WM Solar Forum Session 3: Solar Equity and Community Benefits

Agenda and Recording

time item Speakers
12:00 – 12:10 Welcome, Logistics, Introduction to Session.  Moderator:   Jo Comerford, MA State Senate 
12:10 – 12:20 Financing and Ownership Models for Large-Scale Solar Projects  Jon Abe, Sunwealth
12:20 – 12:30 Models for Community Ownership Lynn Benander, Coop Power
12:30 – 12:40 Role of Federal, State, and Local Laws & Regulations  Priya Gandbhir Conservation Law Foundation Massachusetts
12:40 – 12:50 Current Status of Solar Equity in Massachusetts Christine Crago, UMass
12:50 – 1:00 Solar Equity - Challenges & Opportunities Nathan Phelps, Vote Solar
1:00 – 1:10 Solar Equity – Governance and Public Participation Ernesto Cruz, Coop Power
1:10 – 1:20 Other approaches to support solar equity Yesenia Rivera, Energy Allies
1:20 – 1:30 Equity in the Workforce  Kerry Bowie, Browning the Greenspace
1:30 – 1:45 Group Q&A and Roundtable Discussion All available speakers from above
1:45 – 2:00 BREAK   
2:00 – 2:10 Municipal Procurement of Solar Maria Marasco, Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative
2:10 – 2:20 Green Municipal Aggregation  Samantha Hamilton, Live Well Springfield
2:20 – 2:25 Solar Loans Richard Kump, President and CEO, UMassFive College Credit Union
2:25 – 2:35 AGO Consumer Protection Efforts  Chris Modlish, Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office
2:35 – 2:45 Other Current State Initiatives Joanne Bissetta, DOER Green Communities
2:45 – 2:55 Group Q&A and Roundtable Discussion  All available speakers from above 
2:55 – 3:00 Feedback and Wrap Up  Jo Comerford, MA Legislature

Presentations

Related Documents

Speakers

Moderator: Jo Comerford, MA State Senate

  • Jon Abe, Sunwealth, a renewable project developer, financier, and asset manager with deep commercial solar transaction experience. Previously, Jon was a Senior Vice President at Nexamp, where he served as the head of business development, asset management, and policy. At Nexamp, Jon supported the development and financing of more than 40 MW of commercial-scale solar projects. He was also General Manager of Nexamp Capital, which controlled a diverse portfolio of solar assets. Additionally, Jon worked for the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust where he developed and managed the $68 million Commonwealth Solar program. Jon holds a BA from Cornell University.

    Email: jon@sunwealth.com

  • Lynn Benander, Coop Power, a community entrepreneur and activist working across the country with BIPOC-led, multi-race groups to build energy cooperatives and large community-owned solar projects that bring good jobs, energy savings, and wealth back to their communities.
    Email: lynn@cooppower.coop
  • Priya Gandbhir, Conservation Law Foundation Massachusetts, a Senior Attorney in the Clean Energy and Climate Change program at Conservation Law Foundation, where she works in pursuit of a clean and just energy future by, in part, working collaboratively with local community groups, advocating and litigating before public utility commissions, and engaging with New England’s regional independent electrical system operator, ISO-NE. Priya is a graduate of Wellesley College and received her J.D. and an LL.M. in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School. In her free time, Priya enjoys spending time with her friends and family, hiking with her dog Rey, and exploring New England’s diverse and scenic parks and beaches.

    Email: pgandbhir@clf.org

  • Christine Crago, UMass, an associate professor in the Department of Resource Economics and the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her fields of research are energy and environmental economics. Her current research examines household decision-making related to energy technologies, and income and racial disparities in power outage experiences and in adoption of renewable energy technologies.
    Email: ccrago@umass.edu
  • Nathan Phelps, Vote Solar, joined Vote Solar in 2013 to advocate for a 100% clean energy future in regulatory venues. Prior to joining Vote Solar, Nathan was a Senior Economist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities with a primary focus on renewable energy and distributed generation.
  • Ernesto Cruz, Coop Power
  • Kerry Bowie, Browning the Greenspace, General Partner at Malaika Ventures and Co-Founder/President/Executive Director of Browning the Green Space (BGS), brings 25 years of diverse experience in private, public, and nonprofit management. Kerry also serves as Managing Partner at Msaada Partners, a Boston-based consultancy focusing on social impact in communities of color, and co-founded the Majira Project to address diversity and resource disparities in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Kerry holds an MBA from MIT Sloan, an MSE in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan, and an SB in environmental engineering science from MIT.
    Email: kerry@browningthegreenspace.org
  • Maria Marasco, Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative, manages a portfolio of 48 operational solar PV projects for CVEC's municipal members and participants. Her background as an attorney and businesswoman in both the public and private sectors supports CVEC's expansion efforts in a changing renewable energy market.
  • Samantha Hamilton, Live Well Springfield, over 19 years of working in the region, Samantha Hamilton manages the Live Well Springfield Coalition, where she leads initiatives to promote health equity through policy, systems, and environment change strategies. Samantha is the Coalition Building and Community Engagement Director at the Public Health Institute of Western Mass (PHIWM). In this position, she leads the Climate Change and Health Equity Initiative and the Trinity Health New England Transforming Community Initiative, which engages policy and advocacy to create strategies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, address homelessness and housing, improve health outcomes for those of marginalized communities based in cities and towns directly impacted by climate change, and dismantle systemic racism.
    Email: shamilton@publichealthwm.org
  • Richard Kump, President and CEO, UMassFive College Credit Union, helped build a sustainability platform at UMassFive College Credit Union. From residential & commercial solar financing to 0.00% Farm Share loans and socially responsible investment options, with lots in-between! UMassFive has financed over $150 million in residential and small commercial solar projects over the past 7 years.
    Email: rkump@umassfive.coop
  • Chris Modlish, Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, an Assistant Attorney General in the Energy and Telecommunications Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office. In this position, he represents Massachusetts ratepayers in various proceedings before the Department of Public Utilities. This representation includes participating in the Department's investigations related to electric grid modernization and electric distribution company requests to build and own solar generation. Chris is also the lead on many of the Office's consumer protection and equity-related efforts, including representing the Office in its investigations into the residential solar industry, and participating in Massachusetts Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and Arrearage Management Payment meetings.
    Email: chris.modlish@mass.gov
  • Joanne Bissetta, DOER Green Communities, the Director of the Green Communities Division at the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. She started at DOER in 2009 as a Regional Coordinator, working directly with municipal officials and volunteers on Green Communities Designation and clean energy projects. She possesses over two decades of local and state government experience, having worked at MassDEP, the Town of Concord, and City of Cambridge. Joanne earned a BS in communications at Emerson College and an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy at Tufts University. When not working, you can find her in the garden, on her bike, or tending to her backyard chickens.
    Email: joanne.bisseta@mass.gov

Session Q&A / Comments

The following are questions received from Attendees during Session 2. These questions have been shared with Session 2 speakers to inform them of the engagement and issues of interest to the community. We are not asking the speakers to offer direct answers to these questions. The Clean Energy Extension and our partners are using these questions to inform remaining Sessions and the agenda for the anticipated Part II of the forum in 2024. Thank you for these questions.

  1. Can regional schools (comprised of multiple communities) apply for one Green Communities grant to electrify their bus fleet?
  2. Surprised to hear Rich Kump say it's not a problem for low-income people to get solar loans. Are most banks now recognizing and factoring in the value and financial benefits of solar that allow low-income people to make solar loan payments?
  3. Question for Nathan Phelps, which relates to Samantha who's looking for aggregation for Springfield. The DPU has proposed a serious set of regulations for new and existing Municipal Aggregations that will be crippling. What is the best way to counter?
  4. Exciting work by Public Health Institute on Clean Choice Energy! Wondering about how CCE will help try to secure lower utility costs for low-income residents with the CCE?
  5. Community choice energy report: https://www.umass.edu/spp/research-action/projects/community-choice-elec...
  6. Does CVEC only get involved from the beginning of a project (i.e., before installation)? Other way to ask: If a solar project has panels installed that are not yet online, can the project join CVEC?
  7. CVEC: Will CVEC work with Western Mass municipalities?
  8. 1/2 of the current 3.8 GW of solar is located in forest areas. We need to 3x or 4x deploy rates to reach the 2050 goal. Rooftop solar growth is lagging. We can't force property owners to put up panels (or can we?). What is the plan to rapidly deploy on rooftops?
  9. One of the findings from the Pecan Street project in Austin, TX was a need for microgrid devices at residences with rooftop solar to mitigate its power quality/harmonics effects on the distribution grid. Has this become an issue, and if so, who pays?
  10. What's being done to build the infrastructure to support an all-electric power grid? Some of the substations are reaching capacity and will quickly become overwhelmed by the draw for electricity during this transition.
  11. Can someone please provide the URL for the site Priya mentions?
  12. How do we access the evaluation of lands across the commonwealth that could identify lands most suitable for solar development? Priya mentioned it (something that sounded like See-Nac). Thanks!
  13. In my many years working in the environmental arena, balancing the environment against financial or other gains has always resulted in fewer resources to balance the next time! Why is it that more is always the answer?
  14. Re: money access. Are Green Banks a reality and how is access being facilitated?
  15. A question for Nathan Phelps--what exactly is the Energy Facility Siting Board?
  16. Is Eversource going to be allowed to take over the Community Solar idea in MA?
  17. Kerry - you mentioned MassCEC funding - Is MassCEC directly funding your organization or specific projects? How does this happen?
  18. What are current opportunities & restrictions on community solar for communities in W. MA Eversource's region? Where do SMART incentives, net metering & such stand for community solar, especially for municipalities exploring community PV?
  19. Does the 42% low-income discount for the customers of investor-owned utilities apply to generation services sourced from community aggregation projects? If so, how is it funded? By the co-op itself? Through the supplier services line-item surcharge?
  20. With respect to the ownership vs leasing analysis: What about rooftop licensing? Where the homeowner receives access to “preferred pricing” for generation services in exchange for the lease of their rooftop space? (i.e., panels and output developer owned)
  21. For Jo: Unlike the 33% subsidies provided by the federal govt to promote residential solar deployment, the state's financial subsidies are anemic. When and how will state-level subsidies meet the feds' level of commitment?
  22. With an understood desire to focus on the built environment, how do you also ensure that urban EJ areas that are often concrete jungles with little green space are not overburdened as well as preserving green space?
  23. For all the panelists - what do you think the largest barrier is to achieving greater equity in clean energy adoption and its benefits?
  24. How might we factor in the cumulative effect of industrial solar across the state, region? For example, is the temperature near and at solar arrays higher, just like any built environment (concrete, etc.)
  25. Christine: What lease terms are assumed in the analysis? Lease terms are often different for different companies and over time.
  26. For Christine - if this data is from SREC II program, how do you accurately apply it to the current solar incentive program (SMART) or future programs that operate in a very different way (tariff vs. REC sales)?
  27. No one has yet mentioned incentives for using less energy! No question that poor communities suffer disproportionately, but they will suffer more if forests are damaged, so as we set priorities for solar location, can we put brownfields at the top?
  28. When towns review permit applications how do you use these planning tools and values to ensure it is "how" to build the solar array and not "where" (i.e., wealthy towns not hosting their fair share of infrastructure)?
  29. What is CLF actually doing to help conservation in light of large-scale solar development? I did not hear any specific actions or positions. Can you speak to what is being done by the organization?
  30. For Jon: In my experience, solar developers only have to claim that energy generated will support low-income communities in order to get an "adder" in the SMART program but prior to getting the subsidy do not need to identify those recipients. CONT'D
  31. CONT'D: Can you explain how DOER actually confirms with developers where this energy is going and how developers ensure this benefit is truly being received by low-income communities?

Return to Western Massachusetts Solar Forum main page