Thursday, August 18, 2011

Boston networks solutions: driving demand for clean energy

By Jim Hunt

Boston is nationally renowned as a leading “green” city, recently ranked the 5th most sustainable city in the U.S. by the Economist Intelligence Unit.  Under Mayor Menino’s leadership, Boston has solidified its position as a hub of innovation in energy policy and program development, from our comprehensive climate action strategy to the 1st in the nation green building zoning, as well as new cutting edge clean energy programs emanating from City Hall.

From the beginning of the mayor’s push to green Boston, he has focused his administration on connecting our environmental and energy policy strategies with job creation and economic growth.

Despite the economic challenges facing the U.S., the cleantech cluster continues to flourish in the Boston region.  Cleantech start-ups continue to locate in the Innovation District of the South Boston Waterfront and, according to a recent report released by the Brookings Institution, metro Boston is now the 8th largest green economy in the U.S.  Yet we need to move beyond simply pioneering new technologies and services to deploying them at scale in homes and businesses across the region. 

When it comes to deployment, cities are uniquely organized to play a key role in aggregating demand for clean energy solutions.  Municipal government is closest to the people, providing support to countless local organizations, and delivering many of the basic services people need in their daily lives.   These networks can and should be leveraged to bring clean energy solutions to the people.  This is where the intersection of our environmental, energy, social and economic goals converge, and where the full potential of the cleantech cluster can be realized. 

Here are a few examples of how Boston is aggregating demand for clean energy solutions:

•Renew Boston energy efficiency program – the city is working with local utilities and community based organizations to connect local residents, in particular those harder to reach moderate income families, with energy efficiency services.  Over the last year more than 3,300 residents received a home energy assessment and 467 homes were fully weatherized.  The city’s residential contractor, Next Step Living, opened its headquarters in the Innovation District and grew from a handful of employees to over 150 today.

•Innovation District Solar Challenge – Boston is driving private-sector adoption of solar PV technologies in Boston as an inaugural city under the US DOE Solar America Cities program, helping property owners capture federal and state incentives for solar.  As part of this effort the city is pre-qualifying solar installers for projects to be identified in the growing South Boston waterfront.  The goal of the challenge is for businesses and institutions within the South Boston Innovation District to install more than 1MW of solar PV over the next two years.  

•Boston Buying Power – after putting our municipal electricity purchase out to competitive bid in 2007, the city worked to bring similar savings to over 1,600 small to medium sized businesses.  The city worked with Taylor Consulting to pool these businesses’ electricity purchase needs. The buying pool is now over 520,000,000 Kwh and 35,000,000 therms and has saved $2 million for these businesses since the launch of the program.  As part of the procurement, the city was also able to green the procurement, leveraging 20% in renewable energy for 2011. 

Boston is now serving as a living laboratory for cleantech – the place to innovate policy ideas, incubate and grow clean energy companies, create new technologies and services, all while creating local jobs. This is just the beginning for Boston.  We will continue to drive demand for other green sector services such as capturing food waste for bio gas conversion, expanding bike sharing, or promoting green infrastructure for storm water management.  What other cleantech services are ripe for aggregation? What public-private partnerships are taking shape in other communities?  What other networks can be leveraged to catalyze deployment clean tech services?

Let’s continue to leverage city and other networks to drive deployment to realize the full range of benefits of the clean tech cluster for the region.       

Energy Leaders Forum Responses

Kevin Doyle, Green Economy, New England Clean Energy Council Workforce Development Committee Co-Chair

Jim Hunt does a good job of laying out the City of Boston's excellent collection of energy and environmental initiatives. With the help of Jim's leadership, Boston has also become a recognized leader in clean energy workforce development and training, and his Energy Leaders Forum column gives me a chance to shine a light on some of this good work.

City of Boston program planner Matthew Bruce does an exceptional job of coordinating green jobs efforts, and the city is blessed with productive nonprofit efforts from organizations like Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), Asian American Civic Association (AACA), JFY NetWorks, Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), Chinese Progressive Association, Operation ABLE, Green Beginnings, Boston Youth Environmental Network (BYEN), and many more. Boston agencies and the Boston Private Industry Council are both workforce leaders in the State Energy Sector Partnership, and the Boston Redevelopment Authority promotes a thriving green business sector as a big part of the City's economic future. Creative philanthropists in Boston have invested in clean energy initiatives, both individually and through Skillworks: Partners for a Productive Workforce.
Finally, the higher education sector in Boston has been creating clean energy related programs to serve the industry's industry workforce needs at institutions like UMass Boston, Bunker Hill Community Colleges, Roxbury Community College, and Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology.
By linking its successful energy and environmental programs with its vibrant workforce development community, the City of Boston is well prepared to support an expanding clean energy industry cluster, with a growing number of jobs for Boston residents.

Raphael Herz, Johnson Controls

The Mayor and his leadership team should be truly commended for the advancements making Boston a clean energy locus with jobs and investments in infrastructure, buildings, and companies. 

Boston’s investment in improving low-income housing is a great example of leadership, maximizing investment in core building infrastructure (like boilers, water fixtures and new windows) to save money for local taxpayers, employ local labor, and create healthierliving conditions for Boston’s low-income residents.

Investments like this shows the rest of the state, and the surrounding states, how we can help neighbors on lower economic rungs, reduce asthma incidences, reduce housing operating costs, and help our increasingly hotter-and-hotter planet.

We need increased leadership by example, and the Mayor and his team must continue to put its shoulder to the economic and environmental wheel.

Smaller cities (Watertown) and towns (Wakefield) are making deeper savings investments in their buildings, using Massachusetts procurement legislation that provides a proven partnership pathway to successful operational savings – at a time when savings is desperately needed.

Boston must harness this pathway to invest in its schools, libraries and other public buildings. In so doing, the city can drive out operational inefficiencies and use clean power generated from solar photovoltaic systems installed on local buildings, with no out-of-pocket capital investments and resulting in day-to-day savings.

Boston needs to implement an improved and simplified solar permitting process modeled in other cities, so that residents applying for permits to install rooftop solar panels would get final approval to start construction and interconnect in a day instead of the weeks or months. Such innovation for permitting means residents can more quickly get their systems operating and receive incentives.

Boston can take advantage of its laudable Solar America Cities position, to leverage the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, through the SunShot Initiative, for federal support to develop the necessary IT infrastructure and underpinning policies, and create a more streamlined permitting and interconnection process to support a robust solar market in the metro region. 

Steps like these will continue to make Boston an attractive place to invest, grow companies, add jobs and contribute a healthy and vibrant local economy.