Frequently Asked Questions

 

 

Why does the U.S. need new policies to support clean local energy?

The U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world on renewable energy project deployment and manufacturing.  This means that we are losing jobs, investment money, and other economic opportunities to other countries.  China surpassed the U.S. in 2009 as the nation with the highest installed renewable energy capacity.  As of 2010, China had 103 gigawatts (GW) of total installed renewable energy capacity, compared to just 58 GW of installed capacity in the U.S.  In 2010, the U.S. placed 11th among G-20 members in terms of five-year growth in renewable energy investments, clearly demonstrating the failure of our current energy policies.  To create renewable energy jobs in our communities and attract millions of investment dollars to our shores, we must create new energy policies in the U.S.  Clean Local Energy Accessible Now policies - also known as CLEAN Programs - can help the U.S. capture investments in renewable energy. 

Thanks to its successful CLEAN Program, Germany has seen enormous economic benefits; Germany is now one of the biggest exporters of wind turbines and solar panels in the world, earning billions of dollars in the renewable energy industry.  Renewable energy investments in Germany increased by 100% in 2010 to $41.2 billion.  Without new policies in the U.S., we will be unable to compete in renewable energy markets with forward-thinking countries like Germany.

Net-metering is currently the most popular policy for promoting local renewable energy in the U.S.  These policies are designed so that participating utility customers with a renewable energy system on their property will receive a credit on their electric bills for any generated electricity that is fed back to the utility’s grid.  While customers can save money on their electricity bills with net-metering, the potential financial benefits under a net-metering program are generally limited to the amount of energy a customer consumes.  This sets a distinct cap on how much a customer is willing to invest in renewable energy technology.

The U.S. also relies on federal tax incentives and Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) policies to spur renewable project development.  An RPS (also known as a "Renewable Electricity Standard" [RES]) is a policy that places a requirement on electric utilities and other retail electric providers to supply a target minimum percentage of their load with eligible sources of renewable energy by a certain date.  RPS and RES policies are umbrella policies; they are targets that require complementary policies to achieve their goals.

Without complementary policies like a CLEAN Program in place, federal tax incentives and RPS policies primarily encourage the development of large-scale power plants that are located far from the communities they serve.  This is because the transactional costs of renewable energy development in the U.S. are prohibitively high for smaller projects.  Reliance on these policies has created a policy gap that has held back U.S. renewable project development.  Building new large-scale renewable power plants is a costly and slow process, subject to frequent delays for new transmission lines, major environmental reviews and community opposition.  Policies designed to encourage clean energy projects do not make financial sense for many of the best spaces to generate clean energy in our communities, such as landfills, parking lots, commercial properties with tenants, and agricultural operations.

CLEAN Programs fill this gap by unleashing the Wholesale Distributed Generation market segment.

 

 

Can my community have its own Local CLEAN Program?

Yes, your community can start its own Local CLEAN Program.  

Communities with more control over their local utility have greater freedom to implement a comprehensive CLEAN Program.

• If your community relies on a municipal utility or cooperative to procure its electricity, the community can request its local utility to implement a CLEAN Program.  If your community relies on an investor-owned utility to procure and distribute its electricity, local leaders may be able to negotiate with the utility to implement a CLEAN Program.
• If your community benefits from Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) or has similar rights to procure energy, the community purchasing authority can implement the procurement features of a CLEAN Program.

If your community does not control its utility or energy procurement rights, and cannot secure the cooperation of its utility, your community can still take advantage of its clean local energy resources through a Hybrid CLEAN Program.

• If your community has control over wholesale electricity purchases, like through a CCA, but does not control its local electrical grid, your community can implement a CLEAN Contracts Program, which is a CLEAN Program without the Grid Access features.
• If your community does not have control over wholesale electricity purchases or its local electrical grid, your community can implement a CLEAN Campus Program to streamline renewable energy procurement.  Cities, counties, school districts, water districts, companies and any other public or private entity that owns electricity-consuming properties can offer standard contracts and predefined rates and procedures.  In contrast to the request for proposal approach to clean energy transactions, the CLEAN approach results in far lower transaction costs and burdens for all parties, which translates into lower electric rates.  To learn more about CLEAN Campus Programs, click here.

Learn more about our work on Local CLEAN Programs and download our Local CLEAN Program Guide by clicking here.

 

 

Does my community have the renewable resources needed for a CLEAN Program?

While every community has its own set of renewable resources, studies have shown that almost every state could get 20% or more of its electricity from solar PV alone.  The only element preventing most communities from unleashing clean local energy is the lack of a policy mechanism that allows community members to take advantage of their local renewable energy resources. Source: NREL

Germany serves as an example of how an effective policy can utilize even sparse resources.  Despite having slightly less land area than California, and solar resources roughly equivalent to those of Alaska, Germany, a country that has had a CLEAN Program in place since 2000, installed almost 30 times more solar PV capacity than California in 2010.

Several tools are available to help communities evaluate options for generating renewable energy.  Click here to access calculators and tools provided by the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

 

Can my local electric grid support a CLEAN Program?

In general most electrical distribution grids in the U.S. can support additional distributed renewable energy without significant upgrades.

According to a study commissioned by the California Energy Commission (CEC), CLEAN Programs in both Germany and Spain have encouraged a significant increase in distributed generation, yet have not required grid operators to make any changes to the primary configurations of their distribution systems.  Additionally, Germany and Spain have not needed to use any auxiliary technologies, like battery storage, to integrate renewable energy on their distribution system.  

 

 

Who can participate in a CLEAN Program?

Well-designed CLEAN Programs encourage broad participation by community members.  If a program has a minimum project size or if the contract price for energy is low, an individual homeowner’s rooftop project may not qualify or may not be financially viable.   However, community members will still have the opportunity to participate through fractional ownership business models.  Families, tenants, business owners, homeowners, farmers, and non-profit organizations can all become shareholders in community power projects that sell power to the utility.  This structure allows everyone in the community to benefit from CLEAN Programs, regardless of whether or not they own land.