Good afternoon everyone. My name is Carol Werner. I'm the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute And I'm so pleased to look out and see all of you here this afternoon for this for this briefing Which we think is going to provide a lot of good information good of good understanding and stories for you of what is happening in states across the country and we're going to hear a Sampling of of that kind of information because it is only through Understanding and knowing about the kind of investments the kind of actions that are happening Across our country that that it helps us all think about The potential of what it is that we truly can all accomplish if we all work together whether it is in our cities whether it's in our States whether it is here in Washington in the Congress and energy is a critical issue For our economy for our nation and obviously is on the front burner for so many things that we Care about and that we are also seen discussed here in the Congress. So we are so pleased today to be Holding this briefing in conjunction with the Clean Energy States Alliance to provide this opportunity to really talk about the kinds of innovations that are occurring in states across the country and Also to talk about the value the importance of federal state partnerships Because again by all working together It's really quite incredible the kinds of things that really can happen that make things better that can create all sorts of economic development Develop new technologies and show us the way on things that we had no idea that we maybe could accomplish so To start off our briefing We Unfortunately Senator Chris Murphy is no longer able to be with us today because of and last minute Scheduling conflict, but we are so pleased that a member of his staff Jesse young is able to be here and is going to say a few words At the at the beginning Jesse Hi folks, I'll be real quick because nobody cares what I have to say No, no, that's a lie Sorry, Chris couldn't be here. He actually just got off the Senate floor He had a speech that he couldn't move on gun control and he's probably busy Tweeting something weird and embarrassing now But just want to thank you guys all for coming and just touch on a few points that I know Chris would cover where he here himself Connecticut is a small state.   Our rivers have been heavily damned We don't have much immediate obvious potential for utility scale renewables yet We're doing it in a lot of ways and a lot of that work is happening at the state level specifically around distributed generation It's not big, you know utility scale solar farms out in the west But it's folks at shopping malls at hospitals at individual homeowners that are working with the state to get the financing They need to actually make these projects a reality So we can do it in a cold weather not very sunny not very windy state like Connecticut They won't have access to offshore wind for at least five more years I think anyone can do it Connecticut in 2011 became home to the nation's First state-based clean energy finance bank Sifia they were going to be here. I think they had to pull out because of a last-minute scheduling conflict but They've gone on to prove in the last two years that the private capital is out there This is not just a question of government coming in and handing money to people They've leveraged over a hundred and fifty million dollars in the last two years in private capital So we know the money is there We know with a little bit of leadership from states and from the folks up here who doing the hard work at the State level that this can actually happen. So looking forward to the briefing. Thanks Um, if some of you would like to come up here and sit on the dais that is fine You've got the handouts. Hopefully and so anyway, if you want chairs, please Any more chairs so that I know it's not fun to have to stand for the whole thing Okay, and we have one more over here Okay There's back here. Okay, there are a couple more chairs over here too if anybody would like them Do you want to hold up your hands where the chairs are so that folks can get to them easily? And then we'll you're welcome Our aim is if we can all be much more comfortable We'll all retain a lot more of what we hear today and that's really important. So anyway Okay, well again, I'm so glad that everyone is here so that we can learn a lot and find out About what all is happening across the country as I said earlier And so the first of our speakers from From the states Is sarah fischer goad who is the executive director of the alaska energy authority? So as I said, we are literally going across the country with this sarah Thank you. It's really a pleasure to be here to talk about Um, uh, just sitting in a ton of hydro project Um, and represent a ea and see some member. Um, so I'm very pleased to be here Um, you can't talk about anything in alaska without at least setting the setting the framework with respect to What a ea is about in some of our of our energy issues? Thanks horn The alaska energy authority Mission is reduce the cost of energy in alaska. We do this in a variety of ways. We Invest in alaska energy infrastructure and I'll be talking about our latest project with respect to that We are working on diversifying alaska's energy portfolio We do have a renewable energy fund in a very active program We have over 200 projects and over 200 million dollars that have been invested with state funds into that program We are the lead agency for the state of alaska for energy planning and policy And we have an extensive training and technical assistance program that has serves a variety of communities across the across the state of alaska So some of the alaska's energy challenges include Varied energy costs and resources by region We have some hydro rich areas. We have areas that are Very diesel diesel dependent. We have wind that is being developed But we do have an extreme varied energy costs Around the state there is declining oil production oil is the economic driver and the primary source of general fund dollars for the state of alaska But production is declining and there is a pretty volatile fossil fuel costs that That we also face as Many states and I know as a federal federal agencies understand and federal representatives We also face some aging aging facilities And aging energy infrastructure facilities We have several dispersed communities and even the communities that are are connected By a grid it's not a very it's not a very strong grid some Equated to somewhat of a of a gravel a gravel road as compared to a highway So we do our we are looking for in the state has been investing in short and long-term solutions In 2010 the state of alaska Past the legislature passed a renewable energy goal of 50 renewable by 2025 We currently have approximately That the mix of 70 oil and gas and we have 21 hydro In a small portion of other Other energy renewable energy and then also coal is another source of electricity for alaska Right now our renewable energy power is coming primarily from hydropower of 90 percent All others are 10 percent and we actually just had to update this slide this Had been 97 hydro until we had two Larger utility scale wind projects that came online one is the fire island wind project of 17 megawatts and eva creek project near heli alaska That I believe is 24 25 25 megawatts So that has changed our mix so Although i'm going to talk about hydropower and the history of susitna watana We do have a portfolio of renewable projects that we are pursuing With respect to susitna watana hydro. This is not a project that's new to the state of alaska It was originally studied in the 50s Mainly by the federal government the bureau of reclamation In the 1980s the state was pursuing this project Um and went through Starting a first process and I believe in the 80s had spent at least 140 million Dollars to actually pursue the project at that time But oil prices did go down the state state funds were Were reduced and we also had a fairly cheap natural gas Alternative for a lot of the um the energy infrastructure for the for the states so the project was postponed As oil prices Were rising in 2008 and 2009 the state of alaska and the legislature really really started to look again at How a larger hydroproject could fit into the energy mix for the state? And again as I mentioned before the 20 in 2010 the 50 renewable goal Past alaska energy authority at that time was also funded to To evaluate And compare a couple large hydro projects And during that time at the end of 2010 there was a preliminary decision document that We called that that was uh past Or that we we um produced That explained with all the work and the detail and the information that we had in the 1980s Truly the information that we had from that project That susit and watana Was the project to pursue it is a bit different than what was proposed in the 80s in the 80s It was a three phase two dam project of 1600 megawatts And we're looking at something significantly different now. This is a one dam project With a capacity of 600 megawatts So in 2011 we were authorized to pursue This hydro project and the legislature did have to give us authority to To move forward with this and so in 2012 we really Really began the studying and entered the FERC The FERC licensing process just last year So why susit and watana The state population Over 80 would be served by this project. We expect during construction about a thousand jobs During during this time Hydro does provide long-term stable electric rates We expect this project as in many projects in the state of Alaska that have In southeast Alaska there are projects that have been in place for a hundred years It would provide a long-term diversification of our energy portfolio And we aren't talking about a hundred percent hydro or all just one energy source We truly do believe that the diversification of our resources is very very important It is a clean reliable energy source and it does promote integration of variable power sources So we think with our existing hydro resources with this project and with the wind projects in the rail belt area That will have a very very good way to Integrate and to have some hydro to hydro coordination of of the projects and also with the with the Gas turbines that also serve the rail belt area that there is a very good integration process So specific in project highlights for the susit and watana It's at river mile 184. It's 87 miles Upriver from talkeetna and it is upstream from devil's canyon, which actually acts as a very natural impediment to fish passage And it would again provide 50 percent of the rail belt's energy demand The annual energy for the project is is estimated to be 2,800 gigawatt hours So we're we're out right now. We are in the in the FERC licensing process. We've done our preliminary planning in in 2011 We implemented some preliminary field studies and we we have been working On doing a lot of public outreach. We have Applied for our permits and we are starting our formal formal field season this year So in 2012 to really get us ready to Propose a study plan. We did a significant amount of field work last year, which really helped Synthesize the information that was provided in the 80s. We're doing a lot of a lot of Coordination with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game We're also working on engineering of the project and we have also completed an independent cost estimate So the accomplishments is FERC has approved our study plan. It's 58 studies There is a significant amount of work in the field going on right now On logistics and health safety and environment planning. We're also Getting ready to finalize a contract for a financial advising firm We're working with utility coordination and of course extensive stakeholder outreach So hopefully this this is my one slide. I don't know if it's going to work There it is The 58 studies actually are scrolling on this on the screen. There's 186,000 acres at Our part of the study plan. So This is just to to show that we you know, we are serious about about doing this. We want to do this project, right? We are looking at a very extensive study plan The studies Are we we've tried to just at least simplify a Gantt chart to show 11 areas of study the 58 studies are really divided into these 11 areas And this gives you an idea of where where we will be or why we will be in the field for the next couple of years And just in conclusion, I just wanted to show a little bit of Alaska's energy costs You can see there's a wide variety variety of energy for electrical costs In the lower level you have Juno Anchorage and Fairbanks Are really some of the lowest electricity costs We do have communities that pay almost a dollar a kilowatt hour for electricity And some of the costs that are that are lower than than Juno's costs are actually hydro communities Those are Ketchikan, Rangel and Petersburg So the other slide is also just to kind of show A distinction too with respect to um heating costs where Anchorage is a natural gas Heated community and Nome uses and relies upon diesel fuel for heat And I just wanted to show to our 50 year average rate It is adjusted for inflation is looking at about six cents per kilowatt hour These are very rough estimates. This project isn't estimated to cost 5.2 billion dollars But this is something that um You know, we've we've taken a very conservative approach to um to look at these look at these numbers and project the estimated cost for the project so And normally I give this presentation for like about an hour an hour and a half so Oh So, thank you very much Thank you, Sarah And I must say in terms of thinking about those 58 studies and Going through reading all of those looking at how they should all be put together to make sure the project is done right My hat's off to you. That's pretty impressive Um, and and I think everybody was going a dollar a kilowatt hour. Oh my god, right? Or that should have been your feeling And so anyway, we are now going to take a stroll down the coast to california We're going to hear from The california energy commission from commissioner andrew mccallister Well, thank you very much.  I'm sure but uh, I'm really happy to be here myself Um, I'm actually that was a great presentation I'm reminded of some of the work we do in california with the federal government and really the partnership that has to be there Uh on the desert renewables So if you look at all those studies and you sort of translate it to the desert We have similar kinds of issues going on and Many many gigawatt hours of potential projects down there in the desert Um, then and the federal partnership is very essential there. So i'm not going to talk about that right now i'm going to talk about california's customer side solar programs and it's really one example of Well-designed programs that take the market into account And can evolve with the way the market develops and achieve success and really true scale I mean the scale is pretty mind-boggling and it's showing no signs of abating Um, so I do have a number of slides which i'm going to run through quickly But basically the overall message uh that I want to deliver Is that we're scaling up solar on both new and existing buildings in california tremendously Uh these are not your fathers or your grandfather's programs Public private partnerships are here and they are a great thing And uh the marketplace and the state in california are really doing handshakes that have a big big impact And and one benefits from the other there's a lot of leverage going on there So these programs both support and respond to market developments Uh california as many of you know or assume I think has a very deep commitment and lots of skin in this game We have huge goals for both energy efficiency and renewable energy at all scales The governor has a goal to implement 12 000 megawatts of localized renewable supply by 2020 We have similarly ambitious if not more so goals for energy efficiency that's reducing the need So really all this is to make our energy system more robust Respond to climate change improve comfort economic well-being create jobs all those wonderful things that happen When consistent long-term commitment to clean energy is is the fact is the lay of the land And finally The message is that the federal government is a really key partner in all this and helping it happen We have a large economy. We have got 35 plus million people now So we do a lot of things on our own, but we really rely on DOE and we want to contribute to DOE's efforts And the other agencies have been in the federal realm and I think having Communicating that directly is really important So that's just this is this is san diego google maps of san diego Each one of those little dots is a small scale rooftop solar system. There's a bunch of residential. There's some commercial. There's some thermal hot water heating But there are about 150 000 of those systems around the state at this point. That's just san diego's county really And there's more dots appearing. It's not real time, but if it were you'd see some dots appearing as right in front of us So i'm going to talk about two programs one is the their overall moniker is the california solar initiative One of them is for existing buildings. The other is called the new solar homes partnership and that's for new construction. They're both Important parts of the overall small scale customer side solar programs in the state So it's a very large Investment it's more than well over halfway through. It's a 10-year program that is scheduled to sunset in 2016 But as far as the goals we're meeting them looks like well ahead of time It's a 3.3 and a half roughly billion dollar effort funded by ratepayers and Some a couple of other smaller funding sources This is about net meter installation. So it's behind the meter In both residential and non-residential realms So the overall goals are to get 3000 megawatts in small scale customer side solar electric systems installed And really the even more important goal is to have a self-sustaining solar industry in california moving forward So wean and you'll see how this is built into the program. Wean the industry from subsidies rate payer subsidies and others Over time and do that in a way that that is seamless and it doesn't create any trauma Over time and then on the new home front. We also have very aggressive goals there as well So There are three i'm going to talk about the left two of these the cpuc's program Which is the mainstream california solar initiative and the energy commission runs the new solar home partnerships partnership for new construction So all those goals add up to 3000 megawatts We are well in our way there. We're getting close to two gigawatts Of rooftop solar at the end of last year. It was about one and a half And about almost half of that was in uh 2012 So things are really scaling up quickly The residential in particular is really going crazy over 150 000 systems it's quite Lots of jobs being created lots of solar initiatives a lot of innovative business models that sail have Sort of unique sales cycles Lots of interaction different kinds of interaction different different kinds of pathways to get to the customer Including also interesting financing initiatives lots of third party ownership lots of innovative lots of innovation in that realm And not not the least of the drivers is the price declines that we're seeing in the solar market Actually, I will point out the california solar statistics is a really interesting website if you go there you can slice and dice the actual data Um any way you want so if you're if you're a market participant and you're thinking making an investment in solar Or you're wanting to see what's happening in your community You can go download an excel spreadsheet that has every single one of those 151 000 systems with equipment Installed cost incentive amount And you know long list of data about each of those systems and you can use it for yourself That I think is a a lesson in and of itself that Transparency helps the marketplace without that data being available Um The due diligence for innovation Um an investment would not have been possible So the state sponsored that and the market responded and I think it's a really uh very clear that that happened Anybody in california who's involved in this marketplace will tell you that and so I think that's been a really great Um part of this partnership with the private sector Um so We think about 25 000 california jobs. Those are direct jobs Um have been created uh through the last few years. This program started in 2007 And as I said leasing and power purchase models have really increased access So initially probably was more relatively well off people on the coast, but now it's really moved inland It's moved um down market. It's moved really solidly to the middle class And so I think uh access to solar is really opening up quite a bit So our goals for existing buildings, um Let's see. I'll uh, well, I'll just I'll just highlight the big the big picture here Um, there's an emphasis in the program on system performance So the incentives that the program has paid decline over time and they are they respond to um to performance So most of the incentives actually at this point are only paid with actual performance measured performance measured kilowatt hour production And so that's a way for accountability to really be built into the program Uh, there's also a relatively small part of the program Which is solar water heating which in uh today's natural gas prices aren't isn't really helping quite a bit, but uh Uh, but I think there's a you know, we live in california We have natural gas water heat that produces carbon dioxide And we really want to figure out ways long term to avoid those emissions and and get solar thermal on every house Um the design as I pointed out those declining lines are the incentives over over time and there are no dates at the bottom There's no date certain there. It's all about volume. So the more volume we have the the more um The incentives decline and we're getting towards the tail end of that And you'll see the actual accomplishments probably are more accelerated even than the uh Than the program design. So we're really we're going going well so new homes The new solar homes partnership Is a really critical part of the puzzle and it's lagging I would say it's strictly because Mostly because the housing market bust it as you all know and it's now clawing its way back And so now that we have a housing market in california, we have a lot of opportunity to get solar built into those new Those new newly constructed buildings And it's a different marketplace obviously than the existing building stock. So we're linking it explicitly to energy efficiency So in order to sort of participate in the solar program You really have to build definitely two code and somewhat beyond code california has very um Say progressive uh relatively strict New construction building codes through our title 24. And so we're really trying to move over time towards a zero net energy We actually have a policy goal in the state to get every newly constructed residence Uh by 2020 to be zero net energy And so the new solar homes partnership and the building standards are really part and parcel of of how we're going to achieve that goal So energy efficiency and solar have to work together I'm going to blast through a couple of slides here. We have uh, uh, like I said We have 58 megawatts instead of a gigawatt on the new solar homes But as new construction picks up, we're definitely we have a big pipeline full of applications So we're expecting that to scale quite a bit But you know our peak demand in the state is about 60 000 gigawatts And so this is an appreciable percentage of that now as far as the installed capacity of solar And we need to get across all renewables. We need to get to 33 rps Very likely that that's going to go up the renewables portfolio standard is currently at 33 I'd say it's very likely to go up in the in the next few years at least once So again, we're seeing The nshp is driving a shift to solar home builders now are using it as a differentiator to get quicker and better sales People want it in california and builders want to offer it The couple of our leading builders have actually decided that 100 of their newly constructed buildings are going to be solar They're going to have solar on them So that's exactly what we're trying to achieve with this program And then finally I wanted to just Highlight the ways that the federal government Participates in this obviously the federal itc is huge 30 percent itc and in the commercial realm the accelerated appreciation Both of those are are extremely valuable to companies that are building businesses in this space And so you know any discontinuity in that Certainly can decline over time. I think that's a good strategy But discontinuities are generally a bad thing for markets. And so Would like to see That happen over time obviously And it complements the state policies that we have such as net energy metering And the solar and tenant incentives and feed and tariffs that are coming up Across across the u.s. But certainly in california as well Department of energy really helps facilitate some of the cross-cutting issues like access to data permitting support Facilitating cross-governmental Discussions across states and across local jurisdictions. It's been extremely helpful And I think the solar america cities that I was involved in in a previous life And also the sun shot initiative have both been really examples of how do we has done a lot with not that many resources And but definitely I think like to see that continue Then zero net energy that I mentioned is a really ripe area for innovation It doesn't have to cost that much more to build a building and right now You know it tends to cost a little bit more because it's kind of custom We need to build that into the fabric of the building industry such that we really bring everybody up to understand the best practices And make that happen more seamlessly So, uh, I think that summarizes really what I wanted to say I think the states a lot of the states you'll hear from today have really interesting things going on And it does get pulled together the federal government can provide a lot of resource or a lot of Sort of capital and different kinds of capital to pull it together and help us all do better And and and we They so I think it's a Quite a valuable forum here today and and and beyond and very much looking forward to continuing this discussion So thank you all for coming. I'm very very happy to have had the chance to be here Thanks very much. Andrew. I think it that it's really exciting to sort of see that some of the different Approaches that are being taken and I'll tell you each one of These folks as well as when you think when you talk to folks from some of the other states that are part of sisa They could all talk about a lot of other Projects and policies that are underway in their states and are just highlighting Some examples of that for you today. So hopefully this will just wet your appetite to ask a lot more questions Because I think you should be really impressed by so many things that are going on and what this whole state federal partnership really represents So we're not going to swing back to the east coast And we will hear from andy bridges who is the senior director for renewable energy generation for the massachusetts clean energy center Andy is going to be covering massachusetts as well as connecticut today And so he's truly living up to his name of bridges got it Well, thank you and there's good reason why i'm covering both and i'll cover that in a second But let's start with massachusetts Mass queen energy center is funded by a system benefit charge small charge on electric bills that applies to both residential and commercial customers And they turn that money around about 25 million dollars a year to support renewable energy in a variety of ways They make investments in up and coming companies trying to capture some of the intellectual property coming out of our great research universities We working on developing a trained Workforce to work in energy efficiency and renewable energy in the state We make investments in infrastructure projects We have the world's largest indoor blade wind blade testing center structural testing center, which was partially funded by ara And we're building out the port of new bedford To the tune of 100 million dollars to support the offshore wind industry And then the group i've managed is focused on deploying commercially available renewable energy generation like solar and wind and thermal technologies So on top of the federal tax credits that are available for pv 30 tax credit Massachusetts has providing been providing subsidies since 2002 For solar projects However, it wasn't until governor patrick came to office in 2007 that we really made a long term and significant Financial investment in growing that industry and have since grown it from about three megawatts of solar power to to over 250 with a new goal of 1.6 gigawatts in the state But the fact is between I know feed-in tariffs are a swear word in many parts of the country But between federal tax credits state tax credits incentives from agencies like ours Selling of renewable energy certificates property tax exemptions whatever the incentives are It's a very complex network and particularly at the residential scale very hard for residential customers who may have a passing interest You know don't want to dive in and make this their life's work to put solar on their house To figure out how to do it so enter solarized mass this Full disclosure was stolen from the state of oregon where it was started in portland with great success But we we took it and we've made some modifications to it and we've had tremendous success The goal is to simplify the process for residential customers Small-scale customers. It's actually open to commercial and non-profits as well But up to 15 kilowatts, which is typically residential size To simplify the process for them to go solar. So we're trying to increase the competition Among installers for the business to drive prices down We are doing aggressive outreach and education And reducing the marketing and acquisition cost and we think that's primarily the cost we're driving out of the process And just offering a simplified process so a residential customer can come they know that someone has vetted the installer They know it's a good deal related to the equipment that they're providing and they feel more confident moving ahead All that leads to lower prices and increased adoption Major players, uh, we've partnered with our department of energy resources to run this program We take the responsibility for choosing the towns through a competitive process to running the RFP that chooses the installer to serve that town during the course of the solarized Campaign which lasts about four to five months We partner We engage technical consultants as needed. We Resolve conflicts where they come up And in the end, I think the state has played a very important role At a distance from helping to run the program But we rely heavily on the community in terms of their volunteer networks and their local networks to get the word out So the community ultimately makes the selection of the installer They provide a solar coach who answers 90 percent of the questions that come up during the campaign volunteers and outreach and then The installer plays obviously the biggest role They do a free site assessment if you're at all interested They'll come out and look at your house and find out if it's the right technology for you They offer the pricing they do the installation the permitting all that stuff All the homeowner really has to do is sign up for a free site assessment And talk to their neighbors because their incentives the more people The lower the price goes for everybody and that creates an incentive for neighbors to talk to neighbors and greatly expands the amount of outreach That happens during the course of the campaign So we've run this started in 2011 in four communities and then in 2012 we did it in 17 communities This year we're going to do two tranches of 10 communities each But 31 communities to date have been selected We've had the participation of both small local installers and some of the large more nationally based installers The local presence is very important to many of the towns that that You know want to provide that economic benefit To the local companies and the way it works is the installer offers tiered pricing So if only one person participates You get a price that's very competitive and below market But you know doesn't represent a dramatic savings But as those systems grow and by the time you get to tier five, we're talking about 50 average size residential systems As you get to tier five more and more costs have come down And the goal is to see how low we can get the cost to go and the installer benefits Obviously by the economies of scale for multiple installations having a Big book of business locked up in one community to reduce their costs And so forth And the installers do offer two types of ownership models. There's always the you can just buy it model And or use a home equity loan whatever it might be to finance the purchase Or they've offered the third party model which Andrew referred to which is also growing in Massachusetts Not quite as much as in Connecticut, but we're sort of cranky new englanders And it's important that it's a limited time offer as with anything where you're asking Installers to commit to pricing. It needs to be a limited time and having a deadline drives drives action to So how's it worked? This is the results from last summer's program We talked to 5400 people in the 17 communities we did and that is really a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself We've held community meetings like this one overflow Capacity lots of excitement lots of awareness and people trying to learn more about how this works So we've had great participation ultimately 800 people moved forward With projects representing about 5 megawatts of capacity and we hear from commercial installers You did 5 megawatts of capacity in four months. It takes us a year to set up a 1 megawatt You know commercial scale project. Yeah, we did it and we did it in 800 different locations So, you know, we think it is having a dramatic impact. You can see how the adoption Occurred and various events, you know, it gradually accelerated as we went Including the last week we signed up over a megawatt when people got scared that they were going to lose out on a good deal Which is exactly what we wanted them to be scared of So, uh, here's how it looked the green bars that you see on the screen represent the difference between the tier one Introductory price and the tier five lowest price and the blue dots on those bars show the tier that each community got to So in last year, uh, 10 communities Uh, overall some were partnered together there like Wayland Lincoln Sudbury on the right and Pittsfield Lenox 10 communities got to that lowest tier The red line at the top the red dotted line is the average cost of PV in Massachusetts when we started the program 523 per watt And the purple line sort of in the middle bottom is the cost the average cost realized during the solarized program It's about a 20 21 percent reduction now That's the base cost each individual house may have a few things that they opt for like premium panels american made panels or Monitoring automatic monitoring and reporting that might drive up that cost and when we add in those adders that purple line moves up a little bit Just north of four dollars Watt but still represented between a 15 and 20 percent savings off the average cost In massachusetts, which which we think is is really dramatic savings And in terms of adoption those kind of savings, you know result So the blue bars you see at the bottom of these columns are all the solar projects that these towns did in the 10 years leading up to Solarized last summer and the green bars are how many projects they did during solarized last summer So in all but uh, boston frankly every community more than doubled the number of projects they'd ever done before In a four or five month period, which is tremendous Uh result the red dots you see scattered there are what we call our adoption rate multiplier And when you compare the adoption in the five months last year to the five months in 2011 The average community raised their adoption rate by 20 x not 20 20 x Which is really dramatic growth obviously the industry as a whole in massachusetts goes up about 1.5 x During that same time period. So this is what we See as as the benefit we think The challenges are scaling this To serve a greater number of communities we frankly thought that the model would be taken and Just rolled out by other installers who would approach communities and say here all right great Let's do it and offer you that deal It turns out that many communities, you know Do value the role of the state or a non-profit entity in running that and having no vested interest So we're struggling with how to scale it without You know the staff to just infinitely scale it And that'll be the next challenge But we are also you know focused on how this model might now be rolled out for other technologies and other initiatives that we have So I will say thank you. I'm putting up elizabeth kennedy's contact information not because I don't want to answer questions about it I'm more than happy to but because I Last friday was my last day at mass queen energy center And I have accepted a job at the connecticut queen energy finance and investment authority which starts on monday So that i'm actually a resident of connecticut. So it's greatly shortening my commute Among other things, but i'm very excited to join brian garcia and his team at seffia And and join that and I don't know if these two are tied together They aren't can we put up the connecticut slides? It's coming up. Okay So With the disclaimer that I don't i'm not yet being paid by seffia and probably don't understand my job As well as as well as they hope I I will cover brian garcia who's the president ceo of seffia wanted to be here And was called back to to deal with some issues in in connecticut But i'm pleased to you know kind of run through his slides Connecticut was a state that stepped up and said hey, massachusetts those sound like really interesting results We'd like to do it. We have no pride of ownership. We shouldn't we stole it from oregon And we ship them the documents in word form and they changed connecticut to mass or massachusetts to connecticut and We're pretty much ready to go and they have been running solar eyes as well Now connecticut's a little bit different seffia is a little bit different than mass queen energy center in that as jesse alluded to they are Fun functioning as a green bank and the mission of seffia Is to transition programs away from direct government subsidies to ways to leverage private capital And so they are implementing a broad set of financing tools That will do just that and and as you said they've leveraged, you know over 150 million dollars so far And they're building out all of their programs to take advantage of that as they go through that process They are still providing some rebates and implementing programs like solar eyes And brian wanted to make sure that we acknowledged Some of the great partnerships we have the federal agencies epa and do e The c action network is the state level energy efficiency action network Which has been very active connecticut's partnered with the better better buildings program And as well as massachusetts's benefit beneficiary of the sunshot initiative Funding which is also helping to drive out some of those soft costs related to building solar That beyond the simple equipment costs Account for the differences we see in the united states versus countries like germany Which are installing solar at about half the price so connecticut's been very active pursuing that fund and very thankful department Or with do we on those programs? Connecticut solar eyes program they have done in four communities In the first year and it really had similar results the percentages you see in bold font down there Is the growth in the number of installations in that community? Which is tremendous all over well over a hundred percent And the impact on pricing was also similar the purple line in the middle with their current average installed costs Of about five dollars per watt not dissimilar from where we are in massachusetts The jagged blue line at the top is what each individual installer in those four towns What their average cost was in the state and again the green bars represent the difference between that Initial tier price and the bottom tier price Where they got to so durham got to three dollars and sixty cents from from five dollars and forty three cents for that installer Fairfield got to three fifty five and then again when you take into account those adders that may apply in our old new england homes and and just Options that each homeowner adds That comes up a little bit to that red bar takes away a little of those savings But still represents a dramatic discount off the Off the original price Did I go past one here? Sorry, there's a missing slide Which i'll just summarize for you the one another way connecticut looks at it is how it's changed How the impact of solar eyes has changed the payback for solar so solar pv Without any subsidy in connecticut without any anything except the federal subsidy Is about a 12.7 year payback on average if you take into account the current rate payer subsidies in connecticut We're down to about nine year payback and the solar eyes program by driving out additional costs related to customer acquisition and scaling Drove the payback down to six point three years So you're talking about you know driving a good three years off the payback that the rest of the state is is realizing and this is one reason why it's so Impressive and and in connecticut they measured that it drove cost about seventy seven hundred dollars out of the cost of each individual installation That represents, you know real savings to customers who are a paying the surcharge b paying the fifth or sixth highest electricity rates in the country and And you know suffering under those costs so the next thing connecticut wants to figure out And i think similar to massachusetts is how do we roll this out for other populations does it is it going to work in distressed municipalities? How can we make solar more accessible? And more affordable to lower income customers What happens when you add the concept of the green bank to it and connecticut has its own solar lease program And loan products where they can drive out some of the costs of financing And you know further reduce the cost can that even further accelerate the model and then you know Can it be supported or adapted to support the ramp up of other technologies like fuel conversions from 90 percent of the fuel oil in united states that's burned for heat is burned in new england So there's a big focus on converting those that convert can convert from fuel oil to natural gas Which is so much more cost effective at this point for heating So sephia will be focused on funding those fuel conversions where it makes sense Obviously we're all focused on supporting energy efficiency Is this a model that could be rolled out to promote energy efficiency as well as renewable energy And other renewable energy systems like solar hot water or geothermal heat pumps You know how how would it be applicable? And i think just the general concepts of raising awareness simplifying the process Of course have a lot of promise to do that in all those technologies That's it for me. Thank you Pretty impressive two hats there and and I must say I bet senator widen would be really happy to know that Oregon is being emulated and a number of other states on the other other side of the country We are now going to turn to an isle who is the chief of staff in the maryland energy administration Well, good afternoon It's a pleasure to be here. I have a mission for all of you Familiar with ocean city maryland. I want you while i'm talking just to visualize a day like today You're on the boardwalk. You're looking out over the horizon You're enjoying the cool breeze of the ocean and if you squint You could probably we hope to see by 2018 the size of my thumb offshore wind turbines So with that, let me get started and I wanted to start by Really it takes leadership direction and support and that's truly what we have and our governor o'Malley Up there is three of his 15 strategic goals Of energy and climate and to put this in perspective One of the 15 goals is to end childhood hunger in maryland So you can see how important energy is to the governor Which makes my job a lot easier But it also makes it a lot tougher in time. So With that the three goals, i'm sorry The three goals are the empower goal of saving 15 percent by 2015 an energy goal both demand and energy Also a greenhouse greenhouse gas goal. And then the one i'm talking about today is our rps goal of 20 percent by 2022 With that what we did was we started with okay, we we have a 20 percent goal by 2020 How are we going to get there and actually doing the wedge chart that you see up there taking a look at the hydro the solar So if you look at the chart, you notice that we're slightly missing that goal So how are we going to fill that gap? And that's where we really started focusing on offshore wind And you can see the the gap is filled the first part of this chart is showing actually what's happening in the state of maryland And then the kind of the shaded area that's a little hard to see with the brightness of the room Is where we need to go by 2022 as we build up the different renewables And you can see the bottom one the red is the hydro and the difference That you see with the rainfall is what makes the difference in the hydro chart And then the proud day Just last april we signed into law The offshore wind bill april 9th 2013 to create 200 megawatts by 2018 So how do we get there and this is just a list that we've started to put together trying to build the timeline Um, and it's really what we've been doing is creating a project not just the policy Um working with the different state agencies and the federal Agencies to have turbine spending um The offshore wind bill the financing or the funding support But the offshore wind bill requires the state utilities to enter into a power purchase agreement The bill creates offshore wind renewable credits or o-rex These o-rex are geared to provide the developer a guaranteed revenue for 20 years So the o-rex are at about a dollar 190 dollars per megawatts for a wind farm of approximately 200 megawatts With the impact capping the impact to residential customers in maryland to a dollar 50 And for household and then about a 1.5 percent annual bill for the non-residential And this model is just showing how the o-rex work So the next stage is really looking at the developers um step one the developers will determine the total revenue needed for ensuring financing Step two gets into the developers will sell the element of bundled energy And then step three is the psc Um public service commission will calculate how much the net cost will be in the maryland public service commission The offshore wind development fund was Started in a settlement of the merger between excellent corporation and the constellation energy group Um excellent made available 30 million for advancements of offshore wind Off the coast of maryland and this is really to provide some stability information to the developers Reduce some of their financial risk through Geophysical mapping surveys kind of adding that next level to the ocean floor getting real data Going out there taking a look at it testing the wind So trying to make their financing a little bit more easier when they get into the bidding part of this The other area we really started looking at and developing the offshore wind was the port development You know, how are you going to get the wind turbines off that coast of ocean city maryland that you're now all sitting there looking at So what we did was we we worked very closely We've been working very closely with the maryland port authority and the maryland energy administration Our administration to take a proactive approach at exploring ways in the future Offshore wind industry could benefit from this So the port authority and mea met with the european port operators to gain firsthand insight to some of the practices Some of the innovative things that we're really looking at and this is what this slide is trying to show Is the logistical solutions for the offshore wind One possible solution currently being explored Include barging of the offshore wind turbines and blades from the port of baltimore to a rendezvous point With insulation jack-up vessels and southern part of maryland waters in the chesapeake This approach would save the jack-up vessels additional 170 miles up to the port and back Travel for each trip they needed So this is this isn't any scale or any site location But it's just kind of showing trying to you know, look at things innovatively and how can you move these large turbines off the coast of maryland Uh One of the steps in looking at this is the bureau of ocean Energy management and regulation Enforcement's when we first started three years ago. They were boomer They've now since 2011. It's now boom. They've lost the re part of this But we've been engaged with the federal agencies local state agencies of really exploring and looking at the leasing of this Upon request. We had our first meeting April 14th, 2010. So three years ago. We've been working with boomer On the offshore least looking at the proposed sales notice So that's our next critical step is we're waiting for this proposed sales notice There's been delays on the along the way But now it's to the point where you know, it's all merging together. We just passed our offshore wind bill We need to be working with the psc and I'll get into that in a little bit Uh, the way the process worked is the task force accepted mea's recommendations and identified the preliminary area which you see up here And eight developers were expressed interest from that with the input from The working groups that site was reduced to what you see up on the screen to make allowances for the shipping And other concerns that were in the ocean area So it brought that area down into two areas a and b So the theme that we've been hearing throughout the day is really, you know, how critical the federal government is with this partnership So let me briefly just go through three points up here As I've mentioned before one of the critical Points is and you can see it highlighted In the kind of the orangish color is bones, you know involvement and this is the proposed sales In leasing you can also see in the blue Maryland's a psc and some of the things and there we're now into a dual path That we need information for our developers to know to be able to bid on these sites So that's kind of the critical point that's coming on here It The sales notice is first extended and then they have 60 days to make their comments Period which developed and then from there they go into An after proposal sales notice from the interiors and then then the final notice So there's these timelines that are all set up So while this is going on at the same time the maryland public service commission will begin developing regulations To process evaluate review and approve the offshore wind projects The regulation period will require the commissioner to work hard to establish this regulatory process As it is new for someone at bone It's also very new for maryland and the psc to develop what these regulations are going to look for look like And then this is just highlighting the steps that Need necessary for a bone, but we still need to get to the first step of the you know the issue the proposed sales notice So that's really our first ask is you know getting that released the next one is Really looking at what senator carper is doing as far as Extending the itc The itc for projects that commence construction before january 1st of 2014 But as you can tell from the timeline i laid out offshore wind won't be available and ready at that point So at the bill is trying to extend for offshore wind and the third bullet there is To credit the first 3 000 megawatts of offshore wind facilities in place Into service instead of like the stop and go type of thing but have a consistency in funding and stream And really the last ask is just You know assistance, you know with grants to support the offshore wind some of the surveys that are going on Also, you know looking at assistance with the requiring of strengthening the ports And then the third one is really looking at some of the existing funding streams like tiger And looking at right now tiger doesn't apply to offshore wind. It's not multi-states So maybe taking some of the funding like tiger and being able to adapt it to the offshore wind projects With that i'd like to thank you Thanks very much and i think probably a lot of us have seen a number of articles around you know with regard to Action by the legislature on the offshore wind Uh legislation which has been going on for the past several years and there's been a lot of talk With regard to both the the the rest of the east coast and the west coast And so it's interesting to get brought up to date in terms of what's what's happening on that whole front to round out talking about States the innovation The fact that there are 19 states and the district of colombia that have public benefit funds and how these Are really have been used by States by these entities to invest to bring down the costs of renewable power generation To really look at how it's complementary to efficiency investments in these different states as well We are now going to hear from lou milford Who is the founder of the clean energy states alliance bringing this together and lou is also the president of the clean energy group Lou Hi, thanks a lot. You can take your glasses off. I have no slides. So You actually have to listen to a rather than reading Uh, I just wanted to start out with this to to um sort of tell two quick stories There were two news articles last week that I think kind of tell a tale About the state of clean energy around the rest of the united states one Um, is that a conservative group whose name will will go on unmentioned Um, was reported to have sort of failed spectacularly at Reversing any any of the state renewal portfolio laws around the country That that happened last week. There's a story about that at the same time Another conservative group whose name I will mention chamber of commerce. Actually, they're a local They have a local center within the chamber of commerce Issued a report that probably could have been written by n r dc name your environmental group That basically said that the clean energy economy Is really going like gangbusters and that the local chambers of commerce are in the middle of it And that clean energy is really a key part of local economic development around the country So either, you know, one group is really smart and maybe one group's just sort of a smart alec Maybe perhaps I don't know which Um, sorry about that. I just couldn't Couldn't help but what what's really going on here I think what's really going on is that there's sort of this fundamental transformation that's happened outside of washington um, and the transformation is that Um, kind of a fad has turned into an economic development play state by state by state by state um, I mean what's your what you're seeing up here from You know, california alaska maryland, you know 20 some odd states that Uh, as uh, as andrew said put put skin in the game are putting their own dollars On the table in many cases Hundreds of millions close to a billion dollars a year in state investment In these technologies everything from solar to wind biomass you name it And they're not doing it anymore only Because they think that it's a A strong environmental play they're doing it for those reasons, of course Um, but the rationale has shifted it's expanded. It's much more diverse and largely the rationale in many states is because There are businesses there now There are real jobs And one of the reasons for the failures to reverse what's in place now Is that after 15 or 20 years? There are significant industries that have been created that depend for their future On the continuation of a clean energy economy And that if you look to the early 90s and you look to today, that's a fundamental transformation in the politics Kind of the economic basis the energy economics, and it's just the beginning I mean there's you can't now say we've succeeded. We'll walk away But very significant changes that's happened. Why is that because you have a lot of the states that are putting skin in the game They're working together They're learning from each other is as Andy said I mean people are You know are stealing from each other and copying which is exactly what you want you want the sort of replication To occur So what what are a couple things to pay attention to maybe going forward that could be done better? It's been mentioned already, you know federal support ITC and ptc great But what how do you where does it go from there? I mean clearly you're going to have to have a glide path from those. They're not going to last forever And there's a there's a real opportunity for much more creative thinking about where that can go, but it's sort of stuck unfortunately now There are a series of partnerships that have started and and they're in place that have been effective over time They need to be expanded and funded better. There are energy storage partnerships between the DOE and the states There are significant partnerships between States and the federal government on offshore wind They probably could be expanded more and strengthened more I mean the federal government tends to do a good job at technology development Could do a better job at market development support acceleration of deployment by working more directly with the states ARPA is a good example great program Needs to connect more with the market Innovative financing the states really have been the leaders in figuring out How to move from a pure grant game and a rebate game to much more intelligent financing And whether that's revolving loan funds bond finance A lot of kind of the green bank ideas that you're seeing coming out of connecticut This is a Dramatic change in the way states are beginning to figure out how to leverage their money Because it's a dollar for dollar or a dollar for five That's critically important federal governments kind of catching up and that's okay And I think the states are the leaders in this they're closer to the ground They see what has to happen. They can move much more quickly But states but the feds exam have to be in a much more strongly supportive role One of the ideas we've had and I don't know what we've handed out here today And I know no one there's never any money here for anything significant It seems any more in washington but a a program that actually could help states Provide better credit enhancement for projects and companies something we're called the state clean energy finance initiative It's based on an existing federal program. It's a state small business credit initiative Sort of a one to ten match you put a billion in states are going to Or will be able to leverage that for ten and you're going to have Dramatically expanded investment in projects and companies going forward not sure where that's going to go anywhere But I think it's a it's a very good idea One other point is power resiliency And what this means is that you know after Events like sandy I can tell you in the northeast That things have changed That the kind of dramatic effects of that storm in the northeast in the in those states have changed the political dynamic About doing something going forward and it doesn't matter if you believe in climate change or you don't It you look across the board and from some governors who are skeptical to others who who are strong believers They are all doing something and they're beginning to put serious money into revolving loan funds for critical public infrastructure They are mandating proposing to mandate in renewable portfolio standards that there be required investment utility investments in Storm response facilities whether it's hospitals or the rest they're financing more combined heat and power systems So power doesn't go out. This is a power adage problem You know the significant effect that you had from sandy is that eight million people lost power in many cases for weeks at a time And significant health effects significant obviously economic damage you had places like NYU medical school that lost power for a significant period of time And that raises some questions about what the federal government maybe could be doing better More Dedication of FEMA money to actual investments in resilient distributed generation Also questions about why NIH that funds All the medical research facilities in the country has not done more to make sure that Entities like NYU medical school went black Because 10 years prior to that When new york city had a blackout the same thing happened at columbia medical school and in both cases Millions of dollars of medical research were lost your public money Were lost and so it's a question of whether for failure to have a smarter power system at those places Maybe you all lost a cure for cancer Because in the basement of NYU medical school there were millions of genetically engineered mice That were designed for specific cancer tests and they were all destroyed Is that worth a little money? Maybe so So in the end I think it's helpful to have better as carol said stories told in dc about what's happening in the states If you don't get out of dc, please do It's really a good thing And I think you know the states are they're not stopping. That's the other thing about this You know, it's not like a movement, you know, it's not like a political movement. Boy, there's all in this backtracking It's established and so I think it's a question of it's going to it's going to Slide off the tracks occasionally, but it seems like everybody's trying to move pretty full steam ahead. So thanks a lot Thanks very much. Lou. I think it's once again, it's really Exciting to kind of see the things that are going on Both in terms of what's happening at the state level what that means in terms of thinking about replication But also in terms of where there are needs and where by working together and and you know, we're sort of putting Feds states localities together. It can really make a huge difference and and as Lou mentioned the need for greater resilience after looking at things like the Hurricane Sandy etc Just want to mention that I would call your attention back to two briefings That we did in May That really we're looking at this issue when briefing was on combined heat and power on chp The other one was on district energy chp and micro grids and on this very Really framed around this whole point of of resilience And and in terms of talking about medical institutions on one panel. We had the the Manager of Princeton's energy facility Princeton University And one of the things that he talked about was that because they were able to stay up Because of their chp district energy facility at Princeton University They saved more than 200 million dollars worth of research right to your point That a lot of times there are these things that we just don't think about and we really need to help each Other think of these things and really be about problem solving So let's open it up for your questions and comments and if you could just identify yourself, please and I will Look back here. See whether there are any questions any hands Okay, here first go ahead Yeah, I'm even gothman from I'm either even gothman from Sustainability science practice and policy and these all seem to be Great innovations, but is it fair to say This is pretty much just the beginning and it's still only a few percent Like two or three percent of energy is solar and wind so this is really just the uh Laboratory but you you still need exponential growth right so maybe any comments about How quickly you can scale it up and also My impression is that You you also need great advances in energy Efficiency and a lot less overall Use of energy which is happening, but maybe more the big picture how those two can work together Okay, I think just about anybody go ahead Andrew because stuff is happening really fast in terms of scale Yeah, there's uh, I mean, I think all of us in the california policy community are painfully aware of both of the things You know the you just pointed out But you got to start somewhere and we're making incredible gains and The economics are there No question about it for for solar moving forward. There are lots of issues. You know, don't get me wrong There's there's definitely some barriers out there rate design is coming up. We have You know natural gas prices are relatively low So there's there's sort of that's changing the dynamic of the discussion a little bit But fundamentally in california. We have a very heavy-duty carbon reduction goals Um, uh, we we've taken coal off the table We we we also have an innovation economy where there's lots of great technology that can help us solve these problems This is all contained within the sort of broader issue of the need for grid flexibility And sort of the distributed energy future that we're headed down that we're headed down the tracks towards I mean, this is just a fact of that that we have to that we're we're Promoting and trying to adapt to at the same time So it's got a lot of upside potential and we want to do it right as regulators I can you know speak for my agency and for the puc on that Energy efficiency. We actually have a law in california. It's called assembly bill 758 And it was passed a few years ago and we're just now implementing it and it Has the commission tasks the energy commission with developing a plan to radically reduce What really to radically scale up the Upgrades of existing buildings most of the buildings that are going to be with us in 50 years are already with us And so or in 2050 rather are already with us So we need to find out we need to figure out ways to to get in those buildings and Generate demand for the services that we know the technologies and services actually are there to provide So it's really about providing. It's about figuring out what works with customers consumers What business models and so I agree there's a lot of I wouldn't really at this point call it experimentation But I would say there's a lot of hard work out there in the marketplace to figure this out It sounds like you're involved in that and I I think that's terrific We at the energy commission and certainly at the puc In all of our stakeholders across the state and and from what i'm gathering interacting a lot with the other states similar there Really, I think appreciate that this is a Team effort and you can't do it from above you really have to grow things from In collaboration with the marketplace. So I think that's a that in and of itself is a really I think a sea change where we were Um 10 years ago. So I'm extremely hopeful actually the lift is definitely large But I think the solutions are becoming much clearer by the day and I'm very encouraged by that Um anybody else want to go ahead and sure hi. Um, yeah, I I would just confirm everything that He just said but it really is a multi prong approach. Um, you do look at energy efficiency I mean, that's why in in maryland, you know, three of the 15 strategic goals get into the energy efficiency the greenhouse gas And then really looking at renewables because they do intertwine and they do play important roles The other big thing is, you know technology is really moving this very quickly The advancement so you'll see I think exponentially the increase in renewables and also the confidence and consumers are You know, the demand is getting there. So it's it's it's all forming. It's all coming together at once It's you know, it's been it it looks like maybe it's a slow climb and yes, it's a few percentages But I think exponentially you'll see in all the states. It's just gonna it's rapidly taking off and is taking off Great, okay anybody Okay I'm with the congressional progressive caucus and um, I I live in vermont and there is a um a Minority but a vocal minority that are really pushing back hard against wind um, you know saying that there hasn't been enough research about um Environmental impacts and all that sort of stuff. So I was just wondering um what If anything has been done to help address this to do education or outreach to try to rectify some of these misconceptions about um About wind power Okay, there's been a lockdown go ahead Uh, we're having those same issues and messages That's in fact Fatema Falmouth put to attend referendum just a couple weeks ago a vote to take down two wind turbines Which have been the subject of complaints for the last few years when People voted anonymously It was shot down two to one the option to pay for taking them down Although it's not going to stifle the effort to remove them and I think um the the the what we've Done in massachusetts is we have significantly ramped up the upfront Stakeholder outreach so that more parties are at the table when the decisions about citing are being made We are actually using our money to pay for facilitated stakeholder processes for new turbine developments to bring not only a butters but other you know Entities in town to talk through the issues massachusetts as well as oregon have been leaders in providing funding For feasibility studies to make sure the right technical studies are done But if the right people aren't at the table uh to listen to those technical studies and provide their input and make Sure their questions being answered at the end of the day They reject that technical study and don't listen to it and shout down the project at a public meeting Which is in a good good use of time or or our money, so we're very focused on On more upfront stakeholder outreach and we think it's not only relevant to wind But it'll be relevant to anaerobic digestion large-scale solar You know all sorts of things that Are increasingly visible to people's lives and raise concerns about changing community character and and all those things as well as You know concerns about impacts on the environment and and help I also live in vermont, so I've seen this up front I think there are a couple things going on I mean, I think there's always been within the environmental community a You know conflict in many cases between sort of the preservation or conservation ethic and a technology solution and that's part of it um, you know vermont also has In some cases can be a bit overly precious A bit about but it's a very unique place So there's a sense in which once you've you know lost the landscape or lost a part of that ridgeline and it's gone forever The difficulty with sort of accepting that in vermont is that it was fine for 50 years to build ski areas that do the same But if you put up a couple turbines, then it's the end of the world But I think that I think the larger problem is that it's sort of a short term versus a long term thing You know the sort of the fight in vermont is you know this if you put up five or six turbines doesn't that doesn't Mount too much and you know you balance it off against something else and And and sort of getting the the larger debate as part of that is difficult And it's also uniquely vermont problem on energy because vermont tends to Make sure that all of its power is made somewhere else So apart from the nuclear plant that we have which the state has been trying to close down for 10 years It buys the bulk of its power from Canada. So it's sort of an out of sight out of mind problem as well Which if you're at all concerned about individual responsibility may not be the may not be a path you want to take Okay Any other questions comments Did you want to say yeah, I was just to say um, that's a big part of what we're doing for offshore wind with the excellent funds Is really doing the surveys You know, we have a list like of the geothermal physical surveys The big thing we've done is partner with other agencies our department of natural resources It really looks at this and protects the wildlife In the habitat along the coast and in the state of Maryland So we've partnered with them and the universities and then I've hired Different firms to actually go out start mapping surveying to make sure that you know, we aren't upsetting The environmental issues that are going on with some of these projects. So very much so Yeah, I just want to uh, that's this question rings very true to me even though i'm not you know I actually did live in vermont long ago, but uh, san diego is not that similar I have to say, but um um The energy commission Is also this it's the state's policy if the state's planning energy planning agency in california and we actually Part of the reason we were created back in 1974 was to site power plants and permit power plants So we have a process where if you apply for a power plant and anybody can do it It will come out the back end Fully mitigated and you can comply with state law So that is true for renewables plants and it's true for for traditional plants and thermal power plants um And but what it does is bring one agency kind of into one agency that the trade-offs very explicitly where Energy efficiency becomes a demand response and some of these demand side resources And a supply side actually are uh dealt with in the same agency and so California has had per capita electricity consumption Be flat for the last 35 years because of our building standards and our appliance standards work And uh all the different energy efficiency programs that we have and that is uh Very conscious because the more energy efficiency we get the fewer power plants we have to site and so The better our appliances perform the better our buildings perform the fewer power plants We have to site and that applies for any any of the power plants because they're all hard to site Even if they're renewable So we have very aggressive renewables goals, but um, it you know, it's never easy to site anything transmission The electric system is a big complex capital intensive thing So what we're trying to do is figure out ways to optimize what we've got Do incremental investments work with the utilities to help them, you know figure out that the sky isn't actually falling And uh do Have as robust and diverse a mix of supplies we can so I think all of these things are related We were talking about this before they're all related So you've seen a little cross-section of individual projects here, but they all you know feed into the same larger questions So I just I thought I'd put a little context there Thank you I happen to be the Vermont state rep to the national association of home builders And skipped my executive board to come here Because I think it's more important um I want to really emphasize a point that you made energy efficiency has to go hand in hand Because if we don't have it we have to build Larger wind farms and larger solar fields and have more fights So um I'm going to be meeting with our congressman tomorrow I'm going to bring all this up and it was going to be about energy efficiency But I'm kind of really disappointed that Vermont's not farther along joining your group So I'm going to talk about that and see what we can do to move that along Over here, uh-huh There's a microphone coming Thank you Jason Burwin from the American Energy Innovation Council. I want to ask maybe this is for Andrew and for Andy Specifically, uh, there's been a lot of conversation about if we're going to try to get more private financing into renewable energy clean energy How to do that for example making access to public capital markets as a backed type of Securities and that renewable energy and energy efficiency assets could considerably poses that you you both work for organizations that have in some way been aggregating or working on Creating a large number of projects and I'm wondering Are you in some way aggregating that information? intentionally trying to work into Uh, those policy efforts to increase the ability for private finance to get into these types of projects I'm happy to go first. Thanks for the question um, I'll speak to my message is its experience Which uh through the sun shot initiative partnered with DOE One of the things we did was meet with local regional scale banks to educate them about the process and one Very interesting workshop we had with that Which I think gets to a lot of the themes I was talking about with solar eyes is that we we have an awareness awareness problem We met in a room full of bankers and lawyers in downtown Boston Very well dressed very sharp some of whom had led significant money to uh projects And I kicked it off with a discussion just of the basic technologies What they looked like how they basically worked and then other people got into the minutia of financing and so forth And on the assessment forums it turned out that what they needed was the 101 presentation that you know People aren't comfortable seeing and touching and feeling and and having confidence in in these things And there's a very limited understanding. We know there's a limited understanding at the residential scale And that's why we're doing projects like solar eyes But we need to do the same awareness building for the banks uh for you know other uh The private capital markets And when you do it uh and show them the data on project performance and and so forth I think you can build build that confidence. So there's a role for currently for the states to be back stopping The financing and encouraging their participation But I think very rapidly they'll show that the results are there the default rates You know on these loans and all that they'd be making will be very low The very limited amount of data that's currently available. Um certainly supports that And I think we'll very quickly provide, you know confidence to those markets. So that's that's where we're headed Let me just mention one thing and hand it over to Andrew If we have a project just as a quick one as an answer to your question Um with the um, it's a group called the council development finance agencies Which is the essentially membership organization of all the municipal bond authorities in the country And it's it's called it's c e clean energy bond finance initiative c e b f i dot org the website the whole bit The whole idea behind this is to um Essentially convert clean energy investment into a new asset class So that um you can access capital markets just like you access capital markets now for roads bridges hospitals And all kinds of other things that um the public finance does And getting from here there is not easy, but there's a lot of interest in making it happen It's not insurmountable. Um, but and it can be done. So take a look at the website And I'll give you a little bit there So yeah, I'll agree with what's been said here. The really the key thing is to build investor confidence Um, and I think that's I think that's critical. Um, you know, I was sort of in the ground floor in california At least on the pace property cess finance Issues, you know, very big bucket of cold water from fanny and freddy on that and hasn't been resolved So that's one sector. I think that was never going to be the golden carrot, you know, that's sort of the the Uh one size fits all approach. Um, I think really sectors are different They need different kinds of products and financiers have to you know, the capital markets have to figure that out So experience really no no substitute for experience I would caution though that I think a lot of a lot of um, I think financing is wonderful. Now don't get me wrong. I'm into it But it's sort of like the in the old days of you know, rural electrification I worked for the national rural electric cooperative association for 10 years Um and uh the lower you know generations ago was you build you build a line you build a power line out into some rural area And they get development, right? They just magically become developed and that is not true It's a necessary condition you could argue, but it's not a sufficient condition And I think financing sort of falls in that category for clean energy where if we had demand And if people were demanding these products and they were making deals with contractors There's enough private capital on the sidelines where it would beat the path to those projects And so they need the mechanisms and the pathways to get to those projects But I think uh where we really need um particularly in the energy efficiency realm, you know with solar There's an asset there. That's tangible. It's much easier to have that conversation with a with a With somebody representing the capital markets with a bank energy efficiency a little More diverse hard to get your head around And I think bundling up a bunch of home energy upgrades or business energy upgrade projects is a little more complicated It can be done. It's absolutely cost effective And I think you'll find if you look at the projects across the country that default rates are incredibly low um Sonoma county has a large portfolio relative you know relative to their County size and population. They have a large portfolio of great projects and a super low default rate Um and there they continue to do properties as financing even though You know they're the restrictions around fanny and freddy so I think I think experience is really important here It seems to be happening really at the local level and at some point that will become relevant To the capital markets and in ways that are that really matter and you know going back to the other theme Yes, the the the advances are incremental But at some point the dam breaks and things really change and I think we're getting pretty close to that Um what what we've found in the state of maryland is that each sector is quite different For the residential sector we were successful in doing a loan loss reserve and doing a buy down Um and we do that through the maryland clean energy center. It's kind of a quasi state State agency So they offer loans for energy efficiency working very closely with the hvac installers For businesses, especially small businesses Through the utility the psc the state program of doing rebates and grants It's getting that extra money. I mean once you have the rebates It's the rest of like for a lighting job the rest of the cost So we're going to be starting We have funding from the x-law and we put into what we call an advanced And it's working with baltimore gas and electric where they would pay for the small ones that that money And then just build them on their bill. So it's not the loan set up at an advanced setup It's just a different way of doing it to target that So there's different mechanisms that we kind of to get around the pace problem with fanny and freddy mac that You know, we've looked at from a state agency But it is and then as was said, you know with the tangible solar leasing has just exploded So it's you know a self, you know funding type of thing Yeah, I think that is part of the interesting thing is that there are a variety of mechanisms that are being tried and It's been incredible looking at the numbers with regard to the leasing in various cities across the country With regard to solar projects with some companies where it has become an unbelievably successful business model And so I think we're going to be seeing more and more different approaches Depending upon what makes sense for what sector of the market and again It's kind of up to everybody to all of us working together to figure out what does make sense And what are the different models and and we are now out of time, but Um, I want you to join with me in thanking this wonderful panel