Localities' Sustainabilities
"Ninety-five local governments across 33 states procured 3,638 megawatts (MW) of new renewable energy generation capacity in 2020 through 143 deals, the largest amount of capacity ever added in one year, according to the latest update from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and World Resources Institute (WRI) in their Local Government Renewables Action Tracker."
..."Solar was the most popular renewable energy to be procured, at 79% of all deals, followed by wind at 17% and geothermal at 4%...The newly shared data also show the average size of those deals increased from 14 MW in 2015 to 26 MW in 2020."
Here in Vermont, local towns and larger cities are learning from one another via virtual meetings of Select Boards and Energy Committees. At Power Guru, we are hosting neighboring state solar incentive program managers to educate on how they've implemented policies that incentivize solar installations. But in Los Angeles, Houston and Charlotte, green tariffs are motivating deals in Megawatts! How can localities' sustainabilities be more universally incentivized state by state? Or is this question mute because of the hyper-local politics, landscape and commerce issues at stake?
What will 2021 yield? More solar? More storage? More bundled clean energy solutions that may also include better public EV infrastructure?