What steps can local governments take to ensure that local renewable energy transitions are not impeded or sub-optimally economically beneficial due to lack of vision, engagement and preparation? Four primary local renewable energy transition strategies are to – 1) adopt a locally specific vision, second, 2) identify and fulfill essential local government roles, 3) plan and implement local decarbonization and energy resilience programs, and 4) support growth and maturation of local private sector renewable deployment and retrofit capacities.
Locally Specific Vision. A locally specific vision is a statement of the changes a jurisdiction has authority and aspires to make that empower economically beneficial local renewable energy investment. In preparation for vision development and adoption, a county or city’s energy sources and usage must be profiled, along with forecasts accounting for trends that are changing the profile. Inputs to integrated local energy analysis[1] need to be extracted from multiple databases and regularly updated. So, arrangements for data sharing with energy service providers are essential.
Essential Local Government Roles. Cities and counties are taking roles in local renewable energy deployment that mirror their roles in other areas - enforcing codes, permitting projects, licensing local service providers and generally securing the public interest in safe, competent and environmentally appropriate services supportive of local renewable energy transitions. Cities and counties will also take on new roles, assessing renewable resource potential and zoning options,[2]determining and prioritizing which local public facilities require energy resilience upgrades, identifying sites that are suitable for renewable project development, and enforcing local ordinances and regulations governing renewable energy transition services - for example, regulating community renewable energy production and community microgrid operations to ensure equitable cost recovery and service delivery. Technical and analytical support for energy related roles can and likely will be outsourced, but implementation will require new staff competencies – primarily energy engineering and energy management.
Renewable Energy Site Inventories. Counties and cities manage land use within and around their boundaries. Anticipating renewable project developer interest, sites that are environmentally and otherwise suitable for renewable energy development should be inventoried and assessed to determine their economic value for purposes of renewable project development. Some California jurisdictions now have experience that validates the need for anticipatory evaluations and decisions.[3]
Decarbonization and Resilience Program Planning and Implementation. Local renewable energy transitions result in decarbonization, and they empower local energy resilience. To be timely and economically beneficial, they require political and technical attention and informed choices. The same trade-offs confront most local jurisdictions, i.e., trade-offs between 1) on-site solar vs. community renewables, 2) imports and local production, 3) new projects vs. retrofits, 4) zero carbon vs. fully energy resilient, 5) expedient vs. cost-efficient actions, 6) formerly affordable vs. newly affordable technologies, and 7) readiness for action now vs. later.
When vision development and follow-up decarbonization and energy resilience planning is founded on locally specific energy system models and analysis, trade-offs are better informed, and achievable quantitative goals can be set. Plan implementation requires annual budgets and mature capacity to perform essential local government roles, assess progress, and identify and remove roadblocks.
Local Deployment and Retrofit Capacity Growth and Maturation. In many parts of the US lack of mature local deployment (installation and service) capacity is a main barrier to local renewable energy transitions, not just for solar electricity and heat but also for new generations of energy end use and on-site energy storage systems.
California’s ability to ramp up local solar electricity deployment in the past decade was owed to a cadre of one thousand local solar retailers and installers that grew and matured in the years prior to Federal solar tax credits, thanks to a $3B incentive program funded by the state legislature in 2006. Other states rely heavily on utility scale renewables to decarbonize energy use, in part because they do not have a robust and profitable base of solar retailers and installers.
Even in California, the retail solar industry’s capacity to deploy larger non-residential systems is less evenly distributed and less mature than its residential solar deployment capacity; as a result, there are under-served cities and counties. Capturing local economic benefits of solar energy adoption requires a stable, profitable and growing local market for renewable energy systems. To this end, cities and counties can incentivize investments in local deployment capacity, invest in making critical facilities energy resilient, and approve ordinances requiring energy user consideration of solar electrification investments. They can learn by doing and lead by example by decarbonizing their own operations and facilities, by producing renewable fuels and renewable electricity for local use, and by committing to net zero carbon conversions of public schools and local government buildings and vehicles.
Utility Engagement in Local Renewable Energy Transitions. Energy infrastructure transformations in California enabled by locally produced renewable energy will proceed, absent local government engagement, primarily on energy users’ property where energy transport utility monopoly purviews do not extend. Building and facility electricity circuits are pathways for electricity arriving at a utility meter to proceed to the finish line of an appliance, light or electronic display. More robust functionality to coordinate on site production and storage is technically possible and can be economically rewarding.
Future on-site energy networks will connect to energy storage capacity in electric vehicles and energy storage appliances. They will evolve to serve as microgrids (aka nanogrids[4]) that match on-site energy use to on-site production when grid electricity service is interrupted for whatever reason, including by the property owner’s choice or by automated decisions to minimize utility charges. Negative and zero carbon gas for vehicles and heating uses will be stored, not only in vehicles but also on-site, first in fueling stations and later in buildings and facilities where gas use and storage can be integrated with on-site electricity production, storage and use.
Energy utilities have long toyed with theoretical business model adjustments. For compelling business risk management reasons, energy transport utilities and wholesale energy procurement organizations have not yet ventured beyond business models appropriate to protected monopolies. They will likely remain primarily energy transporters, grid owners, and wholesale energy buyers. For insurance and liability reasons they typically play no role in on-site energy management or on-site infrastructure investment. Through non-regulated subsidiaries operating in other utilities’ service areas, they may play a more active and profitable role.
Land developers and local jurisdictions can influence the scope and location of utility renewable energy investments. Figure 8 shows a solar micro community in a new net-zero-carbon Florida city. The city will have a population of twenty thousand when fully built out. A utility-owned 150MW solar power plant already operating on land donated by the developer will supply electricity to residents and businesses at the same prices the utility charges customers elsewhere in its service territory. Will other incumbent energy utilities collaborate with land developers, local governments and local wholesale energy providers to achieve comparable initial results and greater long term energy resilience? The answer will vary from state to state in response to state policy and local government initiative.
Local Government Engagement to Unlock Local Renewable Energy Benefits. Energy policy in the U.S. is the collective responsibility of fifty U.S. states, most of which rely on regulated energy service providers for energy policy implementation. State energy policy is determined in close consultation with regulated for-profit energy utilities who may view local renewable transitions as an opportunity, a risk to current revenue streams and assets, or both.
California is aiming for state-wide carbon neutrality no later than 2045. Its core renewable transition strategies are to increase the renewable content of wholesale electricity supply and to electrify transportation. Where frequent and sometimes long duration public safety power shutoffs occur, expansion of centralized generation causes rather than mitigates local electricity service disruptions.
A more robust set of state strategies would maximize the affordable decarbonization benefits of large renewable projects by empowering expansion of local renewable supply, local energy storage, zero carbon and carbon negative local fuel production and zero carbon vehicle purchases. Resulting local investments and capacities are essential to local energy resilience. As local investments and capacities increase, the scope of energy services efficiently and cost-effectively delivered by regional utility monopolies shrinks, and the scope of services best offered competitively and locally expands, opening pathways and needs for local government engagement, especially regarding energy and economic resilience.
This means local governments will need to engage more actively in guiding local renewable energy transitions. Pathways to engagement differ depending on whether local energy service providers are publicly or privately owned.
California cities served by municipal utilities have more flexibility to plan and implement local renewable energy transitions. However, new municipal utilities are not being formed, in part because Community Choice, which provides local control over one link in the electricity service value chain, can be implemented with minimal financial exposure. Collaborative municipalization of grid assets prior to renewable energy deployment in newly developed residential, commercial or industrial areas is a more focused and selective framework for local government engagement in providing energy services.[5]
Jurisdictions served by regional, for-profit utilities predominate. In these cases, existing relationships need to be renegotiated or unilaterally reset. For example, San Diego and other California cities are engaged in renegotiating the terms of their franchise agreements with energy service providers.[6] California cities and counties are also partnering to form additional locally governed Community Choice wholesale electricity procurement implementers. [7]
[1] Davis, California Integrated Energy Analysis
[2] Contra Costa County, California Renewable Resource Assessment
[3] Renewable Site Inventory Preparation
[4] Local Power Distribution with Nanogrids
[5] Municipal Microgrid
[6] Relationship Reset - San Diego and SDG&E
[7] Community Choice Aggregation
