Voices of 100%: A Renewable City Coalition Grows in Western Montana — Episode 137 of Local Energy Rules

Podcast: Local Energy Rules
Source: whisper-base
Language: en
Duration: 1916s
URL: https://media.blubrry.com/localenergyrules/content.blubrry.com/localenergyrules/2021-8-ler137-v100-helena-mt.mp3
Fetched: 2026-03-03 04:27:17

It's been really gratifying working with my counterparts over in Mizzoula city and county and Bosnian and Like I said that first meeting was actually convened in big sky There are another community that was very interested in these topics and have similar goals And so you know those communities already represent about a quarter of northwesterns Montana customer base and those communities are also some of the fastest growing in the state And so that's only gonna continue to increase and you know, we think that's a powerful kind of strong collective voice That the utility has to pay attention to If it's hard for one city to achieve a 100% renewable electricity commitment Can they improve the odds by combining forces? Helena Montana was the third city in the state to make a 100% renewable energy pledge when it passed in February 2020 and along with Bosnian and Mizzoula the three communities represent nearly one quarter of the electric utilities customers in the state I spoke with Helena city sustainability coordinator Patrick judge and citizens conservation commission member Mark Judman in April 2021 about the collective push for cleaner electricity in Montana I'm John Farrell director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for local self-reliance and this is a Voices of 100% episode of local energy rules a bi-weekly podcast sharing powerful stories about local renewable energy Mark and Patrick welcome to local energy rules. Thank you. It's good to be young So I like to start off to give people a flavor for why the folks that are working on these issues have some sense of Personal investment in it because I usually find that it's not just that there is some sort of official policy But the the folks have been involved in helping to establish and to work on these goals have really come to it from other Interests and passions in their life. So I guess I'll start with you Patrick I'm just curious like what got you into this kind of work around sustainability? What what it's motivated you and and then kind of sustained you as you've worked on this 100% renewable energy commitment? Sure, so I was fortunate to be born and raised in this community and have deep family roots here and growing up I really developed a intense love for the natural and meet amenities of this area and Desire to do what I could to help protect that and then I guess my Kind of professional interests have been in the physical sciences and Also in sustainability and in one area where those two interests seemed to really overlap was With energy and with climate issues so clearly Global warming global climate change most pressing issue facing us today I have an environmental front and and beyond that with serious threats to Montana's quality of life with the wildfires and public health implications of that and drought Threatening our our largest industries of the agriculture and tourism and so I was really proud that from the beginning the city of Helena Framed its sustainability efforts in this context and I was happy to have the opportunity to serve on the climate change task force back in 2008 and 2009 which produced a climate action plan for the city And Mark how about you what brings you to this kind of conversation Well, I grew up on a ranch north of Helena I got a degree in geology and then moved to Texas and Louisiana for work While volunteering at a building material in use non-profit in New Orleans I spearheaded the installation of a solarary on the warehouse at the time in 2004 that was the largest array in In Louisiana at a little over six kilowatts. So we've come away since then I've also initiated getting a 10 kilowatt burgy winter of it installed at our family ranch in Montana I think that was around 2000 started in 2005 Then Katrina hit while we were in New Orleans. We were flooded displaced from New Orleans and Climate change impacts became very very real for us It took a few years more, but we finally moved back to Montana where we've installed solar on our own complimentary solar to the wind at our ranch and We're focused on working in our community to address both climate mitigation and resilience Through such avenues as being a member of the city of Helena city conservation board And could I also say something about how fortunate Helena is to have Patrick as our sustainability coordinator With his scientific literacy, his skill at data and analysis and his many years of experience in energy policy I feel the same toward you, Mark Well, we'll make sure that those recordings are available if you ever need to ask for a promotion or a raise pattern It seems like that's a good reference there Well, thanks so much It's I think it's great to hear kind of the path that different people have traveled in getting to this work to dive in then into the Specific commitment that Helena has made about a hundred percent renewable energy I was hoping Patrick that you could explain a little bit about the details because we now have well over a hundred almost 150 cities that have made similar commitments But a lot of them different in terms of the scope some focus on electricity some just on like the municipal operations and as well as that the timeline You know 2030 2040 2050. Could you just explain what is Helena committed to and and by what date? I guess going back to that climate action plan from 2009 That had 44 recommendations and it did have a goal for energy Reduction and carbon reduction in city government municipal operations and what was interesting at that time is we did the analysis for 2001 and 2007 as our testiers and we saw that at municipal government level We had already reduced energy and carbon emissions by 20% and so created another goal of 20% by 2020 And it looks like we'll meet that goal on the carbon emission side anyway And so you know the city commission kind of revitalize these efforts in 2017 by creating the citizen conservation board and then shortly thereafter by creating my position So that was in November of 2019 and shortly thereafter February of 2020 the city commission adopted its 100% clean electricity goal, which is community-wide So it's broadening the scope from you know up until that point it really been focused on getting our own internal house and order So this is community-wide It's electricity only 100% by 2030 with an interim goal of 80% by 2025 And this goal is very much in sync with the communities of Missoula city and county and Bozeman have taken similar positions on that so I think that summarizes it. Yeah, that's great I one of things I think is interesting So we did an interview with Missoula for a previous episode and I just you know both cities are served by a northwestern energy the same investor and utility And one of the things I thought was really interesting was that about 60% of their electricity already comes from hydro-winder solar So in compared to a lot of other cities across the country where maybe 25 to 30% at the best is Coming from renewables. You have a pretty good head start does that make it feel easier? You know now you you still only have nine years you set a pretty aggressive timeline which is terrific does it feel easier? Do you think because you've got that head start or does it still feel like wow we still got a ways to go? I would say perhaps easier, but but certainly not easy So we are truly fortunate to have such vast renewable energy potential in Montana and a strong base of carbon-free generation already in the mix with the legacy hydro system from Montana power company days to substantial quantities of a new wind and a sliver of solar in there as well, but Have to be honest. It's tough sledding here in Montana It kind of took a about face with some of our state-level officials legislature just adjourned yesterday and Kind of rolling back some of the the key Policies that we had on the books the renewable portfolio standard repealed tax credits for conservation and renewable energy They also created a new $250 extra registration fee for electric vehicles Numerous attacks on rooftop solar net metering policy those did not actually make it to the finish line But they certainly could next session and even preemption bills trying to limit the scope of what local governments can do in this area explicitly forbidding carbon taxes or anything resembling that for example at the local level So it's definitely still challenging But there is a ton of enthusiasm and progress going forward at that local level still Yeah, I really think that Where the action is is that at our local communities We face tremendous headwinds from the legislature and the executive branch and So we're that's that's you know kind of our motivation for doing everything we can at our city level Speaking of like of trying to do that work at the city level as you mentioned There's tremendous renewable energy resources in Montana. I remember in our recent report We didn't update to our energy self-reliant states report and I'm I'm pretty sure that it was in the thousands of percent Some more renewable energy potential in the state than compared to its electricity consumption We mentioned before like Missoula Helena is mostly served by utility company Northwestern energy doesn't own what are some of the Challenges that you think you can overcome in terms of Northwestern So you know you just said for example the state rolled back policies that would have compelled Northwestern to get more clean energy On the other hand what we've seen across the country is that Utilities that are running fossil fuel power plants are often doing so when they are more costly than clean energy options Have you had conversations of Northwestern? Are they as the as more cities are in their service territory or saying they want to do stuff with Renewable energy are they coming around and interested in working with you? Yeah, that's that's an interesting question Northwestern energy is a large and complex organization Definitely work with them when we can try to hold them accountable otherwise Had really good success working with some of their teams and I would say they are are doing some things right for sure But definite challenges working kind of on the policy front with their regulatory affairs and You know they have a fleet of resources that includes Thermal plants that they're very dedicated to 220 megawatts of coal power at coal strip that they hope to run through 2042 They have a natural gas plant at Dave gate station near Anaconda have other Contracts with gas and waste coal and whatnot and just Recently proposed a new gas plant in Laurel another 175 megawatts so that makes it difficult But like I said, we have had many conversations with utility and You know, we're optimistic that we could make some progress in December of 2019 They actually convened a group of stakeholders including these these cities with these goals and Started to have conversations about could we perhaps replicate the Utah model? They passed a community Renewable Energy Act in 2019 and that was in a very conservative state with a conservative governor as well And there's interesting we're replicating that here Ultimately the utility step back from that didn't think it was politically feasible. They're probably right about that and that has the beauty of being a Default situation where the communities customers are part of Kind of sees 100% green electricity products and then have the option to opt out So instead we're kind of falling back on more of a green tariff model that we've been negotiating with utility So that's more of the opt-in model But the cities have their municipal loads that could be good anchor tenants for that kind of approach other large organizations of businesses Wal-Mart the universities and Hopefully this product would be available to businesses of all sizes and residential customers that they could opt in as well So that's kind of the major area of focus that we've been working on lately We have an inter-local agreement between city of Missoula County, Missoula and city of Bozeman to we hired a consultant to help us design this proposal that does not need new legislation is entirely voluntary So we think it's more politically palatable and doable in Montana I'd also say that the city itself is moving towards renewables with real money funding Along with the universal service-benefit grants that we've been able to get to 50 kilowatt net-metered solar projects and 50 kilowatt because that's the cap on their near projects here in Montana There have been a lot of investments by the city and energy conservation and efficiency as well So that we've been on a downward trend of energy use and emissions in 2001 20% reduction in energy consumption from 2001 to 2007 and another 7% from 2007 to now But the reality is that only 3% of our community usage is is by the city of Illinois. So that's you know, just a small part of it of the total amount Kelena has been very progressive on trying to get distributed solar Our support Distributed solar. There's a zero-interest loan program the only one in the state which is essentially a face program And that you pay back the loan on your property tax bill It was launched in 2015 with 200,000 from a Telecom settlement another 60 $60,000 was added in 2021 and another $60,000 is in the budget for 2022 Again, I've got to say that the city commission in there have been very supportive of this transition They're revolving fund continues to grow 28 projects have been completed so far, and I think there's potential for for very many more Another local group the sleepy giant citizens council is thinking about a solarized program finding a solarized program piloting this year and I think that zero-interest loan program will be a component of that Yeah, I have got like two directions. I want to go with my questions at this point But I want to some to try to make a note that I don't miss both of them because I want to ask you about this loan program Which is really intriguing but also a little bit more about this discussion you were having with Northwestern energy I just did a podcast conversation with folks from Milwaukee, Oregon, which is a suburb of Portland And they have a hundred percent commitment and have been kind of in a similar situation where the utilities out there have a lot of hydro power already And they are they're in a similar negotiation about a green tariff or a community choice model And it sounds like they're going to do some sort of opt-out. I don't know if they're able to do it because there is different state legislation or if the utility is somehow going to work with them on that But it was really it's really intriguing to hear that that is popping up in different states as a potential model I guess one thing I was curious about is if Northwestern energy Were to say we'd support this this community choice opt-out model where you would be able to on the behalf of the customers and Helena say we're going to do a hundred percent renewable but you can you can opt out of it Do you think it could pass the legislature if you had the utility on board saying hey? We support this model We think that it would work and you know we're interested in supplying the energy for it Yeah, that was definitely the hope And that was the model that really the reason why it was able to to get through the the Utah State House with Rocky Mountain Power as a partner to Salt Lake City and Park City in some of county So and that's why it was just Really unfortunate that that the utility not only said that maybe the time timing isn't ripe right now but they also stepped away from Even trying to lay the groundwork for the 2023 session on that So I don't know it's it's tough to say if it could get through with their assistance But I think it would have a legitimate shot you know montanans also have the Citizens initiative process So that's another potential route and the communities have really been trying to brainstorm different approaches Whether it's community choice aggregation or municipalization, but there are a lot of Barriers in Montana law even to community net metering and things like that. So We're going to take a short break when we come back I'll ask how equity is being incorporated into Helena's clean energy goals further explore the partnership with Missoula and Bozeman and ask what advice Patrick and Mark have for leaders in other cities You're listening to a voices of 100% local energy rules podcast with Patrick judge City sustainability coordinator with the city of Helena, Montana and Mark Judaman member of the city's citizen conservation commission Hey, thanks for listening to local energy rules If you've made it this far, you're obviously a fan and we could use your help for just two minutes As you've probably noticed, we don't have any corporate sponsors or ads for any of our podcasts The reason is that our mission at iLSR is to reinvigorate democracy by decentralizing economic power Instead we rely on you our listeners your donations not only underwrite this podcast But also help us produce all of the research and resources that we make available on our website And all of the technical assistance we provide to grassroots organizations Every year iLSR's small staff helps hundreds of communities challenge monopoly power directly And rebuild their local economies So please take a minute and go to iLSR.org and click on the donate button And if making a donation isn't something you can do Please consider helping us in other ways You can help other folks find this podcast by telling them about it Or by giving it a review on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts The more ratings from listeners like you, the more folks can find this podcast And iLSR's other podcasts community broadband bids and building local power Thanks again for listening Now back to the program We have our community power map at iLSR and we track a lot of those different policies by state And i think it's so important to understand as you said How the state laws shape a lot of what cities can do unfortunately And it makes that kind of state level advocacy such an important piece of how cities can Reach these goals is it's not just about what can they do with the power they have But also asking for more flexibility and and choice and the things that they can do So i wanted to follow up on this other bit you talked about mark the the pay Sloan program for solar And how it integrate with the solarize One of the things i was curious about was whether or not there any particular provisions to focus on equity Sort of just broadly within the 100% renewable energy plan But it seems like this is a really great Possibility here with a program where the cities involved in helping to Make solar more affordable for folks are then you particular targets in that program or are there other ways in which the city is trying to make sure That 100% goal can be done in a way that is you know benefiting native american populations or low-income folks Yeah, there is an intent to try to market the 0% interest loan program In specific areas where the socio-economic levels May benefit from that That's something still in the future we need to figure that out we may be able to do it kind of like by award Perhaps to try to get some more equity in that equity is you know, it's a big issue I think we distributed renewable energy You know there's some some barriers there one is that mostly it's installed on on folks homes and and homeownership can really be a barrier To to be able to do that Helena like many other cities in the west is kind of facing an affordability Crisis as far as as homes go a lot of people want to move here Especially during the last year And there's a limited supply of homes and so the prices that have gone through the roof Things aren't nearly as crazy as they are in other places like the zoo light yet But you know, we could see that happening So so that's that's one barrier I guess the other thing is that rins are also going up and so that's that's an issue as well So I think the the city commission Certainly recognizes that housing affordability is an issue There have been I think so some really good projects and thinking I think since 2002 About quitting Solar on affordable housing projects the term again apartments had solar put on them in 2002 There are a number of other developments that have it the latest Is the river rock residences which has solar and and so I think that that's kind of a positive movement there The latest development did not get solar but they did get their 100% heated by heat pumps and so there's no gas involved there So that's I think that's a positive thing as well You know community solar would would of course be the best way to kind of address this But that's not allowed under Montana law and there have been attempts I think two sessions ago and legislator to try to to make net metering flexible enough to do that but that did not pass So I'm sure you see issues like that elsewhere across the country But we're kind of scratching our heads about how to really make the renewable energy distribution Yeah, there's it's been interesting to see how other cities have approached this I've mentioned on a few podcast Providence Road Island in their climate the making of the climate justice plan And the way that they interfaced with the community ended up targeting in their case They had a lot of heavy industry and a port and so the communities near that facility talked about the health impacts of the criteria pollutants the particulates and whatever And so they had a real strong focus then on how they would reduce transportation emissions As part of their plan and in Minneapolis where I'm from as well They have a couple of designated geographic areas called green zones where they prioritize investment Then with city funds that have a higher proportion of minority residents and lower income populations So it's been a lot of really interesting ways that cities have approached that We talked about this earlier But I wanted to kind of circle back to it about the work that you've done with other cities You've already mentioned Bozeman and Missoula are have these similar commitments You talked about the kind of stakeholder collaboration conversation with northwestern energy Are there other ways that you're collaborating with these other communities sharing strategies I don't know if there's ways that you can even act collectively Or if given the geographic distances between the cities if that makes it challenging I remember driving from city to city in Montana and they're not close And this is from someone who lives in Minnesota Which also has some fairly big distances between places How has that been to try to work together in these different communities It's been really gratifying working with My counterparts over in Missoula city and county and Boseman and Like I said that first meeting was actually convened in big sky There are another community that was very interested in these topics and have similar goals And so, you know, those communities already represent about a quarter of northwesterns Montana customer base and those communities are also some of the fastest growing in the state And so that's only going to continue to increase And you know, we think that's a powerful kind of strong collective voice That the utility has to pay attention to And we're definitely looking to grow that group There's been a lot of great activity in other areas not necessarily with adoption of a specific 100% goal But with adoption of climate action plans Communities like Livingston, Red Lodge, Whitefish Communities in the Bitterit even talk to Group up in Libby that's working on these issues And I would also mention the the tribal communities And you know the Blackfeet have a Climate adaptation plan The Flathead reservation, Salish Kudni tribes I like to point out that they have the largest tribally-owned hydro project in the nation And so that's 208 megawatts at the Salish Dam And they have their energy keepers incorporated Business that sells that power to different customers And I think I think that that strategy is Working the fact that Northwestern did sit down with these groups in the stakeholder processes And also, you know, Mizzou has really got to give them credit for leading the way They were the first to pass the resolution back in April of 2019 And then also signed a memorandum of understanding with the utility Fork together to allow them to achieve that goal And then recently released a draft implementation plan That the utility was part of developing as well And so there were six different components or work plans in that document And unfortunately the seventh was supposed to be that Utah model And utility just wouldn't agree to that one But So I'm not going to go through all six of those But you know there's lots of areas of overlapping interests Electrification of transportation Obviously good for the utility as well And they have their own internal plan for converting their fleet to electric vehicles Yeah, I mean that's a, you know, we've been thinking about Electrifying everything that's that's going to be someone difficult Especially as far as who can go with current technology And then of course reading the grid is the other side of that Which is of course what we're talking about here today I would also There are a couple of projects that my strategy worked on In Bozeman and Missoula they called them their pilot projects They invested a million dollars in each of those communities Mainly in Bozeman I think it was a kind of like a community solar project Not really community solar But a large solar array that feeds into the grid there in Bozeman And Missoula I think had a number of smaller solar projects on some of their school campuses And there was a commitment to do that in Helena as well These are based these pilot projects you kind of research projects When Northwestern energy to look at new technologies and see how they may work out Northwestern is energy is now working with Helena with kind of a community panel To look at doing a pilot project here We would have liked that to be, you know, really solar focused They have an interest in looking at distributed storage solid state storage actually So it's kind of cool We've been working with them and together we've kind of come to an idea of trying to integrate some of that distributed storage With some of our solar projects one with one of these 50 kill lot solar projects And the other with one of the affordable housing projects that has solar to see how that integrates So that should be pretty cool. I hope that leads to better things in the future I just want to take a second to plug this new podcast that I was talking is someone who was on my podcast But it's called city climate corner But it's done by a city council member in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and another climate advocate And they're specifically looking at strategies for small and mid-sized cities Around clean energy and climate change So I think there's a handful of episodes at this point But Larry Kraft who is one of the who's the city council member who is on my podcast to talk about St. Louis Park Which also has 100% commitment is doing that podcast and he has some particularly good stories to tell about the way that youth Or have done organizing in his community to help support the climate action So just want to take a minute to To plug that if you haven't heard of it because I think it could be a useful resource But I'd like to just wrap up by asking you, you know, what advice do you have for other cities? Whether it's other cities in Montana or other cities in the mountain west that are trying to consider this or across the country You know, you're deep in the throes of trying to figure out how do you get from point A to point B You've got this commitment. You've got a pretty good set of sense to the landscape Which other folks be thinking about if they're thinking of making this pledge or trying to sit down to figure out how they get there I would say persistence familiarity with the local constraints that you know trying to Focus on your opportunities that you have in your communities like I mentioned maybe the 100% And framing these goals in terms of climate isn't the right approach for all communities But you can still make tremendous strides to increase the efficiency of your operations or To have the same outcome of reducing related carbon emissions One example is Billings has a really strong energy conservation commission And so they've made a lot of a lot of progress and they're looking at being a lead certified community So you know that approach seems to have some traction I guess just being flexible to tailor your specific strategies to what to what works best for your community Yeah, I think it was you know a strong coalition building that that got us the resolution in the first place number of environmental organizations and Parents and children advocates and so on in this area that that got us there along again with a supported city commission the mayor And I think it's the coalition building that that Patrick's working on with Missoula and Boseman and other communities That's going to make the difference in whether we are able to get some real commitments from northwestern energy towards renewable energy Well, Mark and Patrick, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me about the 100% renewable energy commitment in Helena and the work that you're putting into it It's just great to hear about the progress that you've made and to share that story with others who are going to the same struggle Thanks so much for reaching out. This has been great. Enjoyed it John. Thank you Thank you so much for listening to this voices of 100% episode of local energy rules with Patrick judge and Mark Judaman from Helena Montana discussing the cities recently adopted 100% renewable electricity pledge on the show page Look for links to the policy announcement the city's climate plan and other related local initiatives On our website you can also find iLSR's community power map detailing the state policies that give cities more flexibility and choice over their energy sources As well as the community power toolkit an interactive collection of stories of how cities have pursued their clean energy goals Local energy rules is produced by myself and Maria McCoy with editing provided by audio engineer Drew Birchbach tune back into local energy rules every two weeks to hear more powerful stories of communities taking on concentrated power to transform the energy system Until next time keep your energy local and thanks for listening you