Plans for a solar community in West Philly are halted by legislative red tape
October. 23, 2019
Eastward Parkside, a neighborhood in West Philadelphia, is tucked betwixt the Philadelphia Zoo and the Please Touch Museum, with Fairmount Park nestled along its northern border. Just despite its proximity to these popular attractions, East Parkside is economically neglected. It has a poverty charge per unit of 36 percent, every bit well every bit an abundance of vacant, blighted land.
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While these conditions nowadays considerable problems for the community, Centennial Parkside CDC (CPCDC) thinks they also present an opportunity. The nonprofit, dedicated to advancing the development of E Parkside, wants to have that underutilized land and turn information technology into something groundbreaking: Philadelphia's offset community solar project.
Community solar is a clean energy model popping upwardly effectually the country, as a means to brand solar free energy more attainable to people unable to install panels on their roofs. Instead, the panels operate on land in the customs and ownership is shared past multiple subscribers, who receive a credit on their energy bills.
Nether its ain unique vision, CPCDC would ain and operate solar panels in E Parkside, potentially in unused parts of Fairmount Park, which would generate clean energy for the urban center's electrical grid—free energy that would otherwise come from carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Neighbors would purchase subscriptions to these solar energy panels and PECO, as the local free energy utility, would reward them with credits, saving residents coin. Simultaneously, CPCDC would sell its backlog solar energy to nearby institutions, creating a new acquirement stream for projects that would revitalize East Parkside.
"Borough appointment and education are essential," Greenberg says. "We have to be in communities with the resources to engage people. And these are the people who will be the voters and volition show up at the hearings and be the public pressure for doing what's correct."
The neighborhood benefits from investment in its local economy and more coin in residents' pockets. The environment benefits from a new source of clean free energy, which is crucial to mitigating the global climate crisis. And institutions benefit by advancing their sustainability and community outreach missions. Information technology's a win-win-win.
But as of now, it's also a not-starter.
Chris Spahr, executive managing director of CPCDC, said that despite funding and support, the community solar plan has ground to a halt due to legislative red tape: Pennsylvania law dictates that multiple residents cannot own 1 solar array at a time.
"It would make this process a lot easier if nosotros had more progressive public policy around solar energy," Spahr says. "Then nosotros are advocating for that and we do see a change coming in the not-then-distant future. But until that it'due south going to be a grind."
In February, a bipartisan group of iv Pennsylvania lawmakers—including Rep. Donna Bullock, who represents much of West Philadelphia—introduced Bill 531 to the Firm of Representatives that would articulate the mode for customs solar projects in the country.
It shouldn't exist too much of a stretch—other nearby states, like Maryland, Delaware, New York and New Bailiwick of jersey currently have community solar policies in identify. But 8 months later, the beak is pending in the House Consumer Diplomacy Committee, where it could dice if the committee decides not to concord a vote.
Just over the bridge in New Jersey, CPCDC's dreams are coming true—for communities other than East Parkside. The state simply received 252 applications for its three-twelvemonth community solar pilot program. Run past the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU), the initiative volition allow for approved developers to create a solar project that will serve, at a minimum, ten subscribers in each area. According to the NJBPU, the programme will power upwards to 45,000 households, with 40 percentage of capacity reserved for households with low or moderate incomes. Upon completion of the airplane pilot, NJBPU says information technology volition use the findings to execute a permanent, large-calibration community solar programme for the state.
In other parts of the country, successful customs solar projects are already underway. Mill Street Solar Project in Gardner, Massachusetts, for example, is a shared solar free energy system that operates on the remediated site of a long-abased article of furniture manufactory. The land'due south virtual net metering policy allows the facility to produce electricity that offsets 80 percentage of the power needs of a nearby assisted living facility, an affordable housing development, a family-owned hardware store and a non-profit serving those with disabilities.
Colorado—the first state in the land to pass community solar legislation in 2010—is likewise home to a project headed by developer Make clean Energy Collective and the Denver Housing Potency (DHA) that devotes a portion of the power from iii solar facilities to offsetting the electric bills of 35 families in DHA housing.
In New Bailiwick of jersey, the community solar pilot program is one of many means to achieving Gov. Phil Murphy's goal to transition the state to 100 percent renewable free energy past 2050, which he prepare in an executive order in May 2018. New Jersey is making appropriately assuming moves toward clean free energy in the face up of the climate crunch. While beau Governor Wolf would have you believe he'due south leading similar efforts in the Keystone State, the legislative roadblock to community solar is merely one of many examples of how Pennsylvania is lagging behind.
In January, Gov. Wolf signed his own executive order to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26 percentage by 2025 compared to 2005 levels, with a longer-term target of an 80 percent reduction by 2050—a goal noticeably less ambitious than Gov. Murphy'due south. And earlier this month, Gov. Wolf signed an executive order instructing that Pennsylvania join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a collaborative, market place-based programme meant to curb carbon emissions from the New England and mid-Atlantic's electricity sector.
Information technology'southward a pace forrard—but one taken a decade afterward the ix other states in the initiative, which joined upon the program's founding in 2009. And dissimilar community solar policy, it doesn't specifically prioritize low-income communities of color, which face the worst consequences of climate change, from air pollution to disproportionately high oestrus.
"We're really standing for community-driven, inclusive solutions that prioritize racial and economic justice, not simply technical fixes for carbon," says Rabbi Julie Greenberg, the climate justice coordinator for faith-based advocacy group Pennsylvanians Organized to Witness Empower and Rebuild (Ability), "We don't think those are real solutions because society will but regenerate the aforementioned problems we already accept if it still has a stratified and extractive economy."
In January, Gov. Wolf signed an executive order to cutting greenhouse gas emissions 26 per centum by 2025, with a longer-term target of an eighty pct reduction by 2050—a goal noticeably less ambitious than in New Jersey.
This may speak more than to the reality of Pennsylvania politics than Wolf's ecology bona fides. Any program that decreases the electricity sector's need for fossil fuels deals a blow to Pennsylvania's natural gas and coal industries, which are some of the biggest in the country. Pennsylvania is second simply to Texas in nationwide natural gas product. It's tertiary behind Wyoming and West Virginia in coal product.
Every bit such, Wolf has toed the line when it comes to environmental regulations, attempting to plant himself as proactive on climate, while also acknowledging that in a state and then heavily reliant on fossil fuels, the Republican-controlled legislature is unlikely to act on anything that seems to threaten the industry.
"What I effort to make sure is that what I practise is not also much, merely not likewise little," Wolf told reporters in January regarding his climate change policies.
While it isn't surprising that Pennsylvania is stalling on passing progressive solar energy policy, that doesn't make information technology whatever less frustrating to Spahr and his Due west Philly community. If executed and replicated, projects like the one in East Parkside could make the state a leader in lowering carbon emissions and mitigating climate change, the urgency of which tin't exist overstated. Scientists estimate that nosotros only have xi years left to halve carbon emissions in order to have a 50 percentage chance at limiting warming to moderate levels. Customs solar could besides assist lift low-income households out of poverty, another much-needed effort, particularly in Philadelphia, where the poverty rate still hovers around 25 percentage.
The atmosphere seems ripe for solar, as it becomes increasingly popular and more than toll effective. In the final decade, the cost to install solar has dropped by more than seventy percentage and the solar industry has grown by 50 pct each twelvemonth, co-ordinate to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
"Information technology would make this process a lot easier if we had more progressive public policy around solar free energy," Spahr says.
While community solar currently doesn't have Harrisburg's bankroll, CPCDC'southward vision has attracted significant back up—and funds—from elsewhere. Spahr is finishing up his tenure as a fellow at the Lindy Constitute for Urban Innovation at Drexel University, which he joined in order to accelerate the project. CPCDC also received a Sunshine Grant from the U.Southward. Department of Energy, also as funding from corporate donor Spark Therapeutics and the William Penn Foundation, to carry out solar initiatives. And Power is financially backing CPCDC's customs engagement events, called Greenish Economy Chat due north' Chews, where neighbors are invited to eat together and talk virtually ways that East Parkside can grow its green economy, even beyond solar free energy.
Spahr says that CPCDC is using the funds to try to advance solar energy in other means, even if the customs solar model in detail is put on hold. CPCDC is partnering with the Philadelphia Energy Authority (PEA) to increase instruction and recruitment in E Parkside effectually PEA'south Solarize Philly, a low-to-moderate income programme nether which families can charter rooftop solar panels and relieve 20 percent on their energy bills. However, Spahr says that progress on that plan has also been dull, since underwriters require that homes have new roofs and other expensive features that many families tin't beget.
"I think it's just reassured us that there needs to exist customs solar legislation passed in Pennsylvania because otherwise, we're just going to exacerbate the equity gap as it relates to admission to solar energy," Spahr says.
Greenberg says that Firm Bill 531 is unlikely to make information technology out of commission—unless Pennsylvanians speak upwards. To generate that grassroots advocacy, energy experts demand to exist informing and listening to the residents who would virtually benefit from customs solar. While CPCDC is doing and then, with its Light-green Economy Chat n' Chews, she says other communities need to exist post-obit its lead, and on a much larger calibration.
"Borough engagement and instruction are essential," Greenberg says. "We can't just have policy experts sitting around tables. We have to be in communities with the resources to engage people. And these are the people who will be the voters and will testify up at the hearings and be the public pressure for doing what's right."
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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/solar-community-west-philly/
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