets some 80 miles south to the Port of Wilmington. 

“This road out here was built as one of those farm-to-market roads,” Thornton said during the visit at her home, surrounded by farmland. “It wasn’t built for trucks, and they’ve torn it up I don’t know how many times.” 

Activists are pressing Enviva to address all of their complaints voluntarily, saying that in addition to controlling its dust, the company should adopt best practices for incoming and outgoing trucks and cease operations between 10 at night and seven in the morning.  

Yet even without these extra steps, the dust plan would make a measurable difference, community members believe. The Ahoskie plan, for instance, requires Enviva to apply water to “minimize fugitive dust emissions from any ground surfaces” when dust is observed or conditions are dry, among other measures. It also calls for grass berms, which could mitigate noise. 

“The plan is better than nothing,” said Hillaker. “There’s better ability for [the state] to act if the plan itself is violated.” 

But convincing North Carolina regulators to mandate the dust plans has been a slog. State rules say a plan is required if regulators can verify two dust complaints in a 12-month period. But that substantiation is far from simple. 

“Trained Division of Air Quality inspectors visit the site and determine whether off-site dust is present,” Shawn Taylor, a division spokesperson, said over email. “If so, they attempt to determine the source of the dust by physically inspecting the dust, reviewing weather and wind data, reviewing operating schedules and air quality records of nearby facilities, and using other methods.” 

Dating back two years, Bell has submitted grievances on behalf of neighbors in Faison that have yet to be confirmed. And while scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill installed and collected air quality monitors at Thornton’s home and that of others, their research is ongoing and separate from the state’s process for verifying dust complaints.  

“Fugitive wood dust usually consists of larger particles that are less likely to be detectable with these monitors, so physical inspection is used,” Taylor said. “Even if monitors detect dust, they cannot determine the source of the dust, so our investigation would need to rely on additional data to make this determination.” 

Still, after years of little to no headway, organizers finally saw some progress last year. Regulators verified two complaints at the Enviva facility at the Port of Wilmington and will now require the company to enact a dust management plan.  

“The details of that plan are still being developed by DAQ and Enviva,” Taylor said, “and will be implemented later this year.” 

The success at the port has given a jolt of hope to organizers and pellet mill neighbors who feel they aren’t being heard.  

“It’s hard to get them moving sometimes,” Bell said. With some justification, many in the community believe “it doesn’t matter what we say,” she said.

In Thornton’s eyes, the battle against wood pellets is all too typical of the way the country approaches environmental regulation. 

“We’re not proactive to make sure what we’re doing is right,” she said. “We say ‘oh, this is new, this is good, we’re going to do a whole bunch of it,’ and after we get done, somebody comes along and says I don’t believe we should have done that.”

She added, “that’s true with a lot of things we’ve done in this country. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you ought to.”

As world grapples with wood pellets’ climate impacts, North Carolina communities contend with dust and noise is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A long-running local government collaboration in southwestern Minnesota is helping to insulate the region from the kind of controversies and misinformation that have plagued rural clean energy projects in other states.

The Rural Minnesota Energy Board has its origins in a regional task force that was set up during the mid-1990s as the state’s first wind farms were being built. The task force was instrumental in persuading state legislators in 2002 to create a wind energy production tax, which today generates millions of dollars in annual revenue for counties and townships that host wind projects.

The group’s scope and membership has since gradually expanded to include 18 rural counties that pay monthly dues for support on energy policy and permitting. The board represents members at the state legislature and in Public Utilities Commission proceedings. At home, it facilitates community meetings with project developers, helps draft energy-related ordinances, and educates members and the public on the benefits of energy projects.

The result, say clean energy advocates and developers, has been a uniquely consistent approach to local energy policy and permitting that makes it easier for renewable companies to do business in the region.

“The rural energy board has been a critical, important body and one of the major reasons why renewable energy has been successful in southwestern Minnesota,” said Adam Sokolski, director of regulatory and legislative affairs at EDF Renewables North America. “Their policies have encouraged good decision-making over the years and led to a stable and productive region for energy development.”

EDF Renewables has worked with the board on at least nine projects in the region. Sokolski said he’s come to admire its approach to policy making, its support for transmission projects, and its efforts to educate members on clean energy. 

“It’s positive to have county leaders talking to each other about energy projects, about how … they can approach those projects so they best benefit their constituents and the public,” he said.

Southwest Minnesota has the state’s densest concentration of wind turbines and is increasingly attracting solar developers, too. Wind turbines account for more than 4,500 megawatts, or around 22%, of the state’s generation capacity, making Minnesota a top 10 state for wind production.

‘It’s all economic development’

The board counts the wind production tax among its most significant accomplishments. Large wind farms pay $1.20 per megawatt-hour of generation. Counties receive 80% of the revenue, with the remainder going to townships. A similar fee also exists for large solar projects.

The fee delivers millions of dollars annually, allowing local governments to construct buildings and repair bridges and roads without raising their levies for years. According to American Clean Power, Minnesota municipalities receive $44 million annually in taxes, and private landowners receive nearly $41 million in lease payments from wind and solar companies.

That has enabled counties to stave off opposition by pointing out that turbines and solar are economic development, according to Jason Walker, community development director for the Southwest Regional Development Commission, which manages the board, said the local government revenue generated from wind and solar projects has helped reduce opposition to projects.

“It’s all economic development here,” Walker said.

When opposition does emerge, such as around a recent 160 megawatt solar project in Rock County in the state’s far southwest corner, the board works with commissioners to make sure local leaders have factual information as opposed to misinformation.

Peder Mewis, regional policy director for the Clean Grid Alliance, praised the board for creating an information-sharing culture among members that helps prepare them for clean energy development. He said many developers appreciate that the region’s ordinances are similar because of the board, and that they have maintained good relationships with members over the years.

“There are other parts of the state that are thinking, ‘Is there something here that we could replicate or duplicate?’” Mewis said.

Jay Trusty, executive director of the Southwest Regional Development Commission, said the board plays an essential role in lobbying for state policy to support clean energy development. In addition to the production taxes, the board regularly defends the local distribution of those funds when lawmakers consider other uses for the revenue. The board more recently lobbied for changes to the state transmission permitting process, which were approved this year, and it supported an expansion for Xcel Energy’s CapX 2020 high-voltage transmission project before state utility regulators.

Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner John Tuma recalled the board’s support for the state’s 2008 renewable energy standard, which gave Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty important rural support for signing the legislation.

“They bring an economic voice to the table,” Tuma said, adding that the board continues to be active in conversations about regional grid policies.

Nobles County Commissioner Gene Metz has served on the board for 12 years. The region’s decades of experience and collaboration on wind energy has helped make residents more comfortable with clean energy projects, he said, leading to fewer controversies. 

In counties outside the board’s territory, “they’re getting more pushback, especially on solar projects,” he said.

Gene’s cousin, Chad Metz, serves as a commissioner in Traverse County, which is not a member and has a mortarium on clean energy projects. Chad Metz sees clean energy as inevitable and wants the county to join the rural energy board to protect its economic interests. “The benefits outweigh the negatives, and it will just become part of life,” he said.

Rural Minnesota counties work together to simplify clean energy development and maximize local benefits is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A planned 325-megawatt battery energy storage system at a key location on New England’s power grid could boost Connecticut’s access to carbon-free power — but only if it can overcome complicated legal and political barriers. 

An Israeli firm, Sunflower Sustainable Investments, filed an application in October for the project with the Connecticut Siting Council, which has regulatory authority over the siting of power facilities.

The $200 million project, called Windham Energy Center, would be located on a largely undeveloped 63-acre site in Killingly, Connecticut, that was slated for construction of a fossil fuel power plant a few years ago. There is existing electric transmission infrastructure immediately adjacent to the site, and the project will connect to the grid via a 345-kilovolt transmission line. 

A spokesman for Windham Energy, Jonathan Milley, said the location is ideal for a battery facility. 

“If you look at the topology of the New England grid, this is at the intersection of the Millstone nuclear power plant and Brayton Point,” in Somerset, Massachusetts, where approved offshore wind projects will eventually be connected to the grid, Milley said. “This nodal location will at certain times of the day and under certain conditions have some of the lowest cost energy available to it on the grid.” 

The project would consist of lithium-ion batteries installed in racks in prefabricated containers, and a switching station operated by Eversource to connect them to the transmission line. The equipment would be located within 20 acres of the total project site. 

But the project is currently hung up by an administrative roadblock. That’s because in 2019, the siting council approved an application from NTE Energy to build a 650-megawatt natural gas plant on a portion of the same property. 

That project, which ran into a storm of opposition from environmental advocates, was never built, and NTE Energy has since dissolved. But nevertheless, on Nov. 8, the siting council’s executive director, Melanie Bachman, notified Windham Energy that it is “premature” for the body to review their application because the Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need previously issued to NTE still exists. 

The certificate has not been surrendered to the council, she said. And it will otherwise only be void if construction on the gas plant has not been completed by September 28, 2026. 

Windham Energy has asked the council to declare the certificate no longer valid, noting that NTE Energy no longer exists nor holds an option to purchase the property, and that its energy supply agreement with regional grid operator ISO-New England was also revoked in 2022. 

Milley said battery storage is needed to complement the state’s offshore wind goals; the batteries can store surplus energy from wind sources when production is high, and then dispatch it to the grid when it is needed. In 2021, state lawmakers set a goal of at least 1,000 megawatts of energy storage deployment by December 31, 2030.

“If there’s a developer willing to build what the state is looking for and not asking for anything else, it doesn’t seem like asking too much for the council to nullify an existing certificate for an entity that doesn’t exist,” Milley said. 

For now, counsel for Windham Energy has sent a letter by certified mail to Stephanie Clarkson, who they say is the last known contact for NTE Energy, asking her to “advise whether the Certificate issued to NTE should be an impediment” to their proposed project.

Addressing safety concerns

The town of Killingly has requested party status in the hearings before the siting council. 

In a letter to Windham Energy following a meeting with the developers, Town Council chair Jason Alexander and vice chair Tammy Wakefield raised concerns about the potential for fire at the facility, pointing to a recent fire at a battery storage facility in New York, and asked how they would prevent a similar event.  

Three battery storage projects caught fire in New York in 2023, prompting Gov. Kathy Hochul to convene a working group to draft updates to the state’s fire code to improve safety and emergency preparedness in the planning of such projects. 

Other towns in Connecticut have also raised concerns about fires for much smaller battery storage projects proposed by Key Capture Energy, of Albany, New York.

Milley says town officials are “right to ask these questions,” and he is focused on addressing their concerns. He noted that Windham plans to use lithium iron phosphate batteries, a type of lithium battery he says is much less prone to fire.

“The element in the battery is iron, which doesn’t burn,” he said. 

However, he added, Windham fully intends to work with town and state fire authorities to develop a response plan “whether it’s a strict requirement or not.” 

In the meantime, Windham Energy has filed a motion with the siting council to reopen the docket concerning NTE Energy so that it might modify its decision and revoke the earlier issued certificate. 

The council is expected to take up that motion during its Feb. 6 meeting. 

Legal snafu over canceled natural gas plant site ensnares Connecticut energy storage project is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Environmental and community advocates in Massachusetts argue that making too much room for biofuels in a pending state plan to decarbonize heating systems would slow the transition from fossil fuels and cause more pollution than a plan that prioritizes electric heat pumps.

As the state works on the creation of a Clean Heat Standard, a report released last month by Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility raises questions about the effects using biodiesel in fuel-oil heating systems could have on air quality and public health, saying there is not enough information available about the pollutants released in the process. 

Advocates say there is no such uncertainty about electric heat pumps, which create no direct emissions and should therefore be heavily favored in the new state policy. 

“We absolutely think the thumb should be on the scale of electrification,” said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. “If they give credit to biofuels, it ought to be conditional.”

Oil heating is much more prevalent in the Northeast than in the rest of the country. In Massachusetts, 22% of households are heated with oil, as compared to less than 5% nationwide. Moving homes and businesses off oil heat, therefore, is an important element of the state’s plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, which sets a target of reducing emissions from heating by 93% from 1990 levels in that timeframe. 

The process of developing a Clean Heat Standard began when then-Gov. Charlie Baker convened the Commission on Clean Heat in 2021. In 2022, the board recommended the creation of the standard, which was also included in the state’s Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2050, released later that year. A stakeholder process began in 2023, and in the fall of that year the state released a draft framework for the standard that included the expectation of issuing credits for some biofuel use. 

Open questions about public health

The program is expected to require gas utilities and importers of heating oil and propane to provide an increasing proportion of clean heating services like home heat pumps, networked geothermal, and other options, or buy credits from other parties that have implemented these solutions. 

Whether the other options that qualify as clean heat will include biofuels — fuels derived from renewable, organic sources — has been a matter of contention since the idea for the system was first raised.

Climate advocates have tended to oppose the inclusion of much, if any, biofuel in the standard. Though biodiesel creates lower lifetime greenhouse gas emissions than its conventional counterpart, the recent Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility report contends that there are many unanswered questions about how burning biodiesel impacts public health. 

“Given the sheer amount of doubt, there’s more research that should clearly be done before these fuels are subsidized by the state government,” said report author Carrie Katan, who also works as a Massachusetts policy advocate for the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, but compiled the report as an independent contractor for the physicians group. 

The physicians’ report notes a study by Trinity Consulting Group that found significant health benefits to switching from fossil diesel to biodiesel for building heating. The physicians’ report, however, questions the methodology used in that study, claiming it cherrypicks data and fails to cite sources. 

Katan’s report also notes that the health impacts of biofuels can vary widely depending on the organic matter used to create them, and points out that most of the research on burning biofuels is focused on the transportation sector. 

Climate advocates also argue that embracing biofuels in a Clean Heat Standard would unnecessarily prolong the transition to electric heat pumps while encouraging the continued burning of fossil heating oil. Typically, a heating oil customer using biodiesel receives a blend that is no more than 20% biofuel. Providing credit for that fraction of biofuel would therefore improve the economics of the entire heating oil system, contrary to the overall emissions reduction goals of the policy, Chretien said.

“We’re trying to create a system that is rewarding steps towards greenhouse gas reduction,” he said. 

Making the case for biofuel

Advocates of biofuels, however, say they are confident that existing science makes a solid case for the health and environmental benefits of biodiesel. 

“There’s a decades-long body of work showing the overall benefits to public health of biofuels, specifically biodiesel,” said Floyd Vergara, a consultant for Clean Fuels Alliance America, a national trade association representing the biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel industries.

Vergara, who was involved in the Trinity Consulting study, called out in the physicians’ report, also defended the methodologies and sourcing of that paper. 

Further, he said, though biodiesel is typically limited to 20% in current blends, it is quite possible to run a heating system entirely on biofuel, with just a few tweaks to the equipment. These conversions could yield immediate reductions in emissions, he said, rather than waiting for the slower process of replacing thousands of heating oil systems with electric heat pumps.

The difference could be particularly acute in low-income or other traditionally disadvantaged neighborhoods, where many residents can not afford to make the switch to heat pumps, he said. 

“You’re getting those benefits immediately, and you’re getting them while the states are pursuing zero-emissions technologies,” he said.

State environmental regulators expect to release a full draft of the clean heat standard for public comment sometime this winter.

Physicians group warns against propping up biodiesel as part of Massachusetts’ clean heat transition  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The last time President Donald Trump took office, Illinois had just passed the Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA), creating an ambitious renewable electricity mandate, solar incentive programs, green job training and equity provisions to propel the state’s clean energy economy.

That progress is offering both a blueprint and a source of hope for Illinois clean energy and environmental justice advocates as they try to keep the state’s clean energy transition on track during a second Trump presidency.

“The state policy is designed to be responsive to a lack of federal climate leadership, to the need for Illinois to step up into a position of climate leadership,” said Vote Solar deputy Midwest program director John Delurey, who added that since the 2024 election “I’m at the point where I can channel my existential dread into state-based action.” 

Illinois lawmakers expanded on FEJA with the Climate & Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) in 2021, and advocates expect another state energy bill in 2025 to prioritize energy storage and otherwise further clean energy goals, including planning for the mandatory closing of almost all fossil fuel generation by 2035. 

“With CEJA we’ve mapped out an ambitious climate plan, and we’re in a strong position to further those goals even under a Trump administration,” said Madeline Semanisin, Midwest equitable building decarbonization advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is not the first Trump administration. States and cities are more prepared this time to accelerate initiatives at the state and city level.” 

That’s not to say the state won’t be affected by a president who is hostile toward clean energy policy. Several federal tax credits and grants that have helped accelerate progress in Illinois could be at risk under Trump, and a rollback of federal environmental regulations or enforcement could prolong pollution from coal ash, power plants and other sources. 

James Gignac, Union of Concerned Scientists lead Midwest senior policy manager for the Climate & Energy program, said he thinks of the state’s clean energy outlook in terms of headwinds and tailwinds, which will continue to shift based on economic and political factors beyond the state’s control. 

“States for many years have not been able to rely on the federal government for climate action, whether due to politics or the Supreme Court,” Gignac said. “The election results will make it harder to achieve the goals that Illinois has established. It doesn’t fundamentally change the energy policy path that the state is on, it just makes it even more urgent that state legislators pass additional policies.” 

Tax credits and grants 

Federal funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and other federal programs have helped Illinois and individual cities and counties carry out their clean energy goals. Illinois was awarded more than $430 million in a Climate Pollution Reduction Grant for implementation of the state’s goals on industrial decarbonization, clean energy, clean transportation and freight, climate-smart agriculture, and building energy efficiency. 

Illinois was also awarded $156 million in federal Solar for All funds to bolster solar and equity goals including workforce training, residential solar deployment, and community engagement.   

Illinois advocates and experts said they expect federal funds that have already been awarded to be paid out, and they don’t expect the Trump administration and Republican-dominated Congress to make major changes to the IRA or infrastructure law, especially given the financial impact those laws have had in Republican-dominated areas. 

“We have seen hundreds of thousands of dollars for small businesses and farmers” paid out through the federal Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), not to mention federal IRA funds, that “overall are benefitting Republican districts” during the Biden administration, noted Angela Xu, Illinois Environmental Council municipal engagement manager. 

Even if new federal funding windfalls are not available in the future, advocates say the funds awarded during the Biden administration will have lasting impact, combined with state-level programs and funding sources that will continue, and market forces that are making clean energy increasingly competitive. 

“President-elect Trump has indicated his intention to roll back IRA programs, but keep in mind that when President Trump was elected last time, he and the Republican-led Senate and House were hellbent publicly on rolling back Obamacare, and that didn’t happen,” said Environmental Law & Policy Center executive director Howard Learner. 

“The IRA has supported smart, sensible renewable energy development in red states and blue and purple states,” he added. “There’s no question if President Trump tries to cut back and constrain the IRA, it will have some impact on the pace of renewable energy development and other climate change solutions. On the other hand, it’s very hard to keep better technology from growing. When new technologies come to the market and they are better and cleaner and economically sensible, they tend to accelerate and capture more market share.” 

Illinois Shines, the program creating lucrative Renewable Energy Credits for distributed solar, is funded through ratepayer payments — so it is not dependent on federal funding. That doesn’t mean it is immune from federal action, since the federal Investment Tax Credit and the global solar market influence the viability of projects in Illinois. 

“There are levers they can pull, through an act of Congress they can change the ITC, which is an important part of the value stack for renewables,” said Delurey, of Trump and his allies in Congress. “And they could deploy tariffs which make the landscape a lot more complicated. The U.S., thanks to the IRA, is making its way towards onshoring and bringing a lot of manufacturing back stateside, but we’re not quite there yet.” 

If the tax credit is reduced or solar panels get more expensive because of tariffs, Illinois’s incentives “would probably have to be adjusted accordingly,” Delurey said, with bigger incentives for each project. 

“It would just mean fewer megawatts and kilowatts in Illinois. We’d still be deploying solar, but it is sensitive to the price of clean energy.” 

Environmental justice 

Advocates agree that the Biden administration’s Justice 40 mandate, that 40% of the benefits of many federal climate and other programs go to disadvantaged communities, is likely to be ended or ignored by the Trump administration. 

Lower-income and marginalized communities could also be affected by understaffing, delays or rollbacks in federal programs like LIHEAP, which provides energy bill assistance, and energy efficiency rebates for low-income households. 

“We can put things in state legislation that supports these communities,” including in the Illinois energy bill being drafted for introduction in 2025, Semanisin said. “Justice 40 is a framework we can incorporate in state legislation as well, to prioritize people who have been historically underserved.” 

During his first administration, Trump made significant rollbacks to coal plant wastewater protections, and to the 2015 federal rules governing the storage and cleanup of coal ash. Both are big issues in Illinois, where eight coal plants are still operating, and coal ash is stored in 76 ponds, landfills and other sites, according to an Earthjustice analysis.   

Earthjustice senior attorney Jenny Cassel said experts anticipate Trump will again try to weaken the Clean Water Act and coal ash protections. Meanwhile it’s likely the EPA under his administration will do little to enforce the coal ash regulations, which was largely the case before the Biden administration made coal ash a priority. 

Illinois passed its own state coal ash rules in 2019, after lobbying by activists who wanted to make sure the rules were at least as strong as federal rules and covered legacy ponds not included in federal rules at the time. In 2024, the federal rules were expanded to cover legacy ponds as well as historic ash and coal ash landfills, but that provision is being challenged in federal court. The state rules do not cover ash historically dumped or scattered around, and they also do not cover inactive coal ash landfills.

Meanwhile the implementation of the Illinois coal ash law has been extremely slow. The law requires each site to get an operating permit with pollution limits that can then be enforced, but so far only two permits at one coal plant site have been issued, Cassel said. 

“We keep hearing excuse after excuse” from the Illinois EPA that issues the permits, Cassel said. “‘We don’t have enough people, they’re tied up in administrative hearings, conditions are changing,’ every dog-ate-my-homework excuse in the book.”

“At the federal level, there’s any number of potential ways they could attempt to roll back the [coal ash] rules, or weaken areas that haven’t been fully defined,” she added. “That’s certainly what they did in round one. Illinois will really have to step up into the vacuum of protectiveness we expect at the federal level.”

Local action

Chicago — site of the 2024 Democratic National Convention — has long been a target of Trump’s ire, and Chicago officials during his last administration and today are outspoken about countering Trump’s agenda.

Chief Sustainability Officer Angela Tovar said the city will continue its work on solar, electric vehicles and building decarbonization, as well as centering environmental justice in planning, zoning and enforcement decisions.  

“So much of everyone’s local regulations hinge on things like the Clean Air Act and federal standards; there is going to be this question of federal preemption, what home-rule authority do we have?” Tovar said. “Those are still outstanding questions. Every rollback will present its own set of challenges for cities and states. What I am at least grateful for in being in the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago is we do have such robust climate leadership at the state and local level.” 

The city’s environmental justice ordinance requires a holistic look at pollution — from traffic and other sources — when industrial development is proposed. That could help protect communities even if federal pollution limits are relaxed. The city has also launched an interdepartmental environmental justice working group, involving “every department that touches air, land and water,” as Tovar said. 

The city program Green Homes Chicago funds energy efficiency upgrades for qualifying single- and multi-family homes, which could help fill the gap if federal home rebates are reduced, Tovar noted. Chicago Recovery Plan funding from federal pandemic relief and city bond issuances could help compensate for any funding that might be lost if IRA is undermined, she added. 

“The role of cities and states becomes even increasingly more important right now,” Tovar said. “We have an ability to really demonstrate leadership in this moment. For cities like Chicago that have already made some progress, it’s up to us to ensure we’re sharing best practices and working together to really create those safeguards and fortify basic environmental and health protections at a local level. We’re certainly going to maintain our commitment, make sure we are rolling out our programs, and unwavering in our pursuit of environmental justice.”

Illinois confident it can continue clean energy progress under Trump, but path expected to be harder  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Ohio environmental advocates are questioning the intent of a pending state law that would add nuclear power to the state’s legal definition of “green” energy.

House Bill 308’s sponsors say the legislation is meant to signal that Ohio is open for business when it comes to nuclear power research and development, but critics warn the language could have broader implications in the future.

“Legislators don’t just put something into the code unless it has meaning and purpose and value,” said Megan Hunter, an attorney with Earthjustice, one of several environmental groups challenging a similar 2022 state law that classified natural gas as a “green” energy source. “Why would you do this if it has no impact or meaning or effect?”

Critics fear the language could be used to greenwash power plants or divert public funding from renewable energy projects, though the bill’s sponsors deny that motive.

“It doesn’t promise any incentives or anything beyond simply placing nuclear under the category of green energy in the Ohio Revised Code,” said state Rep. Sean Brennan, a Democrat from Parma who co-sponsored the nuclear legislation with Republican state Rep. Dick Stein of Norwalk. 

The General Assembly passed the nuclear legislation on Dec. 11. As of Thursday it was awaiting Gov. Mike DeWine’s signature.

Brennan said the question of why the language should be in a law instead of just a resolution didn’t come up in discussions with Stein, who initially asked him to cosponsor the bill.

Stein said the legislation is “about sending a signal to the market that Ohio wants to be a partner and won’t be an impediment,” in contrast to other states that don’t want nuclear energy. He said he hopes it will help attract jobs and federal funding, building on last year’s creation of a state nuclear development authority.

Stein would not speculate on follow-up steps lawmakers might take, saying his term in the House of Representatives ends this month.

What the law could do

Ohio does not currently have state incentives or policy preferences for “green” energy. The state’s renewable energy standard essentially ended in 2019 as a result of House Bill 6, the coal and nuclear bailout law at the heart of the state’s ongoing corruption scandal. Opponents testifying against the current legislation, though, said they worry the definition will be used to water down future clean energy policies. 

“HB 308 will enable the manipulation of public funds into private, corporate hands,” said Pat Marida, a coordinator for the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network, in her December 13 testimony. Also, she said, “there is nothing ‘green’ about nuclear power,” referring to radioactive waste, which continues to be stored at power plant sites.

Future state programs might offer funding or other advantages for projects that meet the state’s definition of “green” energy, for example. And even if the definition doesn’t open doors to new government funding, it could provide cover to private companies that want to count gas and nuclear energy toward their climate or clean energy targets, another advocate warned.

“Insidiously, it does potentially become important,” said Nathan Alley, conservation manager for the Sierra Club of Ohio. Many companies have adopted clean energy goals, he noted. “This might telegraph to them that they could invest in nuclear energy and achieve the same climate and/or energy goals as if they invest in solar or wind.”

Ohio lawmakers aren’t the only ones who want to define natural gas and nuclear power as “green energy.” Model legislation finalized by the American Legislative Exchange Council this fall does the same thing. ALEC is a Koch-linked group that has long opposed renewable energy and actions to address climate change.

ALEC’s model bill would have its definition “apply to all programs in the state that fund any ‘green energy’ or ‘clean energy’ initiatives.” Another model ALEC bill would define nuclear energy as “clean energy” and put it on a par with renewable energy.

A coalition of environmental groups is currently challenging House Bill 507, Ohio’s 2022 law that labeled natural gas as “green energy,” arguing in court that the way in which it was passed violated the state constitution. The groups say last-minute amendments violated provisions that require bills to deal with a single subject – the initial two-page bill dealt with chickens – and call for at least three hearings in each house of the General Assembly where lawmakers can hear testimony from supporters and opponents.

That lawsuit has been briefed and is currently awaiting a decision from Judge Kimberly Cocroft at the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. HB 308 should not affect that case, said Hunter and Alley.

As with HB 507, though, lawmakers added last-minute amendments to HB 308. One of those would extend lease terms for drilling under state park and wildlife areas from three years to five years. That was unacceptable to Brennan, who voted against the Senate amendments when it came back to the Ohio House.

Still, he supports what he views as the main purpose of the legislation: attracting more nuclear power to Ohio. In his view, solar and wind won’t be enough to meet growing energy demands while shifting away from fossil fuels in order to address climate change. “I believe nuclear is going to be hugely important for our energy independence, and hopefully Ohio will become an exporter of electricity in the future.”

Hunter wasn’t surprised that lawmakers made last-minute amendments to the bill. For her, it shows the importance of the ongoing litigation over HB 507.

“Those constitutional protections are there for a reason,” she said. “And seeing the General Assembly have blatant disregard for them again and again harms Ohioans. It deprives them of these constitutional rights.”

A symbolic gesture or Trojan horse? Ohio groups question purpose of ‘green’ nuclear bill  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Two community-based geothermal pilot projects, each led by equity-focused nonprofits, have advanced to the second phase of funding through a U.S. Department of Energy program. 

Blacks in Green, a community organization based in Chicago, and Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Boston-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting an equitable transition to clean energy, were included last week in a set of five projects across the country that have been awarded a total of more than $35 million from the DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office to implement geothermal installations.

The five project teams advancing to the next phase of the DOE project were among a cohort of 11 projects participating in the initial phase of the program, where coalitions selected project sites, assessed geothermal resource and permitting needs, conducted feasibility analysis and local engagement, and identified workforce and training needs. The selected projects’ range of sizes, technologies, and innovations will provide potential templates for other communities considering implementing geothermal systems. 

Three of the five projects are located in urban or suburban areas; two are in rural communities. The other three recipients are the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan; the University of Oklahoma, for a project in the town of Shawnee; and GTI Energy, for a project in Hinesburg, Vermont. 

Tapping into Chicago’s alleys

Blacks in Green, located in West Woodlawn, a predominantly Black community on Chicago’s South Side, serves as the lead for a coalition which was awarded $9.9 million for its Sustainable Chicago Geothermal pilot. Other coalition partners are the City of Chicago, University of Illinois, The Accelerate Group, Citizens Utility Board, Climate Jobs Illinois, dbHMS, GeoExchange, and Illinois AFL-CIO.

The pilot, also located in West Woodlawn, utilizes alleys to circumvent the need for vast open plots for subterranean loop fields that form the heart of a geothermal array. Locating the bulk of geothermal loop lines in alleyways also sidesteps the underground congestion of existing utility infrastructure typically located underneath city streets.

It’s among an assortment of elements in the Sustainable Square Mile approach that advances BIG’s vision for energy justice through clean energy and microgrid/VPP systems owned and managed by the community, said Naomi Davis, BIG’s founder and CEO.

“BIG launched in 2007 with a goal of increasing household income and community resilience against the harms of climate crisis at neighborhood scale using the new green economy — so we’re grateful for this chance to make it manifest,” Davis said in a news release. 

Along with installation of the needed infrastructure within the multiblock footprint, year two of the West Woodlawn project will focus on community outreach and job programs. Once construction is complete, the geothermal system will provide heating and cooling, not to mention lower utility bills, for potentially more than 200 households. 

“The Sustainable Chicago Geothermal project will be a transformational investment in the West Woodlawn community. The effort to eliminate harmful emissions from homes and businesses, while lowering energy burden, has proven to be a community-wide challenge, and requires a community-wide solution,” said Andrew Barbeau, president of The Accelerate Group and principal investigator of the Blacks in Green project, in a news release. 

The need to reconstruct the alleyways after installation of the geothermal array also presents the opportunity to replace asphalt or concrete with permeable pavers. This would work to promote climate resiliency through mitigation of urban flooding, a persistent occurrence in many of Chicago’s South and West Side communities, said Nuri Madina, the director of Sustainable Square Mile, who serves as point person for the pilot.

“All of our programs are designed to create multiple benefits,” Madina told the Energy News Network in September.

A first-of-its kind project in suburban Boston

Home Energy Efficiency Team, commonly referred to by the acronym HEET, in partnership with Eversource Energy; the city of Framingham, Massachusetts; and engineering consultant Salas O’Brien; was awarded $7.8 million toward construction of a utility-based,community-scale geothermal system.

“We are honored to receive this funding from the DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office as part of the Community Geothermal Heating and Cooling initiative, and to show how geothermal energy networks can be interconnected to increase efficiency, build resilience, and decarbonize at the scale and speed we need to achieve our climate goals,” said Zeyneb Magavi, executive director for HEET, in a news release.

The proposed plans by HEET and its partners would connect to the first Framingham geothermal network, which was commissioned earlier this year. Once approved by the state Department of Public Utilities and upon completion, it would represent the first utility-owned community geothermal network to connect to an adjacent operational loop, establishing guidelines for the interconnection and growth of geothermal networks. 

“This innovative project not only showcases Framingham’s commitment to sustainable energy solutions but also sets a precedent for other communities across the nation. By harnessing the natural heat from the earth, we are taking a significant step towards reducing our carbon footprint and promoting renewable energy sources. Our collaboration with HEET and Eversource exemplifies the power of partnerships in driving forward clean energy initiatives,” said Framingham Mayor Charlie Sisitsky in a news release. 

The HEET-led program operates on the principle that utility-scale geothermal systems could operate on a billing model similar to that of natural gas or electrical utilities, and ultimately replace them, Magavi told the Energy News Network in October 2022.

“So instead of feeding natural gas into these buildings, we could feed geothermal water,” Magavi said. “And then we could meter that and sell that. It’s no different than when you pay your water bill.”

Department of Energy funding to boost community-led geothermal projects  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

When a solar energy developer approached Halifax County, North Carolina, in the early 2010s about renting its former airfield in Roanoke Rapids, community leaders had a condition. 

“If they were willing to lease this land for the very first solar project in the area, the county needed to get something back in return,” said Mozine Lowe from her office, which overlooks the 20 megawatt solar farm now atop the old airport. “What they got was this building.”

Of course, it’s more than a building. It’s the headquarters for the Center for Energy Education, the nonprofit Lowe has run since 2016 that works to maximize the benefits of large solar farms in rural America — one community, one school child, and one worker at a time. 

Lowe, who grew up about five miles from where she now works, had graduated from Greensboro’s North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University but worked across the country, from California to Washington, D.C. 

When she returned to this rural county of less than 50,000 near the Virginia border, formerly a hub of farming and textiles, she said she didn’t see a lot of change.  

“The jobs were the same,” she said. “I didn’t see people making the connection between solar energy and what’s happening with the climate and the impact on rural communities, and I just wanted to try and help from that angle.” 

The Center conducts educational programs for children of all ages, who come in by the busload from surrounding schools both public and private. It holds a Solar Fest every year to celebrate clean energy with community leaders, drawing hundreds.

Through collaborations with local educational institutions like community colleges, the center has also helped to train a new workforce in jobs that pay roughly twice what workers are earning at the fast-food chains off Interstate 95. 

“We have trained more people than most other people around here to become solar installers,” Lowe said. “We want them to be first in line for our jobs.”

And there’s outreach to solar companies themselves in North Carolina as well as Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, where the Center also has offices. The goal is to help them become better community partners.

Only a few ‘good players’ 

Geenex, the Charlotte-based developer who built the solar farm at the airport and over a dozen others in the vicinity, is still involved in the Center, and the company’s chairman also chairs the nonprofit’s board.  

But Lowe and other staff at the organization say not every solar developer is committed — at least at first — to working with community leaders in Eastern North Carolina. 

“Geenex is a very good partner,” said Reginald Bynum, the Center’s community outreach manager. “They’re a good player. But there are only a few of them. Other companies will say, ‘This is your ordinance? Great. This is all I have to do.’” 

Some county ordinances, like that in Halifax, need to be updated, Bynum said. Many still call for a 75-foot buffer between the rows of solar panels and neighboring properties. That figure is “so 2018,” said Bynum. It should be doubled, he said. 

Most solar farms are also built on private land — often bits of farmland that can help cotton growers and other farmers guarantee income. But developers usually obtain the leases first, before airing the project in public. 

“That’s the backwards process of solar,” Bynum said. “They’re talking to landowners and securing that land, and then they’re coming to commissioners.” 

What’s more, simply following ordinances isn’t enough, Bynum says. What’s needed is for solar developers to work with local residents to develop community benefits agreements — documents that memorialize pluses to the area, from minimizing construction impacts to providing jobs. 

“It’s a 30-year commitment to the community,” he said, “because your farm’s going to be here 30 years. They’re asking for that, and they deserve that.” 

Critically, say Bynum and other advocates, solar developers need to work with community leaders to provide benefits beyond tax revenue — an undeniable good, but one that isn’t “seen” by anyone except county bookkeepers.

And though a recent study from the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association shows that solar farms today take up a fraction of a percent of the state’s farmland, the figure is a full 1% in Halifax County, and on pace to triple in the coming years, according to the Center’s research. 

“From rural citizens’ standpoint, that’s a lot,” Bynum said. “You have to really understand what they’re seeing.” 

‘Projects have gotten bigger’

Part of what they’re seeing is the result of a simple fact: solar farms aren’t just growing more abundant in parts of rural America. They’re also much larger.

In North Carolina up until 2016, the average utility-scale solar development was 5.8 megawatts covering 35 acres of land, per the Sustainable Energy Association. After a 2017 state law made larger solar farms easier to build, the average system size increased to 13.6 megawatts and covered 115 acres of land.

“Projects have gotten bigger,” said Carson Harkrader, the CEO of Durham-based Carolina Solar Energy, who appeared on a recent clean energy panel with Bynum. “As they’ve gotten bigger, people freak out a little bit.” 

And while many folks’ worries about the visual impact of solar panels can be mollified — with tree buffers, setbacks, and information about the safety of the structures — some are easy targets for opponents. 

“The opposition has become much, much, more organized. There are national groups, funded by the oil and gas industry,” Harkrader said. “With this opposition that is more organized and has more resources, it’s much harder.” 

In some cases, opponents may fill a vacuum left by solar companies who lined up projects before the pandemic and have only recently begun to start construction. 

That’s what happens, said Bynum, “when you miss steps in keeping citizens updated with the project — particularly when you started talking about it five years before. Commissioners change, a lot of tribal knowledge evaporates.” 

More success stories?

And sometimes, it only takes one or two community members to force the issue with local politicians. Both neighboring Northampton and Halifax counties have passed moratoriums on new solar farms recently. Halifax acted after just a few people appeared at their meeting, concerned about the loss of trees.

Having talked with county commissioners, staff at the Center are hopeful the moratorium will end quickly as planned, after the county has updated its ordinance. But the “pause” on solar farms is an example of the constant game of whack-a-mole solar developers and their advocates must play.

Lowe says that’s why the Center is so vital. 

“What makes us unique is that our work is mainly community engagement,” she said. “Our stance is to be neutral, and to provide factual information. I think we need to tell more success stories.”

How one nonprofit is working to build support for solar — and added benefits for communities — in rural North Carolina is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Massachusetts environmental advocates hope a provision in the state’s new climate law could be a final blow to a proposed expansion of private jet facilities at a suburban airport. 

Opponents say adding 500,000 square feet of hangar space at Hanscom Field, a general aviation airport that serves private and corporate aircraft in a town 20 miles outside of Boston, will inevitably mean more flights — mostly private jet travel to luxury locations — which will increase climate pollution with minimal public benefit.

“This is an industry that is highly polluting and yet serves only a very narrow slice of the public,” said Alex Chatfield, a local social worker and an activist fighting the project. 

The expansion plans have been in the works since 2021, but progress slowed in June after state regulators rejected the planners’ first environmental impact report. Since then, state lawmakers passed a new law requiring state agencies and boards, including the state port authority, to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions in their decisions. 

The measure does not directly prohibit the Massachusetts Port Authority from proceeding with projects such as the Hanscom plan, but it does leave the agency vulnerable to legal action should it forge ahead without being able to show it weighed the likely greenhouse gas emissions against the benefits of the plan. 

Much-needed hangars

The expansion plan started with Massport, which oversees operations at Hanscom as well as Boston’s Logan International Airport and Worcester Regional Airport. In 2021, the agency released a request for proposals to develop “much-needed hangars” at the airport, said Massport spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan. A plan submitted by North Airfield Ventures and Runway Realty Ventures won the bid. 

The proposed facilities would be built on 47 acres of land, some of which is already owned by the developers and some of which would be leased to them by Massport. The project comprises 17 new hangars, the rehabilitation of a historic Navy hangar on the site, and fuel storage facilities. 

Planners argue the development would be environmentally beneficial, because the structures would be designed for net-zero energy use and built to LEED Gold standards, and buildings and equipment would be electrified whenever possible. They also claim the additional capacity would help cut down on emissions from so-called “ferry flights,” in which a plane hangared elsewhere flies to Hanscom to pick up passengers and then returns to its home airport at the end of the trip. 

Opponents, however, argue that more hangars will inevitably mean more flights. These flights, they say, are likely to be private jet travel to luxury locations, generating emissions for the benefit of just a privileged few. One report, by Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, found that 31,600 private flights departed Hanscom during an 18-month period in 2022 and 2023, and that roughly half of those were bound for high-end vacation destinations like the Bahamas, Palm Beach, and Nantucket.

“It’s very well known that private jets are the most polluting form of transportation per passenger ever devised,” Chatfield said. “It is on a scale that is really hard to imagine.”

State environmental regulators are also skeptical. The state response to the developers’ first environmental impact report, referred to the “fanciful nature of the proponents’ ‘ferry flight theory,’” pointing to a study that found only 132 ferry flights actually occurred at Hanscom rather than the 3,500 developers claimed. Regulators also suggested new hangars at Hanscom were unlikely to attract planes to relocate, and therefore would not reduce what ferry flights do occur.

The developers can resubmit their environmental impact report, addressing the state’s concerns. One of the founders of North Airfield Ventures said the company declines to comment on its plans at this time. 

Factoring in climate impacts

In the months since the state’s order was released, legislators created another obstacle for the project. 

As Massachusetts attempts to reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions, an ongoing mundane-yet-important challenge has been the fact that some crucial state agencies and boards have lacked the authority to factor climate impacts in their decisions. These bodies were founded well before the climate crisis became such a pressing public policy question, and thus their rules never required or authorized them to consider greenhouse gas emissions or other climate impacts in their decision-making. 

In recent years, attempts have been made to integrate climate change mitigation into more statewide policies and processes. A climate law enacted in 2021 requires the administration to set greenhouse gas reduction goals to be realized by the state’s three-year energy efficiency plans, which were initially intended only to reduce the cost and quantity of electricity, gas, and oil used. The same bill instructed public utilities regulators to consider greenhouse gas impact as part of their decisions. 

“The department up to that point had just focused on reliability and affordability,” said state Sen. Michael Barrett, chair of the legislature’s committee on telecommunications, utilities, and energy, and one of the main authors of both the 2021 and 2024 climate bills. “I have wanted to reorient state agencies that don’t seem to have gotten the memo about climate change being an existential crisis.”

The latest bill included more such provisions, authorizing the Board of Building Regulations and Standards to give preference to building materials that boost emissions reductions, and requiring Massport to consider the greenhouse gas impacts of its decisions.

“I hope that Massport appreciates that what is done today on climate is inadequate, and I hope it also appreciates that the policies have changed,” said Barrett. “I don’t pretend to be able to predict particular outcomes on particular projects, but I do know that Massport needs to take this seriously.”

Plan to expand airport for private jets runs into new Massachusetts climate law is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Three Ohio companies are investing in hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles even as the U.S. market for electric vehicles continues to grow. Each has an innovative approach to the chicken-and-egg problem of having fuel available when and where drivers need it.

The Ohio companies’ focus on fuel cell passenger vehicles is unique nationwide, especially for a state that doesn’t yet have any public hydrogen fueling stations. California, where almost all of the country’s hydrogen fuel cell cars are registered, still has fewer than 60 public stations. 

“When we see hydrogen transportation deployment projects, it’s really more on the medium- and heavy-duty side,” said Mark Henning, a researcher at Cleveland State University’s Energy Policy Center at the Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs.

A hydrogen car is essentially an electric vehicle with an onboard fuel cell providing electricity alongside a battery. General Motors first displayed a prototype for a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle back in the 1960s, but hydrogen cars weren’t available to U.S. consumers until leases for the 2015 Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell began, with sales of the Toyota Mirai starting that fall. 

Hydrogen car sales have been essentially limited to California, where state policy and public funding supported the development of some public fueling stations. Since then, only about 18,000 fuel cell cars have been sold in the U.S.

Yet Ohio companies have been working on hydrogen energy for more than two decades. The state trade association, the Ohio Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Coalition, traces its history back to 2003. 

If successful, the current efforts could eventually provide another option for switching away from gasoline-powered cars. While electric vehicles are comparable in price, hydrogen cars can be refueled quickly — assuming the infrastructure is available — and offer more consistent range in cold weather. But much could hinge on how quickly hydrogen infrastructure develops, as well as how quickly and effectively plug-in electric vehicle makers deal with their own range and charging challenges.

One example of the desire for hydrogen vehicle alternatives comes from DLZ, an engineering, architectural and project management company headquartered in Columbus with offices across the United States as well as in India and Costa Rica. The company has a fleet of about 250 vehicles across the Midwest, including electric vehicles. In 2022, it added six Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell cars for use by professionals from its Columbus office.

“The hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have a lot more consistent performance in range and durability,” especially in cold weather, said Ram Rajadhyaksha, DLZ’s executive vice president. The range for the cars is sufficient for round trips the office’s professionals make to site locations around the state, he explained at the Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Coalition symposium in North Canton last month.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars aren’t sold in Ohio yet, so DLZ had its six Hyundai vehicles shipped from California to Columbus. Except for the fuel cells, dealers in Ohio can provide any necessary service the vehicles may need, Rajakhyasksha said.

The cars also need a regular source of hydrogen, so DLZ added its own. Its station in Columbus can generate about 20 kilograms of hydrogen per day, using electricity from a solar array atop a large building on company property. A net metering agreement lets DLZ sell any excess electricity from the array to the grid. 

Nonetheless, there were hurdles, including permitting, building codes, supply chain issues during the tail end of the pandemic, and even signage codes.

Made in Ohio

While California has been the country’s epicenter for fuel cell vehicles, Honda Motors is now producing the first American-made hybrid hydrogen vehicle at its Marysville plant in Ohio. Its 2025 CR-V e:FCEV model can go roughly 270 miles on a tank of hydrogen. There’s also a small electric battery which provides a driving range of about 30 miles. A 110-volt power outlet on the vehicle can run small home appliances or other equipment.

That range is about the same as Honda’s all-electric Prologue SUV, which also has a comparable list price. But the company believes there is room for both.

“It’s not one or the other,” said Dave Perzynski, assistant manager for hydrogen solutions business development at Honda, who also spoke at the Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Coalition symposium. “It’s using the right equipment at the right place at the right time.” The CR-V’s electric charging range is about right for his daily round-trip commute, he said, while the fuel cell offers flexibility for longer trips.

Honda’s goal is to achieve 100% decarbonization, Perzynski said. However, limits on local electric grids can make that difficult in some places. “If you can electrify it, if it works, then do that,” he said. “And once that stops working, then thank goodness we’ve been investing in hydrogen for the last 20 years, because there are places and times when you run out of power.”

As a practical matter, the Ohio-made cars’ initial market will be California. For other states, Honda is counting on others to build out the fueling infrastructure. 

“The only way we can do that is through a coalition,” Perzynski said. “We can’t build infrastructure alone.”

Building a network

Millennium Reign Energy in Dayton has a membership model to develop hydrogen infrastructure along with the demand for it. Its Emerald H2 network will help customers buy used fuel cell vehicles, while also providing access to hydrogen fueling stations designed and built by the company.

As the number of customers in an area grows, Millennium Reign Energy would swap out the fueling station for one with larger capacity. The smaller station would then go to another location. Access to the stations would be for members only, although members traveling outside their local area could use stations elsewhere.

“Our mission is to build the first transcontinental hydrogen highway,” said CEO Chris McWhinney as he explained the model at the fuel cell program last month. The company’s fueling stations are already operating at places outside the United States, as well as three private facilities in Ohio. The company plans to add its first Emerald H2 network stations in the Dayton area early next year.

The stations use electricity and water to make hydrogen, so using one with a nearby source of solar, wind, hydropower or geothermal energy can provide green energy, versus just moving emissions from tailpipes up to power plants, McWhinney said. That can also bring the cost for the hydrogen fuel down below that of gasoline, he suggested, as renewable electricity continues to get cheaper.

Hurdles ahead

Whether hydrogen-powered passenger vehicles are the best use for renewable energy remains questionable. A study published in Joule last August found battery-electric vehicles were roughly three times more efficient in using renewable electricity than fuel-cell vehicles.

“The battery-electric case is much more efficient than the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle,” said Greg Keoleian, co-director of the University of Michigan’s MI Hydrogen initiative, and one of the co-authors of the Joule study. Ideally, renewable energy will be used efficiently, given the limited amount on the grid now and the urgent need to decarbonize because of climate change, he said.

Battery electric cars also have a much bigger charging network, with nearly 70,000 stations nationwide, Keoleian noted. Cost is also an issue, he added, noting that hydrogen fuel in California currently costs about five times as much as gasoline would to go the same distance. 

Henning did note that one of Ohio’s public transit systems, SARTA, the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority, has had hydrogen buses as part of its fleet since 2016. Transit fleets also often need a handful of passenger vehicles, which might be able to use tbuses’ hydrogen fueling station while also qualifying for bulk discounts that may start with the acquisition of five or six vehicles, he said.

The Department of Energy’s recent push for hydrogen hubs might also play an indirect role, suggested Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy. None of the hub projects so far focus on light-duty vehicles, but infrastructure developed for other purposes could make it easier to develop fueling stations. In that case, the Ohio companies could be angling for a competitive advantage. 

Yet much remains unknown about whether the incoming Trump administration will continue incentives begun in the Biden administration, Henning said. The law’s tax credit can apply to fuel cell vehicles with final assembly in North America, which might apply to Honda’s hybrid car — if the Inflation Reduction Act continues.

“I do think there is an appetite and there is a customer base for fuel cell electric vehicles, and I can imagine different use cases where that makes more sense” than an all-electric car, said Grant Goodrich, executive director of the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve University. Multiple people in Northeast Ohio have expressed reluctance to buy an electric vehicle now, especially given the challenges of harsh winter weather.

Yet the infrastructure for electric vehicles is much farther ahead, and electric vehicle makers continue to work to improve performance. “Will the technology of battery and electric vehicles improve enough to stay ahead of FCEV adoption so that is able to keep that challenge at bay?” Goodrich asked.

Early last month, he would have put money on the EV makers to stay ahead. After hearing the presentations from Honda, Millenium Reign Energy and DLZ, he’s not so sure. 

“It’s not a done deal,” Goodrich said, noting that the hydrogen fueling experience also seems to be a more natural replacement for the habits customers have adopted as drivers of vehicles with internal combustion engines. “If it was to roll out faster, I think you could see some competition there.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify Greg Keoleian’s role.

Why Ohio companies are investing in hydrogen cars despite infrastructure issues is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Emissions from buildings make up about two-thirds of the greenhouse gas footprint of Indianapolis. So when the city committed to slash emissions, in its 2019 climate action plan and then as part of the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge in 2020, leaders knew where they had to start.

A 2021 ordinance requires all buildings over 50,000 square feet and publicly-owned buildings over 25,000 square feet to do energy benchmarking and report results to the city, to be made publicly available by 2026. 

The deadline to comply was July 1, 2024. But at year’s end, only about 20% of the 1,500 buildings covered had complied — even though the process can be done in a matter of hours using EPA’s ENERGYSTAR Portfolio manager software. The city also hosted workshops to help walk building managers through the process.

Now the city’s challenge is to boost benchmarking compliance. The penalties for failing to comply are low: fines of $100 the first year and $250 yearly after that. Chicago’s 2013 benchmarking ordinance, by comparison, includes fines of $100 for the first day of a violation and up to $25 each day thereafter, with a maximum fine of $9,200 per year — and the city has a much higher compliance rate.

Lindsay Trameri, community engagement manager for the Indianapolis Office of Sustainability, said the office is continuing outreach, including sending postcards to all relevant building managers and owners. 

“We’re not assessing fines yet, but we’re making sure they’re aware this isn’t a city program that’s going away, it is indeed local law,” Trameri said. “And there are benefits to be gleaned from participating. It might cost hundreds of dollars not to participate, but you could save thousands if you participate and take it seriously.”

Trameri said 27 publicly-owned buildings in the consolidated city and county government must be benchmarked, and the city is planning to use about $800,000 worth of federal Department of Energy funding to hire an energy manager “who will be solely focused on looking at city-owned buildings and how to make them more energy efficient.” 

In Indiana, reducing buildings’ electricity use is particularly urgent since the state got about 45% of its power from coal in 2023. The benchmarking mandate doesn’t require buildings to take any action based on their energy results, but benchmarking often motivates building owners and municipalities to invest in savings, experts say. 

Cities participating in the Bloomberg program saw 3% to 8% energy reductions and millions in savings, with nearly 400 million square feet now covered by benchmarking policies and over 37,000 energy audits completed, according to Kelly Shultz, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies” sustainable cities initiative. 

Success stories

Though overall compliance is low, some major public and private entities have completed benchmarking in Indianapolis, including the airport, convention center, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Target and JC Penney. 

Phil Day, facilities director for the museum, noted that it’s crucial for museums to keep consistent levels of humidity and temperature. That means high energy use, and also vulnerability to blackouts or energy price spikes. Benchmarking has helped him develop plans for reducing natural gas and electricity use with smaller boilers and heat pumps distributed throughout the facilities, a possible geothermal chilling system, and better insulation. These innovations should save money and make the museum more resilient to energy disruptions.

“Museums aren’t typically known as an energy efficient facility, but it is always high on my priority list in everything we program or replace,” Day said.

The firm Cenergistic has done benchmarking since 2017 for Indianapolis Public Schools, and identified more than $1 million in wasteful energy costs that could be cut across 71 schools. Under Cenergistic’s contract, it is paid half of the energy savings it secures. Seventeen school buildings have obtained EPA Energy Star status based on their energy efficiency improvements, Cenergistic CEO Dennis Harris said. 

“Benchmarking provided a clear starting point by identifying high-energy-consuming facilities and systems,” Harris said. “Cenergistic energy specialists track energy consumption at all campuses with the company’s software platform, identifying waste and driving conservation. By consistently reviewing this data, Cenergistic continues to work with IPS to make data-driven decisions, set measurable goals, and continually refine its strategy for maximum impact.” 

Trameri said the schools’ success is “a great message to point to. If they can do it, we can do it. Of course, we want those millions to go back into classrooms and teachers and students versus out the door for utility costs.”

Learning by example

Trameri said in developing its benchmarking program and ordinance, Indianapolis has relied on guidance and lessons from other cities including Columbus, Ohio and Chicago, both fellow participants in the Bloomberg challenge. 

In Chicago, about 85% of the 3,700 buildings covered by the ordinance are in compliance, said Amy Jewel, vice president of programs at Elevate, the organization that oversees Chicago’s program. She said nine out of 10 buildings complied even right after the ordinance took effect, thanks to years of organizing by city leaders and NGOs like the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“A large number of building owners recognized this was coming. They engaged in the process, and saw their fingerprints within the ordinance,” said Lindy Wordlaw, director of climate and environmental justice initiatives for the city of Chicago. 

Chicago passed an additional ordinance creating an energy rating program, where buildings receive a score of 0 to 4 based on their energy benchmarking results. An 11-by-17-inch placard with the score and explanation must be publicly posted, “similar to a food safety rating for a restaurant,” Wordlaw said.

In 2021, Chicago reported that median energy use per square foot had dropped by 7% over the past three years, and greenhouse gas emissions had dropped 37% since 2016 in buildings subject to the ordinance. City public housing and buildings owned by the Archdiocese were among those to do early benchmarking and investments.

Along with Philadelphia, New York and Washington D.C., Chicago was among the nation’s first major cities to institute benchmarking. Jewel said they hope to keep sharing lessons learned.

For example, “it’s actually pretty hard to come up with the covered buildings list,” Jewel noted, since there is no central list of all buildings in a city but rather various records “all used for slightly different purposes — the property tax database, different sources tracking violations. It took a bit of time to get that list together, and it takes time to maintain it as buildings are constructed or demolished.”

In Indianapolis, Trameri said they are hopeful more buildings will get with the program as awareness grows about the requirement.

“There has always been evidence that you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said Trameri. “It’s a market-based strategy. Truly once a facilities owner or manager is able to look at their energy usage over a month, 12 months, or multiple years and make evidence-based decisions based on that data, it will affect your bottom line, and those savings you can reinvest into whatever your organization’s mission is.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misattributed performance information about Bloomberg Philanthropies’ sustainable cities initiative.

Indianapolis grapples with low compliance on energy benchmarking requirement for large buildings is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Amid a surge in utility shutoffs, and in the face of a groundbreaking study finding racial disparities in those outcomes, Minnesota’s largest utility is taking a closer look at the issue.

In a November agreement with consumer groups and the state’s Public Utilities Commission, Xcel Energy has outlined a series of steps to provide more information to customers and make it easier for them to restore service.

Xcel also agreed to hire an outside consultant to conduct a one-year study of disparity issues related to disconnections and outages and, separately, do its own analysis of outages. The move came in response to a University of Minnesota study released earlier this year that found that people of color were more likely than White households to have their service disconnected for falling behind on bills, even when controlling for income and home ownership status. 

The agreement falls short of a demand from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office for Xcel to institute a temporary moratorium on shutoffs until racial disparities are addressed, based on a recommendation from Fresh Energy and a coalition formed by Cooperative Energy Futures, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Sierra Club, and Vote Solar. 

Erica McConnell, staff attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, represented the clean energy organizations advocating for grid equity. She supported the agreement but believes it will do little to help reduce disparities in shutoffs. 

“These are very important improvements that don’t really address — and the commission didn’t discuss — the disparate impacts and the racial disparity (of disconnections) and how to address that specifically,” she said.

A temporary moratorium on disconnections would have allowed for time to study disparities and find ways to address them.  

“The commission didn’t talk about that,” McConnell said. “They didn’t address it at all, so that was disappointing. I understand it’s uncomfortable and it’s a tough issue, but it’s disappointing they shied away taking it head on.”

Shutoffs soaring

Beyond the challenge of disparities, Xcel’s number of service disconnections has skyrocketed. More than 45,000 Xcel customers saw their power shut off this year, a number that has grown significantly over the last two decades. 

Xcel agreed to many proposals from the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota, the Energy CENTS Coalition, clean energy organizations and the Public Utilities Commission to create more consumer protection against shutoffs.

Xcel Energy’s involuntary disconnection notices began rising significantly in 2023 before skyrocketing in 2024, when shutoffs doubled the prior year’s total for May through July. Despite Minnesota’s cold weather protection rules that limit disconnections during the winter through April 30, shutoffs even grew during the winter months.

Clean energy and consumer organizations point to Xcel’s ability to remotely disconnect customers who have smart meters as a major reason for the shutoffs, along with inflation, escalating rate increases and challenging repayment requirements. Xcel had demanded customers pay 50% of what they owe to reconnect, which may have violated Minnesota law, according to the Citizens Utility Board. 

Xcel’s pact with the Citizens Utility Board and Energy CENTS “is going to make payment agreements more affordable and hopefully help households that are behind on their bills avoid getting shut off and get caught back up,” said Annie Levenson-Falk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota.

The utility board and Energy CENTS Coalition forged the agreement with Xcel under the purview of the Public Utilities Commission, which will issue a final order later. The agreement requires the following:

• Customers will pay 10% of what they owe to have the power turned back on, instead of 50%.
• The amount due will have to be at least $180 before Xcel can send a disconnect notice.
• Xcel cannot shut off power until a customer reaches a $300 past due balance. Xcel’s data from this year showed disconnected customers were $441 in arrears on average in October and much higher in other months.
• The utility must wait at least 10 days after a shutoff notice has been sent to disconnect, up from five days.
• Xcel must post clear disconnection and payment policies on its website, along with information about customers’ right to develop an affordable repayment plan. Any changes Xcel makes to shutoff policies and repayments have to be reported to the commission, and it must collect data on repayments and customer agreements.
• A variance allowing remote disconnections without field visits from Xcel remains, but the utility must contact customers via voicemail and use at least one other form of electronic communication.

Xcel spokesperson Kevin Coss said the utility believes “this agreement is a great step toward reducing disconnections for some of our customers who continue to struggle economically.”

Options for customers

George Shardlow, Energy CENTS executive director, said he thought a clearer explanation of the disconnection process on Xcel’s website brings a transparency that had been lacking.

“I don’t think the average person even knows that they have a right to negotiate when they’re struggling to pay their bills,” he said. “It’s all sort of opaque. We’re excited to see better documentation of people’s rights on Xcel’s website.”

Minnesota law says utility customers are “entitled” to a payment plan they can afford, Shardlow said. Customers who cannot afford the 10% down payment can still negotiate for a settlement that fits their budget, he added.

Shutoffs have been growing. This year Xcel sent disconnection notices to 51,000 customers in January and 71,000 in July. But not all notices result in shutoffs. The highest month for disconnections, May, saw more than 10,000 shutoffs. By August, slightly more than 8,400 customers had been disconnected.

Coss said Xcel works with customers to avoid disconnection by starting a nine-week process of contacting them through multiple channels to “point them to available options for energy assistance — both through the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and our own affordability programs — and offer flexible payment plans tailored to their circumstances.”

Minnesota also has cold weather protections that greatly reduce utilities’ ability to disconnect customers in winter months. But people who fail to pay their bills in winter see their balances grow, leading to higher disconnections in summer when they fail to catch up.

Xcel agreed to monitor progress and collect more data on racial disparities involving customers involuntarily shut off. The utility has already hired a third party evaluator, as the agreement requires, to study its shutoff policies and hold stakeholder engagement meetings during the year-long process.

Coss said disparities result in inequities throughout society and Xcel has been doing its part to address them. The utility has worked with the study’s authors and advocacy groups to identify actions to reduce disparities, he said.   

Earlier this year, the commission also approved a proposal by Xcel for a pilot program that will provide bill credits to select census tracts with high levels of disconnections. Coss said Xcel will provide $500 bill credits to customers in low-income census areas who have a greater than $2,000 past-due balance, using money available from a quality of service program.

Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Joe Sullivan said he believed the agreement negotiated among the nonprofits and utility would reduce the financial strain on households facing disconnections and assist Xcel in recovering debt.

“I thought that in that docket people came together and were constructive,” he said. “I feel like I’m hopeful that the order will make some progress.”

PUC Chair Katie Sieben said the commission is “always looking at affordability, and especially as it pertains to low-income customers, I think we have a great track record on working with stakeholders and with utilities to provide robust low-income assistance to customers.”

She mentioned the commission’s role in approving an Xcel pilot to decrease payments for low-income, low-usage customers and a September decision that used a penalty for the utility’s service quality underperformance to provide bill credits to around 1,000 customers with the oldest outstanding balances in low-income census tracts.

‘Still more work to do’

The agreement does not solve the problem of low-income customers struggling to pay utility bills. Shardlow said Energy CENTS and the Citizens Utility Board lobbied the state legislature to allow households to apply for energy assistance funding the entire year instead of the current policy of having a deadline of May 31. Only 20% of eligible Minnesota households participate in the program, he said.

Levenson-Falk wants Xcel to consider eliminating the 1.5% late fee it charges customers on their balance, or consider donating the money to affordability programs.

The Citizens Utility Board also wants Xcel to develop a plan to reconnect customers quickly on days of high heat or poor air quality. Coss said Xcel will evaluate reconnecting customers disconnected during days of air quality alerts.

Levenson-Falk said the agreement at least makes progress. “I think we resolved everything that we had discussed with Xcel but that’s not to say that we think this is going to solve the problem, because, of course, there are still going to be continuing shutoffs, and those are still very concerning,” she said. “There’s still more work to do.”

This story was updated to include a statement from Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Chair Katie Sieben.

Fresh Energy staff, board members and funders do not have access to or oversight of the Energy News Network’s editorial process. More about our relationship with Fresh Energy can be found in our code of ethics.

As utility shutoffs soar in Minnesota, Xcel Energy agrees to consumer protections and racial disparities study is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Living in a net-zero home is often a luxury for those who can afford solar panels, state-of-the-art HVAC and other innovations and renovations.

But lower-income people are those who could benefit most from energy cost savings, and those who suffer most from extreme climate. Milwaukee is trying to address this disconnect by building net-zero homes for low-income buyers in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, a marquee project of the city’s 2023 Climate and Equity Plan.

In September, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $3.4 million grant that will go toward Milwaukee’s construction of 35 homes on vacant lots in disadvantaged neighborhoods and the opening of a factory to make wall panels for net-zero manufactured homes.

City leaders have found the undertaking more challenging than expected, especially on the factory front. But they hope overcoming roadblocks will help create a new local and regional market for energy-efficient, affordable prefabricated homes, while also training a new generation of architects in the sector through partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

“It remains an ambitious project,” said Milwaukee environmental sustainability director Erick Shambarger. “We’re trying to support equity, climate, new technology, manufacturing. It takes some time, but we’re excited about it and looking forward to making it a success.”

Panelized, prefabricated homes can be built relatively cheaply, but making them highly energy efficient is a different story. A handful of small companies nationwide make the wall panels used in such construction to highly energy-efficient standards, but transporting the panels is expensive and creates greenhouse gas emissions. 

The city sought a local manufacturer, but an initial request for proposals yielded no viable candidates. Now the city and UWM professors are working with the Rocky Mountain Institute to convince a qualified company to open a site in Milwaukee to make energy-efficient panelized home components at commercial scale, for both the city and private customers.

“It’s such a great fit for Milwaukee,” said Lucas Toffoli, a principal in RMI’s carbon-free buildings program. “It’s a city that has a very strong blue-collar tradition, so the idea of bringing back some manufacturing, and leveling up the home-building capacity of the city feels very congruent with the spirit of Milwaukee.”

And panelized homes could be a cornerstone of affordable, energy-efficient housing nationwide if the sector was better organized and incentivized, RMI argues — a goal that Milwaukee could help further. 

“Local action always drives a message in a way that federal action doesn’t,” Toffoli said. “It will be even more important under the incoming presidential administration and Congress. Having this project getting started at the local level in an important Midwestern city is a way to help ensure that progress continues at some level, even if it’s less of a priority at the federal level.” 

Panel problems

Habitat for Humanity builds its own panels in its Milwaukee warehouse, and is working on an energy-efficient panelized design that it hope will yield the first net-zero affordable homes in 2025. Milwaukee has yet to select a developer for the DOE-funded program, but Milwaukee Habitat was a partner in the DOE grant and CEO Brian Sonderman said the organization is hopeful it will be chosen during an RFP process.

Single-family homes are typically “stick built” from the ground up, with 2×4 or similar boards forming a skeleton and then, one by one, walls. Panelized homes involve walls transported intact to the site. 

Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity often uses a hybrid method wherein walls are “stick built” laying on their side in the Habitat warehouse, and then brought to the site where volunteers help assemble the new house.

There are various other methods of making panels that don’t involve lumber, UWM Associate Professor Alexander Timmer explained, and making these models highly energy efficient is still an emerging and decentralized field.

“It’s the chicken-or-the-egg problem in some sense,” Timmer said, since component manufacturers don’t know if there’s a market for energy-efficient panelized homes, and developers don’t build the homes because few component suppliers exist.

Wall panels can involve two sheets of plywood with insulation in between, or a steel interior surrounded by rigid insulation, among other models.

“With 2x4s, any small crew can build a home,” said Timmer. “With panelized, you need a factory, specialized tools, specialized knowledge. The hope is we are graduating architects into the market who know these technologies and techniques, and can design them to high energy efficiency standards. The city needs architects and builders who want to do these things and feel comfortable doing them.”

Toffoli touted the benefits of net-zero homes beyond the carbon emissions and utility bill savings.

“There’s less draftiness, greater comfort throughout the whole home,” said Toffoli. “In addition to making the heater run less to warm the air, there’s a big comfort benefit and acoustic benefit,” with little noise or pollutants filtering into the well-sealed home.

“In the middle of a severe Wisconsin winter storm, [if] power goes out for everyone, you have a home that can basically ride through harsh conditions passively much better,” Toffoli added. 

Toffoli said examples in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts show panelized, highly energy-efficient homes can be built at costs not much greater than standard market panelized homes. A different design, including thinner studs and more insulation, means less heat or cold is transported from the outside in. Insulation and highly efficient windows cost more than market rate, but smaller appliances can be used because of the efficiency, helping to mitigate the cost increase. 

He said mass production of net-zero panelized homes is much more efficient and cost-effective than stick-built energy-efficient homes. 

“You don’t need to, every time, find a contractor who understands the proper sequence of control layers for a very high-performance wall,” Toffoli said. “It’s been done in part in a factory where they’re plugging and chugging on a design that’s been validated and repeated.”

The DOE grant includes $1 million for Milwaukee to incentivize construction of the panel factory, $40,000 each toward 25 homes, plus funds for administration and other costs. Shambarger said $40,000 per home will cover the construction cost difference between an affordable home that merely complies with building codes, and one that is net-zero – meeting federal standards with a highly efficient envelope, an electric heat pump and solar panels.

Shambarger noted that the city funding and business will not be enough to motivate a company to build a new factory in Milwaukee.  

“Any company is going to have to have a customer base” beyond the city orders, Shambarger said. “We’ll have to make sure other housing developers like the product that companies have, that it’s cost effective. One of the things we learned the first time around is most of the developers really didn’t understand how to do net-zero energy. We want to make sure the product we select fits within Milwaukee neighborhoods, will work in our climate, has buy-in from the community.”

Local jobs would be created by the factory, which is slated to be in Century City, the neighborhood with the most vacant manufacturing space.

“Overall with the climate and equity plan, we are trying to create good-paying jobs that people want,” Shambarger said. “That often means the trades. One of the things attractive about building housing components in a factory is it offers steady year-round employment, rather than having to go on unemployment for the winter,” as many building tradespeople do.

Creating Habitat

Sonderman said that in the past, Milwaukee Habitat has put solar on some homes, but little else specifically to lower energy costs.

“Clearly if there was a really substantial market for developers who were interested and willing to do this work, the reality is Habitat wouldn’t be the first call,” he said. “It’s something new. One of the things we’re looking forward to is sharing with our Habitat network in the state and other developers and builders, so we build some confidence this can be done efficiently and cost-effectively.”

Net-zero homes are not only a way to fight climate change, but an environmental and economic justice issue in predominantly Black neighborhoods scarred by redlining and disinvestment, where the majority of residents are renters, Sonderman added.

“Even for the individuals who don’t live in that home but live in the neighborhood, it breathes hope, it says that our neighborhood is being invested in,” Sonderman said. “That matters deeply for the residents of Lindsay Heights, Harambee, Midtown and elsewhere. To take a project like this and see it come to fruition has tremendous ripple effect in a positive way.”

Several other Habitat chapters nationwide are building net-zero homes, including in Colorado, Illinois and Oregon.

Milwaukee Habitat is planning to build 34 homes in 2025 and up to 60 homes annually by 2028. Sonderman said they will make as many as possible net-zero.

“We’re not in a capacity to be the full-scale factory [Shambarger] was envisioning,” he said. “But we believe we’ll be able to supply the walls we need to build dozens and dozens of net-zero homes in the future.”

Milwaukee plans to build net-zero modular homes for lower-income residents — but it’s not easy is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A new contract between Kalamazoo, Michigan, and utility Consumers Energy signals a change in direction for the city’s clean energy strategy as it seeks to become carbon neutral by 2040. 

Solar was seen as a pillar of the city’s plans when it declared a climate emergency in 2019 and set a goal of zeroing out carbon emissions by 2040. After spending years exploring its options, though, the Michigan city is tempering a vision for rooftop solar in favor of large, more distant solar projects built and owned by the utility. It’s not alone either, with Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Muskegon and other cities taking a similar approach.

“Folks want to see solar panels on parking lots and buildings, but there’s no way as a city we can accomplish our net-zero buildings just putting solar panels on a roof,” said Justin Gish, Kalamazoo’s sustainability planner. “Working with the utility seemed to make the most sense.” 

Initially there was skepticism, Gish said — “environmentalists tend to not trust utilities and large corporate entities” — but the math just didn’t work out for going it alone with rooftop solar.

The city’s largest power user, the wastewater treatment station, has a pumping house with a roof of only 225 square feet. Kalamazoo’s largest city-owned roof, at the public service station, is 26,000 square feet. Spending an estimated $750,000 to cover that with solar would only provide 14% of the power that building uses annually — a financial “non-starter,” he said.

So the city decided to partner with Consumers Energy, joining a solar subscription program wherein Kalamazoo will tell Consumers how much solar energy it wants, starting in 2028, and the utility will use funds from its subscription fee to construct new solar farms, like a 250 MW project Consumers is building in Muskegon. 

Under the 20-year contract, Kalamazoo will pay a set rate of 15.8 cents per kWh — 6.4 cents more than what it currently pays — for 43 million kWh of solar power per year. If electricity market rates rise, the city will save money, and Kalamazoo receives Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to help meet its energy goals. 

The subscription is expected to eliminate about 80% of Kalamazoo’s emissions from electricity, Gish said. The electricity used to power streetlights and traffic signals couldn’t be covered since it is not metered. As the city acquires more electric vehicles — it currently has two — electricity demand may increase, but city leaders hope to offset any increases by improving energy efficiency of city buildings.  

Consumers Energy spokesperson Matt Johnson said the company relies “in part” on funds from customers specifically to build solar, and considers it a better deal for cities than building it themselves, “which would be more costly for them, and they have to do their own maintenance.”  

“We can do it in a more cost-effective way, we maintain it, they’re helping us fund it and do it in the right way, and those benefits get passed on to arguably everybody,” Johnson said. 

Grand Rapids, Michigan, joined the subscription program at the same time as Kalamazoo. Corporate customers including 7-Eleven, Walmart and General Motors are part of the same Consumers Energy solar subscription program, as is the state of Michigan.

Costs and benefits

“There’s a growing movement of cities trying to figure out solar — ‘Yes we want to do this, it could save us money over time, but the cost is prohibitive,’” said John Farrell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. 

Until the Inflation Reduction Act, cities couldn’t directly access federal tax credits. The direct-pay incentives under the IRA have simplified financing, Farrell said, but cities still face other financial and logistical barriers, such as whether they have sufficient rooftop space.  

Advocates acknowledge deals with utilities may be the most practical way for budget-strapped cities to move the needle on clean energy, but they emphasize that cities should also strive to develop their own solar, and question whether utilities should charge more for clean power that is increasingly a cheaper option than fossil fuels.

“Our position is rooftop and distributed generation is best — it’s best for the customers, in this case the cities; it’s best for the grid, because you’re putting those resources directly on the grid where it’s needed most; and it’s best for the planet because it can deploy a lot faster,” said John Delurey, Midwest deputy director of the advocacy group Vote Solar. “I believe customers in general and perhaps cities in particular should exhaust all resources and opportunities for distributed generation before they start to explore utility-scale resources. It’s the lowest hanging fruit and very likely to provide the most bang for their buck.”

Utility-scale solar is more cost-effective per kilowatt, but Delurey notes that when a public building is large enough for solar, “you are putting that generation directly on load, you’re consuming onsite. Anything that is concurrent consumption or paired with a battery, you are getting the full retail value of that energy. That is a feature you can’t really beat no matter how good the contract is with some utility-scale projects that are farther away.”

Delurey also noted that Michigan law mandates all energy be from clean sources by 2040; and 50% by 2030. That means Consumers needs to be building or buying renewable power, whether or not customers pay extra for it. 

“So there are diminishing returns [to a subscription deal] at that point,” Delurey said. “You better be getting a price benefit, because the power on their grid would be clean anyways.” 

“Some folks are asking ‘Why do anything now? Just wait until Consumers cleans up the grid,’” Gish acknowledged. “But our purchase shows we have skin in the game.” 

A complement to rooftop

In 2009, Milwaukee adopted a goal of powering 25% of city operations — excluding waterworks — with solar by 2025. The city’s Climate and Equity Plan adopted in 2023 also enshrined that goal. 

For a decade, Milwaukee has been battling We Energies over the city’s plan to install rooftop solar on City Hall and other buildings through a third-party owner, Eagle Point Solar. The city sought the arrangement — common in many states — to tap federal tax incentives that a nonprofit public entity couldn’t reap. But We Energies argued that third party ownership would mean Eagle Point would be acting as a utility and infringing on We Energies’ territory. A lawsuit over Milwaukee’s plans with Eagle Point is still pending.

In 2018, We Energies launched a pilot solar program in Milwaukee known by critics as “rent a roof,” in which the utility leased rooftop space for its own solar arrays. Advocates and Milwaukee officials opposed the program, arguing that it encouraged the utility to suppress the private market or publicly-owned solar. In 2023, the state Public Service Commission denied the utility’s request to expand the program.

Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board opposed the rent-a-roof arrangement since it passed costs they viewed as unfair on to ratepayers. But Wisconsin CUB executive director Tom Content said the city’s current partnership with We Energies is different, since it is just the city, not ratepayers, footing the cost for solar that helps the city meet its goals.

Milwaukee is paying about $84,000 extra per year for We Energies to build solar farms on a city landfill near the airport and outside the city limits in the town of Caledonia. The deal includes a requirement that We Energies hire underemployed or unemployed Milwaukee residents.

The Caledonia project is nearly complete, and will provide over 11 million kWh of energy annually, “enough to make 57 municipal police stations, fire stations, and health clinics 100% renewable electricity,” said Milwaukee Environmental Collaboration Office director Erick Shambarger. 

The landfill project is slated to break ground in 2025. The two arrays will total 11 MW and provide enough power for 83 city buildings, including City Hall – where Milwaukee had hoped to do the rooftop array with Eagle Point. 

Meanwhile Milwaukee is building its own rooftop solar on the Martin Luther King Jr. library and later other public buildings, and Shambarger said they will apply for direct pay tax credits made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act — basically eliminating the need for a third-party agreement.

“Utility-scale is the complement to rooftop,” said Shambarger. “They own it and maintain it, we get the RECs. It worked out pretty well. If you think about it from a big picture standpoint, to now have the utility offer a big customer like the city an option to source their power from renewable energy — that didn’t exist five years ago. If you were a big customer in Wisconsin five years ago, you really had no option except for buying RECs from who knows where. We worked hard with them to make sure we could see our renewable energy being built.”

We Energies already owns a smaller 2.25 MW solar farm on the same landfill, under a similar arrangement. Building solar on the landfill is less efficient than other types of land, since special mounting is needed to avoid puncturing the landfill’s clay cap, and the panels can’t turn to follow the sun. But Shambarger said the sacrifice is worth it to have solar within the city limits, on land useful for little else.

“We do think it’s important to have some of this where people can see it and understand it,” he said. “We also have the workforce requirements, it’s nice to have it close to home for our local workers.”

Madison is also pursuing a mix of city-owned distributed solar and utility-scale partnerships. 

On Earth Day 2024, Madison announced it has installed 2 MW of solar on 38 city rooftops. But a utility-scale solar partnership with utility MGE is also crucial to the goal of 100% clean energy for city operations by 2030. Through MGE’s Renewable Energy Rider program, Madison helped pay for the 8 MW Hermsdorf Solar Fields on a city landfill, with 5 MW devoted to city operations and 3 MW devoted to the school district. The 53-acre project went online in 2022.

Farrell said such “all of the above” approaches are ideal.

“The lesson we’ve seen generally is the more any entity can directly own the solar project, the more financial benefit you’ll get,” he said. “Ownership comes with privileges, and with risks. 

“Energy is in addition to a lot of other challenging issues that cities have to work on. The gold standard is solar on a couple public buildings with battery storage, so these are resiliency places if the grid goes down.”

Correction: Covering Kalamazoo’s public service station roof with solar panels would provide an estimated 14% of power used by that building. An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the number.

In Michigan and Wisconsin, cities are finding rooftops alone may not achieve solar energy goals  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Community and environmental justice advocates say the Biden administration is failing to deliver promised transparency and public engagement around its $7 billion clean hydrogen hub initiative.

“Engagement isn’t merely leading people into a process that’s going to happen with or without them,” said Tom Torres, hydrogen program director for the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit serving one of the regions where federally funded partnerships are trying to lay the groundwork for new local hydrogen economies. “It means meaningfully involving people in the decisions about the project.”

The U.S. Department of Energy announced funding in October 2023 for seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — clusters of interconnected projects meant to kickstart production of the fuel with little or no greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the department has held online briefings and virtual listening sessions for each hub, but advocates say they are not getting the kind of information necessary to assess who will be impacted by the projects and how.

Torres and others say they want more than just dots on a map. They want to know how hydrogen will be produced, how it will be used, and how it will get to end users. For projects that depend on carbon capture, they want to know how and where the carbon will be captured, transported and stored. And once the specifics are known, they want a chance to have meaningful input on the final projects.

Spokespeople for the Department of Energy and regional hubs said the answers to those questions are still being worked out and that more engagement is on the horizon.  Advocates are increasingly frustrated and fear that community input will come too late to affect how the hubs are developed.

“It doesn’t make sense … on one hand to say there’s not enough on paper to tell the public about, but on the other hand there is enough to allocate almost $1 billion for these companies,” Torres said.

Are events just ‘checking a box’?

When burned as a fuel source, hydrogen does not emit carbon dioxide, but its production today almost always comes from fossil fuels. Some see a potential for hydrogen to replace natural gas in certain hard-to-electrify sectors such as industry or heavy duty transportation, but the benefits for addressing climate change hinge on whether it can be produced cleanly and at scale.

The Biden administration’s hydrogen hub program, part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, aims to ramp up production of hydrogen made with low-carbon energy, including renewables, nuclear power, and fossil fuels paired with carbon capture. 

“It is literally like building the natural gas infrastructure that we have all over the place again for hydrogen,” said Shawn Bennett, energy and resilience manager for Battelle, the project manager for the Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub, ARCH2, which includes projects for Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. A majority of its projects will use steam methane reforming to make hydrogen from natural gas, along with carbon capture and storage. Other projects in the hub plan to make hydrogen from waste gases or from electrolysis, which uses energy to split water molecules. 

In May, dozens of groups urged the Department of Energy to suspend funding discussions for the ARCH2 project until the public receives detailed information beyond general maps and short project descriptions. On July 31 the Department of Energy formally committed the first $30 million of federal funding to ARCH2, with a total of up to $925 million to be spent over the next decade or so.

Last month, the Department of Energy committed up to $1 billion for the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, MachH2, which spans Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa and plans to produce hydrogen from a mix of nuclear power, wind energy and natural gas. The department will hold a December 9 briefing on MachH2.

In response to the Energy News Network’s questions about community groups’ complaints about a lack of outreach, a Department of Energy spokesperson provided a statement saying it “has been actively engaged with these communities in support of the economic playbook” of the Biden-Harris administration.

The ARCH2 project held a community outreach session in West Virginia in November, and additional meetings will be held in Ohio and Pennsylvania early next year, Bennett said. Some community group members protested outside at the West Virginia session but then came inside for a good discussion, he added.

Torres said there was no general presentation at the West Virginia meeting, and company representatives were present for only a handful of the hub’s projects. Even then, project information was still sparse. 

“It wasn’t an opportunity for people’s voices to be heard,” he said. “What is the value of these events other than checking a box for these companies?”

Advocacy groups focusing on the MachH2 project said months went by without getting updates or details. Then last month, they got less than 24 hours’ notice for a briefing with general descriptions about the MachH2 hub projects.

During that session, representatives for the Department of Energy said a decision on the hub’s funding commitment would come soon, “probably next week sometime,” said Susan Thomas, the legislative and policy director and communications manager for Just Transition Northwest Indiana. Minutes after the November 20 session ended, the Department of Energy announced the MachH2 funding commitment. 

“Our jaws were on the table,” Thomas said.

Details remain to be worked out

Groups have been trying to get answers from the Department of Energy for more than a year, said Chris Chyung, executive director of Indiana Conservation Voters. In his view, the agency’s approach “is just flouting the law.” According to the Department of Energy’s website, engagement with communities and labor is a key principle required in hubs’ community benefits plans, which are part of hubs’ contractual obligations for funding.

Community groups learned in the November 20 briefing that the MachH2 community engagement would not address concerns related to any pipelines associated with the hub. Instead, those would be handled by a separate office within the Department of Energy. 

But a pipeline for northwestern Indiana “is absolutely part and parcel of [a] dirty hydrogen project that is part of MachH2,” and the community should get a say on it, said Lauren Piette, an attorney with Earthjustice, which does not consider hydrogen made with natural gas to be climate-friendly, even with carbon capture.

The Department of Energy spokesperson did not respond to the Energy News Network’s question about how community benefits for hub projects can fully be assessed if they don’t include consideration of issues and input related to necessary pipelines.

Representatives of the MachH2 and ARCH2 hubs who spoke at an Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Consortium program last month said they couldn’t practically engage in community outreach until funding commitments had been negotiated with the Department of Energy. Until then, it wasn’t certain whether each hub would move forward.

Also, as a practical matter, “there was no budget for these things,” Bennett said. Details for each hub’s projects are still being worked out, and ARCH2 is still trying to add additional project partners.

Even then, details for projects won’t be finalized until review under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to Neil Banwart, who is the chief integration officer for the MachH2 hub and also the managing director for hydrogen at Energy Systems Network. 

“It’s not a certainty that all of the projects will get built in the locations that we shared on a map,” he said.

Chyung said he felt the comments about funding were “a complete dodge on behalf of these extremely wealthy national corporations that have said since 2023 they were eager to get started on community outreach.”

Advocates frustrated by lack of transparency, engagement on regional hydrogen hub projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Charlotte, North Carolina, may soon get access to a new tool to deploy in its push toward 100% clean power: data.

The Tar Heel state’s largest city aims to power all government operations with carbon-free electricity by the end of the decade, including the city-owned Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, one of the busiest in the world. 

But the hub is a big question mark for the city’s climate target. Officials don’t actually know how much energy it uses — or how much renewable energy they need to offset it — because the utility bills for the five-terminal airport are paid by dozens of individual customers, from Cinnabon to Jamba Juice to airline club lounges.

Now, after a decade of urging by Charlotte and others, Duke Energy has a proposal to change that: an eight-page plan for improved data access that has sign-off from the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association; Public Staff, the state-sanctioned customer advocate; and Dominion Energy, which serves the northeast corner of the state.

Filed last month with regulators for approval, Duke’s proposed rules could have wide application, said Ethan Blumenthal, regulatory counsel for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association. 

“For municipalities applying for federal grants, large customers pursuing energy efficiency, and homeowners and solar companies that are trying to right-size solar installations,” Blumenthal said, “this access to data is essential.”

Avoiding a ‘laborious process’

The Charlotte airport is a prime example of one hurdle facing local communities with climate goals. Today, getting total energy usage data for government-owned buildings with multiple meters means reaching out to individual tenants to get permission to access their accounts.  

“It would be a very laborious process to do that at the airport and anywhere else we have tenants,” said Aaron Tauber, Charlotte’s sustainability analyst.

The problem extends to private building owners who aim to reduce their carbon footprints or improve efficiency but don’t have insight into their renters’ energy consumption. Honeywell, for instance, is a partner in the city’s “Power Down the Crown” initiative, whereby building managers look to reduce energy use by optimizing efficiency. 

“They don’t own all of the data,” Tauber said. “They have tenants in their properties. So, they don’t have visibility to the entire building’s energy use.” 

The new rule will allow a large user, from Honeywell to Charlotte, to access aggregated data for a large building with multiple tenants by request to Duke, so long as at least 15 individual accounts are involved, and none consumes more than 15% of the building’s energy use. 

“Being a larger city, we do have a lot of large buildings with multiple tenants,” said Tauber. “I’m just really excited for these building owners to really — for the first time — gain an understanding of how their buildings are using energy.”

That understanding, he said, is critical for commercial properties to access a new law that allows them to borrow public money for energy efficiency upgrades and pay it back on their property tax bills.  

“Being able to unlock a financing mechanism based on this data will really go a long way for the city to be able to meet our strategic energy action goal of being a low-carbon community,” said Tauber.

Not just for big buildings

The data access rule also applies to a census block, zip code, or other area with at least 15 accounts, which will help local governments meet community-wide climate goals. 

“You can use the aggregated data to make good decisions for program design, and where you might want to target,” said Ann Livingston, senior executive and director of programs with the Southeast Sustainability Directors Network. “You can assess: is this particular block or neighborhood really using a lot more energy per house per square foot than others?” 

Durham County, for instance, together with neighboring Granville and Orange counties, has a $1.5 million federal grant to help low-income homeowners cut their energy use through weatherization and other upgrades.  

“We want to focus in areas where there’s a higher energy use or higher energy burden,” said Tobin Freid, the county’s sustainability manager. “We’d like information at a more granular level than just the county.”

If the new Duke rule is approved, it will also help county officials better tailor the program to individual households and assess its impacts. The proposal would ease the approval process for allowing third-party access to data and ensure that at least two years of prior energy use is included.

“For every home that we work on, we would need historic data to see: what was your energy use before?” Freid said.

Both the aggregated data and third-party access provisions will also be critical for federal programs like Solar for All, aimed at deploying rooftop solar on low-income households. 

“Often, those federal funding opportunities require you to assess and report on energy impact,” said Livingston. “Solar for All will be a very clear example of this, where you need to report energy savings for individual participants.”

Growing interest in local impact

Apart from the sustainability goals, government officials also have a commitment to manage public dollars efficiently, Livingston noted. That’s especially pertinent for large energy users like Durham County, who may pay a higher “demand charge” for a single 30-minute spike in energy use. Large customers with net-metered solar power also pay more during times of peak demand. 

The proposed rules will help solve these challenges by allowing third parties access to machine-readable, easily analyzed data for customers of all sizes. The format would essentially meet national “Green Button” standards, one familiar to the many companies around the country dedicated to managing building energy performance.

The Green Button initiative, a project of the U.S. Department of Energy that originated in Canada, has been around for over a decade – about as long as the Sustainable Energy Association has been advocating for improved customer data access, along with counties like Durham.

But the issue seems to have gained new steam in recent months, as local governments look to take advantage of new federal grants and laws aimed at reducing climate pollution.

What’s more, Blumenthal said, Duke has pledged to implement the rules within 18 months of their approval and help expedite any data requests in the interim.

“There is a commitment to doing everything they can, essentially, to provide data for federal funding purposes up until [the proposal] is fully implemented,” Blumenthal said. “A commitment to try to bridge the gap.”

Asked what prompted the agreement with Blumenthal’s group and others after all this time, Duke spokesperson Logan Stewart said over email: 

“A lot has changed in the last decade from a technology, cybersecurity, and customer engagement perspective that made this stipulation possible. Duke Energy is always looking for ways to collaborate with stakeholders to achieve outcomes that benefit customers.”

Duke Energy data access rules poised to help North Carolina communities meet climate goals is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A trailblazing regional greenhouse gas partnership on the East Coast is considering possible changes or expansion that would allow it to keep building on its success — and the stakes grew higher last month with the reelection of Donald Trump.

The 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, established in 2005, is the country’s first regional cap-and-invest system for reducing carbon emissions from power generation. Since 2021, administrators have been conducting a program review, analyzing its performance since the last review in 2017 and weighing potential adjustments to make sure it continues to deliver benefits to member states.

The role of such programs is more crucial as Trump’s pledges to roll back federal climate action leaves it up to cities, states, and the private sector to maintain the country’s momentum on clean energy over the next four years. In RGGI, as the regional initiative is known, states have a potential model for scaling their impact through collaboration. 

“RGGI has not only been an effective climate policy, it’s been an extraordinary example of how states can work together on common goals,” said Daniel Sosland, president of climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “It is a major vehicle for climate policy now in the states, more than it might have seemed before the election.” 

How RGGI works

RGGI sets a cap for total power plant carbon emissions among member states. Individual generators must then buy allowances from the state, up to the total cap, for each ton of carbon dioxide they produce in a year. The cap lowers over time, forcing power plants to either reduce emissions or pay more to buy allowances from a shrinking pool.

States then reinvest the proceeds from these auctions into programs that further reduce emissions and help energy customers, including energy efficiency initiatives, direct bill assistance, and renewable energy projects. Since 2008, RGGI has generated $8.3 billion for participating states, and carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the nine states that have consistently participated fell by about half between 2008 and 2021, a considerably faster rate than the rest of the country. 

“It has really thrived and been really effective across multiple administrations,” said Jackson Morris, state power sector director with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “RGGI is a winning model. It’s not theoretical — we’ve got numbers.”

Currently, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont are part of the program. Virginia joined RGGI in 2021, but in 2023 Gov. Glenn Youngkin repealed the state’s participation, a move immediately challenged in court; a judge ruled last month that the governor lacked the authority to withdraw the state from initiative, though a spokesman for the governor has declared the state’s intention to appeal. 

There is widespread agreement that RGGI will endure despite likely federal hostility to climate measures. There was no attempt to take direct action against it during Trump’s first term, nor has there been any concerted industry opposition, said Conservation Law Foundation president Bradley Campbell, who was involved in the founding of RGGI when he was commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Supporters also note that the program has historically had broad bipartisan support: Participating states have been led through the years by both Republican and Democratic governors and legislatures. 

Politics has had some influence over the years, though only at the margins. New Jersey, a founding member of RGGI, left in 2011 when Chris Christie was governor, but returned in 2020 following an executive order from his successor. Pennsylvania joined in 2022 through an executive order from the governor, but its participation is now being challenged in court. 

Still, RGGI’s foundations are solid and will remain so, experts said. 

“The basic infrastructure has weathered the political winds over the decades,” Campbell said.

Looking forward

Nonetheless, RGGI will need to make some carefully thought-out program design decisions during its current review to make an impact in the face of falling federal support for decarbonization. 

One question under consideration is whether to maintain the existing trajectory for the overall emissions cap for the program — a reduction of 30% between 2020 and 2030, then holding steady thereafter — or to continue lowering the limit after 2030. 

The RGGI states are also contemplating a possible change to the compliance schedule that would require power generators to acquire allowances worth 100% of their carbon emissions each year, and certify compliance annually. The current system calls for certification every three years, and only mandates allowances equivalent to half of carbon emissions for the first two years of each period.

The program is looking for ways to appeal to potential new participant states that have less aggressive decarbonization goals than current member states without watering down the program’s overall impact on decarbonization, said Acadia Center policy analyst Paola Tamayo. Acadia suggested possible program mechanisms such as giving proportionately more allowances to states with more stringent emissions targets to incentivize tighter limits.

“At this point it is critical for states to maintain a high level of ambition when it comes to programs like RGGI,” Tamayo said. “There are different mechanisms that they can implement to accommodate other states.”

The program review is expected to yield a model rule some time over the winter, though updates may be made into the spring as the RGGI states receive and consider feedback on how to accommodate potential new participants.  

States will also need to maintain and strengthen their own climate policies to magnify the impact of RGGI, Campbell said. He pointed to Massachusetts, where Gov. Maura Healey needs to show “bolder leadership,” he said, and Maine and Vermont, where the Conservation Law Foundation has filed lawsuits in an attempt to compel the states to meet their own carbon reduction deadlines. 

“It’s especially important that the states that have strong emissions reduction mandates speed up the implementation of their climate laws,” he said. “State leadership on these issues is going to be more important than ever.”

As climate focus shifts to states, East Coast partnership offers model for multi-state collaboration is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A top executive with Minnesota’s largest utility says data center growth will not prevent it from meeting the state’s 100% clean electricity law, but it may extend the life of natural gas power plants into the next decade.

“As we take all of that coal off the system — even if you didn’t add data centers into the mix — I think we may have been looking to extend some gas (contracts) on our system to get us through a portion of the 2030s,” said Ryan Long, president of Xcel Energy’s division serving Minnesota and the Dakotas. “Adding data centers could increase the likelihood of that, to be perfectly honest.”

Long made the comments at a Minnesota Public Utilities Commission conference this fall exploring the potential impact of data centers on the state’s 2040 clean electricity mandate.

The expansion of power-hungry data centers, driven by artificial intelligence, has caused anxiety across the country among utility planners and regulators. The trend is moving the goalposts for states’ clean electricity targets and raising questions about whether clean energy capacity can keep up with demand as society also tries to electrify transportation and building heat.

Minnesota PUC commissioner Joe Sullivan organized last month’s conference in response to multiple new data centers projects, including a $700 million facility by Facebook’s parent company Meta that’s under construction in suburban Rosemount. Microsoft and Amazon have each acquired property near a retiring Xcel coal plant in central Minnesota. 

“We need to ensure that our system is able to serve these companies if they come,” Sullivan said, “and that it can serve them with clean resources consistent with state law.” 

Alongside concerns about whether clean energy can keep up with new electricity demand, there’s also an emerging view that data centers — if properly regulated — could become grid assets that help accelerate the transition to carbon-free power. Several stakeholders at the Oct. 31 event shared that view, including Xcel’s regional president.

A 100-megawatt data center could generate as much as $64 million in annual revenue for Xcel, enough to help temper rate increases or cover the cost of other projects on the system, Long said. He said the company wants to attract 1.3 gigawatts worth of data centers to its territory by 2032, and it thinks it can absorb all of that demand without harming progress toward its 2040 clean energy requirement.

Long said data center expansion will not change the company’s plans to close all of its remaining coal-fired power plants by 2040, but it may cause them to try to keep gas plans operating longer. Ultimately, meeting the needs of data centers will require more renewable generation, battery storage, and grid-enhancing technology, but rising costs and supply chain issues have slowed deployment of those solutions.

Other utilities echoed that optimism. Julie Pierce, Minnesota Power’s vice president for strategy and planning said the company has experience serving large customers such as mines in northeastern Minnesota and would be ready to serve data centers. Great River Energy’s resource planning director Zachary Ruzycki said the generation and transmission cooperative “has a lot of arrows in its quiver” to accommodate data centers.

Ruzycki noted, too, that much of the interest it has received from data center developers is because of the state’s commitment to clean energy. Many large data center operators have made corporate commitments to power them on 100% carbon-free electricity, whether from renewables or nuclear power.

Pete Wyckoff, deputy commissioner for energy at the Minnesota Department of Commerce, expressed doubts about the ability to meet unchecked demand from data centers. Even with the state’s recent permitting reforms, utilities are unlikely to be able to deliver “power of any sort — much less clean power — in the size and timeframes that data centers are likely to request.”

He sees hydrogen, long-duration batteries, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear among the solutions that will eventually be needed, but in the short-term the grid could serve more data centers with investments in transmission upgrades, virtual power plants, and other demand response programs.

“These solutions can be deployed faster and cheaper than building all new transmission and large clean energy facilities, though we’ll need those, too,” Wyckoff said.

Aaron Tinjum, director of energy policy and regulatory affairs for the Data Center Coalition, said data centers provide the computing power for things like smart meters, demand response, and other grid technologies. The national trade group represents the country’s largest technology and data center companies.

“We can’t simply view data centers as a significant consumer of energy if they’re all helping us become more efficient, and helping us save on our utility bills,” Tinjum said. 

He also pointed to data centers’ role in driving clean energy development. A recent report from S&P Global Commodity Insights found that data centers account for half of all U.S. corporate clean energy procurement. 

The true impact of data centers on emissions and the grid is complicated, though. Meta, which participated in the recent Minnesota conference, says it matches all of its annual electricity use with renewable energy, but environmental groups say there is evidence that its data centers are increasing fossil fuel use and emissions in the local markets where they are built.

Amelia Vohs, climate program director with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, raised concerns at the conference about whether data center growth will make it harder to electrify transportation and heating. She pointed to neighboring Wisconsin, where utilities are proposing to build new gas plants to power data centers.

“This commission and the stakeholders here today have all done a ton of work and made great progress in decarbonizing the electric sector in our state,” Vohs said. “I worry about possibly rolling that back if we all of a sudden have a large load that needs to be served with fossil fuels, or [require] a fossil fuel backup.” 

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office argued that state regulators need to scrutinize data center deals to make sure developers are paying the total cost of their impact on the system, including additional regulatory, operational and maintenance work that might be required on the grid.

In an interview, Sullivan said he was impressed by tech companies’ interest in having data centers in Minnesota because of the 2040 net zero goal, not despite it. They want to buy electricity from Minnesota utilities rather than build their own power systems or locate in neighboring states, he added, and the October meeting left him confident that “we can deal with this.”

Xcel Energy says data center growth won’t get in the way of 2040 clean energy target in Minnesota is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.