[0:00] Rod Howe: So good afternoon, everyone. I'm Rod. How supervisor for the town of Ithaca! And this is very exciting to be talking to city and town officials

[0:12] Rod Howe: about community choice aggregation or Tompkins Green energy network.

[0:18] Rod Howe: We wanted to start with town officials and city officials to start answering questions that you might have. We're going to go through a presentation and then certainly leave time for Q. And A.

[0:30] Rod Howe: Some of us have been talking about Cca. For

[0:34] Rod Howe: quite a long time, maybe 3 years. It's been a while, and we're excited that we have branded it specific to Tompkins County.

[0:44] Rod Howe: The Tompkins Green energy network.

[0:47] Rod Howe: we?

[0:50] Rod Howe: you know, we're Ithaca. We're Tompkins County. We like to be innovative. And so certainly the approach that we're taking to Cca has an innovative approach. And that's probably what you're going to learn about today.

[1:03] Rod Howe: Both the city and the town approved the enabling legislation to move in this direction. Last summer. There are other municipalities in Tompkins County that we have been working with and are interested and hopefully we'll join, you know, once this is approved next spring, or whatever. So we will be sharing we will be putting this on Youtube. We'll be sharing this link with our municipal sisters

[1:28] Rod Howe: so that they can see that we will certainly be doing additional education and outreach. We're required to do that, and we want to do that. But we wanted to start with

[1:38] Rod Howe: the policy makers who are going to be approving this hopefully in September, and we've also invited our Cce colleagues who might help us with education and outreach along the way. Gay Nicholson with sustainable finger. Lakes, is also here. She's been very instrumental the past few years.

[1:58] We did get a grant from the Park Foundation that allowed us to work with local power to get us to this point. So we wanna thank and acknowledge Park Foundation.

[2:08] Rod Howe: So today's goal is really to start giving you. II know some of you have been hearing about Ccat along the way, but this is sort of a practice session for us to see. How do we start conveying the information in a meaningful way? Because the general public is gonna have to understand this. You know we're both the city and the town will be doing public meetings about this. So we wanna do some of the education and outreach in advance of those public meetings.

[2:36] Rod Howe: I think that's oh, by the way, there is going to be a video but it wasn't ready for today so soon for the general public. We'll be able to start sharing a video to kinda help getting the word out. What is T. Jin? So we've been we're we're almost ready to launch that. And I'm gonna turn over to Rich just for a couple of minutes and rich. I don't know if you want to mention someone who is very helpful in coming up with the logo.

[3:06] Rich DePaolo: Yeah. Yeah. We worked with worked with Mickey Quinn, who some of you might know she's in events

[3:13] Rich DePaolo: promoter and coordinator around town, and she was kind enough to barter with me for audio services. So we did a little graphics work there. I also wanted to mention, while I had the floor for those of you who may or may not be concerned about quorum issues in the open meetings. Law and so forth, doesn't look like we have a quorum of any legislative entity at the moment, but I think the idea is that

[3:35] Rich DePaolo: this is an information session, and people are are free to ask questions specific to the initiative without deliberating about potential approvals, and so on and so forth. So as long as we steer clear from getting into the sort of legislative components we're we're good to go according to our respective council.

[3:59] Rod Howe: So the broader team. Is there anything else you think we need to mention that's not going to be covered in the slideshow to help set the stage.

[4:11] Rebecca Evans: I guess this is we're just really presenting on the Deer plan the distributed energy resource plan today. So there will be more information coming about the

[4:23] Rebecca Evans: a more holistic plan that includes procurement and selection of an energy service provider and all that sort of stuff. We'll dig into a little bit today, but aren't going to go into the details of that which is really focusing on the distributed energy portion.

[4:38] Rod Howe: And that's a good point that when we do the public. So the more public sessions we'll have to go back.

[4:45] Rod Howe: And

[4:46] Rod Howe: and we have the lots of slideshows to draw from what is Cca. And what? Yeah. So anyways, that's a good point. Thank you. Rebecca. Yeah. So we're be focused a bit tonight on what both the city and the town will actually be voting on, probably in September at some point. So with that we will turn it over to. And Rebecca, do you? I think everyone knows who Rebecca is, but if you wanna introduce yourself

[5:13] Rod Howe: and Paul will have you introduce yourself as well. So, Rebecca, I think you're starting first. Is that correct?

[5:20] Rebecca Evans: Yeah, I can. Paul and I can both introduce ourselves at least briefly at first, and then Paul has a more in-depth

[5:29] Rebecca Evans: introduction slide about himself and local power. I'm Rebecca Evans. I'm the Director of Sustainability for the city of Ithaca. I've been with the city for about a little over 2 years now.

[5:42] Rebecca Evans: Paul, do you want to introduce yourself?

[5:44] Paul Fenn: Oh, yes, certainly. Hi, I'm Paul Finn from local power. I've been working on Cca for about 30 years, and glad to be working with the city and town.

[5:58] Rebecca Evans: Great. So my apologies in advance to members of Pedc, because you will have seen at least a portion of this already.

[6:07] Rebecca Evans: But maybe it'll be a nice reminder.

[6:10] So

[6:12] Rebecca Evans: we're going to use the the term Cca community choice aggregation and the acronym token screen energy network interchangeably. They're the same thing. Tgin is just the name of our local program. But more generally it is a Cca program.

[6:29] Rebecca Evans: So just a quick reminder of what is Cca, it basically empowers municipalities to purchase energy on behalf of their residents.

[6:38] Rebecca Evans: It also maintains that the utilities still controls the distribution and transmission infrastructure. So we're not going to be buying any of that. We are just basically choosing who we're getting energy from and purchasing it in bulk.

[6:55] Rebecca Evans: So just sort of where we are in the timeline. About a year ago we entered into a contract with local power. Llc. Who is our Cca. Consultant

[7:04] Rebecca Evans: and there has been a number of changes throughout the year at the State level that determines the process through which new and existing Cca. Programs are approved by the State.

[7:18] Rebecca Evans: So we had to wait several months to get guidance from the State. But now that we have that guidance, we have

[7:25] Rebecca Evans: officially received this the er plan, and just last week it was approved by the Playing and Economic Development Committee to send on to council with the city, and, as Rod mentioned, it'll go to the town next month. It sounds like for both.

[7:42] Rebecca Evans: We will then have to select a Cca. Administrator, which is a lot of that work is done at the State level. So we just need to essentially choose

[7:53] Rebecca Evans: a master implementation plan that jive with the program that we're envisioning.

[8:00] Rebecca Evans: And once we've done that, though, we can get into the sort of the real meaty work of selecting and energy service providers starting to do that public outreach and ultimately starting to enroll customers. So we're still almost a year out from officially enrolling customers which we're aiming for. June 2020. Fourth.

[8:22] Rebecca Evans: So why are we doing this? So does this ultimately help us achieve our collective renewal goals. So if we look at this is a representation of the city's greenhouse gas emissions. But really, what we're targeting is that 14 down in the lower left hand corner, the electric bridge decarbonization. So yes, we are planning to purchase renewable renewable electricity.

[8:46] Rebecca Evans: But we're also concerned about the the heat loss from transmission, and I'll go into that in just a second. But before we do that, I just want to be really really clear. I know I've gotten a number of communication from from residents that are kind of confused as to what this program will and won't do so. I want to be really explicit about that. It will purchase electricity. Yeah, on behalf of residents and businesses.

[9:11] Rebecca Evans: It will provide pathways for renewable energy investment, which is exactly what we're talking about today.

[9:17] Rebecca Evans: It'll also provide pathways for the development of micro grids. And we'll go into what that means in a little bit.

[9:22] Rebecca Evans: and also eliminate scope to emissions. Which we, when you report your greenhouse gas emissions, there are 3 scopes and scope to just means everything to do with electricity and for the city that's right at around 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

[9:39] Rebecca Evans: This process will also provide transparency in the renewables market that is otherwise unachievable by purchasing renewable energy certificates. So there are a number of one transparency issues but 2 equity and environmental justice issues that come up with the purchasing effect.

[9:56] Rebecca Evans: and then again, very explicitly, what it will not do. It's not going to replace transmission or distribution infrastructure. So we are not intending to go out and buy the electrical lines that run around the street.

[10:08] Rebecca Evans: It's not going to eliminate. The delivery rate increases that are a result of the Nicag rate case that you probably have heard about in the last couple of months, that is, on the delivery side, and residents will still receive a bill for nickel delivery

[10:23] Rebecca Evans: and just to be extra clear, this is not going to replace my side. We will still be relying on them in some capacity.

[10:33] Rebecca Evans: So I mentioned that 14 of emissions. So when you are when you say, plug your phone into an outlet in the wall, you're not actually receiving all of the energy that it took. Actually charge that phone, you're really only receiving about a third of the energy that was produced in order to actually get that electricity to you. So you lose about

[10:56] Rebecca Evans: almost 2 thirds through the conversion process. The power actual running of the power plant is another 6%, and then you lose another about 10 through transmission and distribution losses. And so a good example, when you think about this is

[11:11] Rebecca Evans: you think about traditional incandescent light bulbs, they get really, really hot. If you turn them on for a long time. The reason for that is they a lot of the heat that they produce, or a lot of the light that they produce, that energy is lost to heat

[11:25] Rebecca Evans: so led, which are much more efficient. Don't get as hot. So it's the exact same idea when we're talking about transmission and distribution infrastructure. And that's something that cannot be avoided without the deployment of micro grid, basically creating our own little tiny grid. Like I said, we'll go into that. The details of what that means in just a second. So this plan, this Dr. Plan, is the only way that we can avoid

[11:49] Rebecca Evans: those emissions.

[11:53] Rebecca Evans: So Paul's gonna go into this in a little bit deeper but the whole purpose of this particular plan is to give customers the option to collectively, or did for individually invest in distributed energy, resources and that is accessible through a loan that is available to anybody, and that is approved by the Cca administrator. And when we start to actually collectively event, then we can actually achieve economies of scale and further financial savings.

[12:22] Rebecca Evans: So the process through which this happens the Administrator is going to engage with local financial institutions. To start setting up potential loans for customers that are interested in voluntary voluntarily investing

[12:37] Rebecca Evans: the lenders are then responsible for providing the administrator with data for tracking. Whatever the system is that they're investing in and ensuring and sharing the data associated with customer return on investment.

[12:53] Rebecca Evans: Those deer systems are designed, based on the priorities of a customer or a cooperative so essentially as a customer would have a menu of choices to invest in, and those will be predetermined.

[13:05] Rebecca Evans: although I think there will be some flexibility there, and a customer or a cooperative of customers can then choose. You know, this is the technology that we're most interested in, that we want to collectively invest in

[13:18] Rebecca Evans: the city, and the town will then ultimately have final oversight over the legal agreement that are signed between investors, site owners, and users. And again, we'll go into exactly what those terms need. But basically, anyone that is involved within the process of investment will need to have a legal agreement to ensure that.

[13:37] You know, dividends that are received are are meeting expectations, and people are getting ultimately what they thought they were investing in

[13:46] Rebecca Evans: the administrator, then manages procurement on behalf of the customers. So the administrator is going to create relationships with

[13:54] Rebecca Evans: deer developers like a solar developer or 2 thermal developer. What have you? So that a customer doesn't have to do that themselves or collective?

[14:04] She let me know.

[14:06] Rebecca Evans: And then the cooperative members, the residents that have invested in this technology will receive the monthly dividend based on what was ironed out in those

[14:16] Rebecca Evans: legal agreements in Step 4.

[14:20] Rebecca Evans: But just to clarify sort of what these relationships really look like on the left side of the screen. Really, my left. You have basic service. So this is just if

[14:30] Rebecca Evans: Cca was providing energy service and not the beer portion. So you have the city in the town of Ithaca at the top sort of acting as the oversight to this entire program. They employ Cca administrator. Who then, has a relationship with an energy service provider and provides electricity and natural gas service to the customers.

[14:54] Rebecca Evans: When we add the extra fold of the Dr. Investment, we're adding an entire other arm to the relationship matrix. So we still have the municipalities maintaining oversight of the program. The Cca administrator is still maintaining

[15:12] Rebecca Evans: sort of the everyday goings on of the program

[15:16] Rebecca Evans: still dealing with the energy service provider. But then we're also able to create customer cooperative. So it's not just an individual customer. You could have a group of customers.

[15:26] Rebecca Evans: and the Cca. Administrators managing the relationship between project developers and financial institutions on behalf of

[15:37] Rebecca Evans: so why, why would this be ultimately valuable to customers, to residents and businesses here? Locally? Ultimately, you know, the big selling point is that we're getting a net greenhouse gas emissions reduction through that.

[15:50] Rebecca Evans: For in the case of the city, 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. we're also seeing financial savings both through reduced energy costs and through those monthly dividends. If residents choose to invest.

[16:06] Rebecca Evans: we're also getting on Site renewables

[16:09] Rebecca Evans: resiliency in the event of a block out, and I'll go into that. What that really means in just a second. the fact that we are using local financial institutions for these loans also keep well local.

[16:21] Rebecca Evans: It provides economic opportunity through the building of new projects, new opportunities for active participation. For example, a lot of questions that we get in sustainability offices are, you know, where can I plug in? How can I participate? And this is a very clear way for individual residents to participate in our sustainability program.

[16:42] Rebecca Evans: It also is universally

[16:45] Rebecca Evans: accessible. So traditionally, with renewable energy systems are only accessible to a very wealthy household. This actually remove the the need for

[16:57] Rebecca Evans: a credit threshold in order to participate so that anybody is able to participate in this program, and renters who do not own their properties are also able to invest in renewable energy. And you know, in a town where we have 75 extremely valuable.

[17:16] Rebecca Evans: it also through traditional means. These are usually national searches to find developers to actually build projects. But we intend to try and keep this as local as possible. So we are, we have a specific program for an outreach for local developers and installers.

[17:35] Rebecca Evans: and it also opens up the doors to resources on public property.

[17:42] Rebecca Evans: So why is this valuable to the city in the town like, I said, this is given to Pedc last week, which is why you keep seeing the city and not the town all over this. So my apologies for that.

[17:52] Rebecca Evans: let's take a look at what this actually looks like traditionally versus what it would look like. Under a de our program. So this is what we're functioning under. Now, there's a single building that's connected to the big national grid which is ultimately in our region, managed by knife edge

[18:09] Rebecca Evans: during a blackout. As we all know, the big grid goes down, and nobody has any power

[18:16] Rebecca Evans: but buildings that have their own micro grid which I mentioned before can ultimately island off, which, essentially, if you think about it as a light switch, the power goes out, and

[18:27] Rebecca Evans: everyone is, has no lights, no heat, no air conditioning nothing. But

[18:33] Rebecca Evans: in a building that's connected to a micro grid, you can flip a switch that basically turns on your micro grid and allows you to have access

[18:41] Rebecca Evans: the power, even if your neighbors do not.

[18:46] Rebecca Evans: which allows the building to temporarily power itself.

[18:50] Rebecca Evans: you can also have micro grids that are within a larger grid. So you can connect multiple buildings to each other or to the same micro grid and still have access to the services that are provided by the utility, which is what we're talking about today.

[19:07] Rebecca Evans: Those micro rates can also store excess energy just like the battery.

[19:13] Rebecca Evans: So when the power goes out and the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. What have you? It can still provide energy to a neighborhood much like a traditional power plant.

[19:30] Rebecca Evans: and this came up in a in a previous meeting at at Pedc. Sort of the the issues of congestion. When you start to deploy a bunch of renewables all at once, you can get a lot of congestion if you think about electrical lines as

[19:45] like a

[19:46] Rebecca Evans: traffic on a street. They were really built for one way traffic. But when you start to add renewables now, you're adding another lane of traffic going the opposite direction. But you haven't changed the infrastructure at all. You haven't added additional lines onto the road, telling people where to go. So you end up with a whole bunch of traffic jams.

[20:05] Rebecca Evans: When you have a micro grid, you can actually prepare to balance out those fluctuations and grid voltage and frequency so that you can avoid that contraction altogether.

[20:17] Rebecca Evans: And this is just a fun visual.

[20:20] Rebecca Evans: And that's all for me. So I'm gonna pass it on to Paul, our CC,

[20:28] Rod Howe: Paul, you're on mute.

[20:31] Paul Fenn: Thank you. Thank you. Rebecca.

[20:35] Yeah. So I'm just gonna provide a little

[20:37] Paul Fenn: more detail on some of these points. you know the emphasis here is microgrids. Nanogrs.

[20:45] Paul Fenn: you know. Micros are larger multiple building networks connecting customers and solar panels and and loads.

[20:57] Paul Fenn: Nanny grids are smaller networks that don't require as much integration. Often within one building, between different meters. Thermal loops are are small.

[21:10] Paul Fenn: heat sharing or hot water. Sharing

[21:14] Paul Fenn: groups districts are obviously larger

[21:17] Paul Fenn: ev shares are electric vehicle shares

[21:21] Paul Fenn: and then waste sequestration reuse decarbonization really concerns

[21:27] Paul Fenn: the sequestration and separation,

[21:32] Paul Fenn: and reuse of of waste to decarbonize waste, which is significant source of methane and and greenhouse gas emissions. So it's just a long title there. But in some ways this sums up the

[21:45] Paul Fenn: technological paradigm of the program

[21:47] Paul Fenn: which is connective processes that involve more than one isolated consumer. to

[21:55] Paul Fenn: take advantage of some of the economic opportunities that come with sharing and some of the technologies that have emerged in the last decade or 2 that that makes sharing

[22:08] Paul Fenn: easy to do, provided organization. Next slide. Please, Rebecca.

[22:15] Paul Fenn: First, I'll just give a little background

[22:17] Paul Fenn: for myself and and for a company.

[22:21] Paul Fenn: This, this program is really the culmination of of

[22:27] Paul Fenn: of our work with community choice aggregators around the country for the last 30 years. It was to really developed for New York. This program design after having developed the

[22:42] Paul Fenn: the on the right side there the original Municipal Aggregation Bill, which came to be known as Cca. One

[22:49] Paul Fenn: that was just buying buying power. And we're doing larger certificates

[22:56] Paul Fenn: as a community in order to to get greener legally greener power cheaper. Then we that is in the mid nineties and then 2013, we we came up with a

[23:09] Paul Fenn: actually completed and started launching the second model in California, known as Cca. 2. And this was a model designed to enable

[23:21] Paul Fenn: Ccas to to build renewable energy and not just to buy power and certificates from

[23:28] Paul Fenn: third parties. To actually build new renewable energy was a quite a leap to get that to happen. That includes the writing of a new kind of CC law intervening with the State Regulator for 2 years, and then working with the Calgary Energy Commission on, and 2 counties to

[23:48] Paul Fenn: A

[23:49] Paul Fenn: to design the programs we partnered with Los Alamos National Laboratory and then implemented 6 or 7 years

[23:58] Paul Fenn: Cca programs across California, particularly in the Bay area, which kind of started the whole thing in California

[24:04] Paul Fenn: that had a big splash there. It's resulted in, I think, 30 Billi, 30 over 30 billion dollars of local renewable energy investment by the Ccas. But what we kind of to take away from that was from a carbon point of view. For communities like the city in town, Ithaca, that aren't just concerned with green power per se, but are actually looking for carbon reductions and realizing carbon goals

[24:33] Paul Fenn: that it wasn't enough. So we started working on New York. With this in mind, we also, as you can see on the top that works in other States. But it's 2,014 wrote a Cca. Bill for New York. The Governor then ordered Cca.

[24:48] Paul Fenn: And the Public Service Commission

[24:51] Paul Fenn: wrote the regulations for it. So we intervened in that process, but then, hired by Nicara to help them develop the Cca. Toolkit for municipalities.

[24:59] Paul Fenn: And then we're appointed to the Dps.

[25:03] Paul Fenn: Cc. Sub group of the voluntary investment working group. And that was specifically focused on what to do about barriers

[25:12] Paul Fenn: to distribute energy resource development by Ccas in the New York system. Because the dps was aware that there are barriers in the New York system.

[25:24] Don't exist in California.

[25:26] Paul Fenn: and there are a lot of details around that. But in a nutshell there needs to be a new model that could work in the New York system within the constraints that that authorized Cci.

[25:40] Paul Fenn: So we

[25:43] Paul Fenn: got a a grant and and partner with 11 cities, including Saratoga Springs, New York.

[25:50] Paul Fenn: with the Urban Sustainability Directors, Network

[25:55] Paul Fenn: and wrote The Cca-unknowno, Plan, or business, model in 2,000 and 20

[26:01] Paul Fenn: and That really was Kind Of

[26:04] Paul Fenn: How We got really Going with Ithaca

[26:08] Paul Fenn: and hired as a consultant there, and should be working out since then. But it's the idea. Yes, to deliver a Cca. That Ca, and like California did the leap from just buying certificates to building Wind farm solar farms, geothermal farms which are doing

[26:24] Paul Fenn: to a a higher level of car reduction

[26:28] Paul Fenn: than just power plant renewable power plants. And so that's what got us here. So please next slide, Rebecca.

[26:39] Paul Fenn: So a a really important part of the leap is realizing that carbon isn't just about electricity, that power.

[26:48] Paul Fenn: heat, transportation waste represent the full spectrum of addressable carbon for municipalities as identified by the United Nations. That. These are the carbon sources that

[27:01] Paul Fenn: communities can address

[27:03] Paul Fenn: and so we wanted to bring them all into the purview of the policy so that you would have the biggest

[27:12] Paul Fenn: possible climate

[27:14] Paul Fenn: impact in in your program

[27:16] Paul Fenn: and not just be limited to the power slice officially

[27:21] Paul Fenn: which is, maybe you know a quarter of your emissions technically. So, if you aren't dealing with heat and you're missing out on 20 or something, I don't know what it is locally transport another, you know, 2025% waste.

[27:34] Paul Fenn: Being a significant fourth on that list.

[27:39] Paul Fenn: So addressable carbon. 4 types of de R. Are needed to have a really robust climate strategy with the Cca. And then 7 kinds of energy users. Right? The the typical Cca in in New York

[27:55] Paul Fenn: really just has residential customers and small commercial customers. Many of them exclude subsidize participants

[28:04] Paul Fenn: like the assistance program participants, low income Lmi customers

[28:10] Paul Fenn: that qualify for subsidized utility bills.

[28:13] Paul Fenn: They're often excluded.

[28:15] Paul Fenn: And so you lose a huge part of the population. And therefore a huge, significant part of the carbon

[28:22] Paul Fenn: many of them exclude their government energy procurement. Governments are often

[28:28] Paul Fenn: among the largest energy users in their communities depending on the on the community educational institutions, large commercial institutions, specifically municipal institutions. Medical these are major uses. I mean, there's some CC is like San Francisco. We work there for 10 years and setting up their program

[28:50] Paul Fenn: where 50 buildings in downtown San Francisco consumed half of the energy in the city.

[28:56] Paul Fenn: So if they weren't included. Then where's the carbon? You know you're you're missing out on this huge slice. So to get carbon, you need an all addressable carbon, all 4 sources and a full range of customer types that are included. So this this program does that next slide, please, Rebecca.

[29:16] Paul Fenn: So, yeah, this this is just, you know, a visual on that, on that argument that if you have just electricity, you're only going to get so far in your carbon reductions, if you add

[29:26] Paul Fenn: heating or gas so that you're able to to electrify gas and and then to repower

[29:34] Paul Fenn: the electricity sources with renewables. Then you get a big leap on your carbon emissions. If you add transportation with electric vehicles.

[29:45] Paul Fenn: then all the more, and if you add waste decarbonization, then you get the full. You're really getting

[29:52] Paul Fenn: what you can get out of this out of this program next slide.

[29:59] Paul Fenn: And so yeah, the the the same that with with with the customer types. That residential is. Most of the of the users are residential, but a small fraction of the of the energy cons of the electricity. Consumption, anyway, is is residential

[30:16] Paul Fenn: in in most communities. So if you add small commercial, those are the so-called opt-out enrollment eligible customers in New York.

[30:25] Paul Fenn: Then, you know you're getting

[30:29] Paul Fenn: quite a bit, but you're but you're missing out on a lot.

[30:33] Paul Fenn: if you add municipalities, governance institutions, then it's getting more robust. If you add everybody. And you just say, Okay, whether you're opt out enroll

[30:43] Paul Fenn: or opt-in enrolled, you're eligible, and we're gonna offer service to you, and we're gonna solicit your participation. Then you get the full impact in terms of participating load, at least the potential impact from participating load

[30:59] Paul Fenn: next slide.

[31:01] So yeah, I mean the the way to do it is

[31:04] Paul Fenn: universal eligibility. All carbon.

[31:08] and the Cca. Is intended to to

[31:12] Paul Fenn: to throw the net wide.

[31:14] Paul Fenn: and so so that everyone has the opportunity to participate in this program

[31:21] Paul Fenn: and then to include technology types across all addressable carbon

[31:26] Paul Fenn: or in order to achieve the 2030 goal of the city and town

[31:30] Paul Fenn: next slide.

[31:35] Paul Fenn: So it's complex. But it it's it is actually necessary the the core strategy program

[31:43] is

[31:45] Paul Fenn: 2

[31:47] Paul Fenn: more rapidly. S switch people over to decarbonize power heat vehicles and waste

[31:54] Paul Fenn: that otherwise

[31:56] Paul Fenn: that otherwise can be Deli delivered a community scale. And currently, up until now. most

[32:04] Paul Fenn: programs.

[32:07] Paul Fenn: Cca programs, even. But also renewable energy incentive programs, energy efficiency incentive programs.

[32:15] Paul Fenn: just can't deliver

[32:18] Paul Fenn: the goals that the city and town adopted. They just don't have a sufficient

[32:24] Paul Fenn: amount of of leverage and if you want to call it

[32:32] Paul Fenn: purchase

[32:33] Paul Fenn: on the causes of carbon in the community to do that. it takes a lot to decarbonize the entire community. It can't just be done based upon a piecemeal approach

[32:45] Paul Fenn: or based upon approaches that have that that

[32:49] Paul Fenn: that concede exclusions or or or niching out of of the different customer types and the different carbon types where they're all separately decided and separately

[33:01] Paul Fenn: sourced.

[33:03] Paul Fenn: That piecemeal approach leads to the kind of very slow progress that we've seen

[33:10] Paul Fenn: in the country and around the world in the past 25 years that we need something more robust. We need an umbrella that that connects the the dots between technologies. The opportunity technologically, is so called technology convergence

[33:25] Paul Fenn: that today, in the past really 15 years, but but increasingly the electricity, heating transportation and waste technologies are converging into essentially to a common electrical system.

[33:44] Paul Fenn: So an electric vehicle is a battery

[33:47] Paul Fenn: electric vehicles that are configured properly. Can power buildings

[33:53] Paul Fenn: that's new. You couldn't do that before.

[33:56] Paul Fenn: and being able to do that, and also being able

[34:01] Paul Fenn: to put controls on a building that decides whether or not it uses the grid, or uses a solar panel or other resources on a nano-grid or a micro grid.

[34:11] Paul Fenn: These are all now happening and so they're no longer futuristic technologies. They're now in the market. The vehicles are in the market with with bi-directional chargers. The hybrid inverters are in the market that allows software control the grid connection heating systems, and cooling systems essentially have become

[34:33] Paul Fenn: forms of of energy storage.

[34:36] Paul Fenn: And these facilitate A new level of energy transition that just wasn't possible before. And so we have.

[34:49] Paul Fenn: This program. Is is very much focused on taking advantage of these technologies

[34:55] Paul Fenn: and creating a a matching

[34:59] Paul Fenn: program structure to to support their

[35:05] Paul Fenn: they're

[35:06] Paul Fenn: development in the community.

[35:09] Paul Fenn: So it's not simple. But the reason it's not simple is the community. Wide energy transition is a is a major initiative. It's inherently complex. If it's going to succeed.

[35:18] Paul Fenn: it, it has to be robust, and it has to evolve a degree of complexity. So the complexity is on the program design side. It's on the on the

[35:29] Paul Fenn: If you wanna call it the the soft side of the program.

[35:33] Paul Fenn: Energy transitions all over the world are challenged by these facts. Right? That's why carbon goals have not been met. That's why climate action is is in many ways stalled out around the world.

[35:45] Paul Fenn: And so this program is is intended to to provide that robust platform to enable community wide decarbonization

[35:55] Paul Fenn: as an answer to the call of the United Nations Secretary General regarding energy transitions by 2,030 to get to have

[36:02] Paul Fenn: energy transitions accomplished by that date that can serve as examples to the world for replication. and so this is a, you know, an answer that based on a largely proven model widely successful 2,000 cities across the country that are Ccas

[36:20] Paul Fenn: And half of the Us. Energy market

[36:24] Paul Fenn: and with the 2 point o model proven in California, usually successful in developing renewables. This is a third iteration to that, says, Okay, let's really put the the pedals and metal on what Cca can do, provided the the an adequate program structure to support it.

[36:44] Paul Fenn: So next slide, please.

[36:47] Paul Fenn: And Paul, just to note it's almost 4 40. II think I don't know how many more slides. I think it's just a few more. Okay, few more. So it's a robust engagement outreach education process

[36:59] Paul Fenn: to sign up.

[37:00] Paul Fenn: share own share buyers, users and site owners. And I'll just to explain that

[37:05] Paul Fenn: share buyers are people who who buy shares in a do so strictly financial participation, where the dividends from

[37:15] Paul Fenn: the generation of power on an asset.

[37:18] Paul Fenn: go to the investors and to localize that process to residents and businesses. In inside of the Cca users are people who are gonna use the energy that's generated by these systems, and they also will be

[37:34] Paul Fenn: share buyers, but that they will only be participantially. They'll also be physically taking their power, their heat, their transportation from from the dos physically.

[37:45] Paul Fenn: so that's the the robust engagement will be connecting these these people with site owners. Who's obviously permission will be required to develop assets like this and therefore to have a a site acquisition process as opposed to just a marketing process, which is the usual approach to to green power, you know, just having advertisements and wait for people to sign up. We're taking an acquisition approach to this instead.

[38:15] Paul Fenn: More like the way that a cell network is built out. It's not. It's it's it's based upon putting technologies where they fit

[38:24] Paul Fenn: and and soliciting participation of building owners and users on those locations. So there's more engineering involved.

[38:33] Paul Fenn: So we're we're we're going to have support

[38:38] Paul Fenn: from the city and town

[38:40] Paul Fenn: to provide ongoing communications identifying the program to the public.

[38:45] Paul Fenn: So we're trying to project a different idea here, because a key

[38:49] Paul Fenn: part of the opportunity is is

[38:53] Paul Fenn: to to to help people recognize in a market. That's very kind of in a way.

[38:59] Paul Fenn: energy markets are very opaque.

[39:03] Paul Fenn: and they are very

[39:06] Paul Fenn: saturated with

[39:09] Paul Fenn: bad information. Right? There's so we need to penetrate this this bad information. What I mean by that information is false marketing.

[39:18] Paul Fenn: which of which is a great deal in the energy sector, and and predatory

[39:26] Paul Fenn: activities

[39:28] Paul Fenn: that take advantage of people. So the need to to convey to the to the community. This is more like recycling meant as a community initiative. It's not just a product it's about people participating in a community wide energy transition. Its purposes are public in nature.

[39:47] Paul Fenn: and rather than just being essentially a product that's owned by a non-local

[39:57] Paul Fenn: financier, which is almost the entire renewable energy industry.

[40:02] Paul Fenn: because it's all obviously funded by investment tax credit,

[40:08] Paul Fenn: and so it's

[40:09] Paul Fenn: it's concentrating capital that's financing most renewable energy. This is looking to localize the finance, to enable the energy user to become the owner. So an authentic

[40:21] Paul Fenn: investment vehicle for

[40:24] Paul Fenn: residents and businesses

[40:26] Paul Fenn: to receive the benefits of ownership as opposed to paying a premium for a product whose economic benefits go to someone who's not local. And it's usually not identified.

[40:38] Paul Fenn: So to make the user into the beneficiary economic beneficiary.

[40:45] and the local power.

[40:48] Paul Fenn: I should say here, pardon me. The CC administrator in our current role now is a consultant

[40:54] Paul Fenn: But whoever the CC. Administrator will is is will act as a procurement agent for the customer, and designing and soliciting proposals for Dr. Projects. So, in other words, to help consumers, to

[41:07] Paul Fenn: to evaluate options

[41:11] Paul Fenn: without having to become experts in these technologies, because it is difficult to choose the technologies, and to to understand which ones make sense, for, like your home or your business, your circumstances, to help people adapt technologies to their circumstances, and then help them evaluate proposals

[41:29] Paul Fenn: from distributed energy resource providers

[41:34] Paul Fenn: next slide, please.

[41:37] Paul Fenn: So yeah, the the the purpose here is to go to scale. And right now, it's only the few, really who can participate in most of these technologies. And we we need it to be normalized

[41:46] Paul Fenn: in order to get greenhouse gas impacts that need 2030 goals.

[41:51] Paul Fenn: Excellent. And here's just a simple ex illustration of of the idea in terms of

[41:58] Paul Fenn: you know, how would people cooperate. These are for single family homes as opposed to, you know, denser, urban core. But you know some homes are good platforms for photovoltaic panels. Some are not

[42:12] Paul Fenn: some of them have ready parking, others don't.

[42:15] Paul Fenn: So different circumstances provides a pathway for cooperation right? And so to to help

[42:24] Paul Fenn: people share resources like a geothermal loop, like a solar panel. or hydrogen, or an electric vehicle

[42:35] Paul Fenn: on a network. To make their

[42:40] Paul Fenn: energy to lower the cost of the systems, to lower the capital burden, which is really the one of the main barriers to advance

[42:47] Paul Fenn: distributed energy resources to lower those capital burdens

[42:52] Paul Fenn: through co-investment into larger, more integrated systems. That's the core kind of strat technology strategy work. Nice slide.

[43:03] Paul Fenn: So in terms of the administrator. Roles and responsibilities. They include procurement of electricity. of natural gas and de R for customers

[43:13] Paul Fenn: to ensure compliance with State regulations.

[43:16] Paul Fenn: to facilitate neighborhood level co-investment by customers in these projects, and then to manage the bookkeeping

[43:23] Paul Fenn: for the Co. Investors to track the performance of systems that are installed, maintain the data and keep it current and provide annual reports to to the customer, to the Municipality and to the Public Service Commission.

[43:35] Paul Fenn: I think that is the end.

[43:38] Paul Fenn: Oh, no, there's one more. It's a summary, really, that just going up to high level again, you know. How do you achieve it? The twenty-thirty transition. What are the key kind of levers that you need to get that huge of an impact

[43:50] Paul Fenn: in such a short period of time. You need to include technologies that replace all addressable carbon types by the United Nations definition, you need to offer universal eligibility for investment.

[44:02] Paul Fenn: You need to include municipal electricity and gas accounts include both opt out eligible. Those are the small, the small commercial and residential customers.

[44:12] Paul Fenn: and then also include all opt ineligible electricity and gas accounts. Those are the large commercial and institutions universities. and then to provide

[44:24] Paul Fenn: trusted third party support to facilitate wrecking record keeping and track the air performance so that there's effectively a safe zone, a reliable source of information, so that consumers feel comfortable making these types of decisions. I believe that is the end.

[44:43] Rod Howe: Yes, great. Thank you. Both Paul and Rebecca, you know I again, just to underscore something, Rebecca said. At the beginning we thought it was important to go through this with local town and city officials, because presumably both will be potentially voting on this in September, the distributed energy resource plan. But certainly, when we do, the education and outreach. For the greater.

[45:07] Rod Howe: The general public will have to go back and

[45:10] Rod Howe: just do some table setting again about Cca. What is Cca. Why should I be interested? So these are sort of paired present. You can think of them as paired presentations. I think the general public will be more interested

[45:23] Rod Howe: in the Cca. The more general Cca. Part because not everyone's going to jump into being part of a deer initiative right away, although we would like to be encouraging that as we move forward. So

[45:37] Rod Howe: this is really an opportunity for

[45:39] Rod Howe: anyone to ask questions. If there's something we can go back to a slide if you want us to go back to a slide, but we're just open it up, and if I don't see your hand

[45:50] Rod Howe: just on view and say, Hey, I'm trying to ask a question. But who would like to start?

[46:04] Rod Howe: Bye, Laura? Thank you for joining us.

[46:10] Rod Howe: and and some of us have been looking at this a long time, and we still have questions. So know that we know it's not something you absorb. and one or 2 presentations

[46:22] Rod Howe: rich. I think you can agree to that right? Sometimes. It's yeah. I mean, I will. Just. I'll start the bidding by

[46:29] Rich DePaolo: asking Paul to maybe reflect a little bit on the

[46:33] Rich DePaolo: area of questions that I had most persistently along the way related to investment, equity

[46:42] Rich DePaolo: dividends, etc. Suppose, can you delineate, for example, between, say, a a sort of investor and a user? How does the investor derive a financial benefit? What happens if someone is participating in a deer as an investor or user and then elects to, they move out of town, or they're no longer participating. What happens to the their equity? Or is the equity only in the form of

[47:11] Rich DePaolo: of cost savings, etc., etc.? Can you just break that down a little bit because I know there's going to be some question about that.

[47:18] Paul Fenn: Yeah, no, it's it's it's

[47:21] Paul Fenn: it's a it's a good question. They they they are good. See series of questions, and there's a lot and

[47:27] Paul Fenn: a lot to talk about there

[47:29] Paul Fenn: the protocol that we've set up. And the local Dr. Plan

[47:34] Paul Fenn: is iterative?

[47:35] Paul Fenn: The the

[47:38] Paul Fenn: because these are

[47:40] Paul Fenn: this approach is

[47:42] Paul Fenn: designed to facilitate co-investment by neighbors.

[47:48] Paul Fenn: And so in the current market this is entirely voluntary activity, right? It's anyone can do this theoretically, nothing stops anyone from co-investing and and solar panels. And people do that. There are community solar projects. And

[48:05] Paul Fenn: there are vehicle shares, and there's nothing inherently new or regulated about the activity. People are free to co-invest in a way that they wish to co-invest with each other.

[48:19] Paul Fenn: the the and so between the the site owner, a user

[48:24] Paul Fenn: and a share buyer.

[48:27] Paul Fenn: These are, you know, the users are in the building site. Owner owns the building. The sharers are the users and neighbors who are not users.

[48:35] Paul Fenn: When I say neighbors, I mean

[48:37] in the same neighborhood. So not just in the same city, but in the same neighborhood.

[48:42] Paul Fenn: And so.

[48:44] Paul Fenn: because we have

[48:47] Paul Fenn: 4 categories of deers, power, heat.

[48:51] Paul Fenn: transportation, and waste. There's going to be a great diversity of projects

[48:58] Paul Fenn: in terms of the technologies that are involved.

[49:03] Paul Fenn: and because we're offering eligibility to

[49:08] Paul Fenn: all customers.

[49:10] Paul Fenn: There's gonna be a great diversity of

[49:13] Paul Fenn: forms of cooperation between people, right? Whether it's low income.

[49:19] Paul Fenn: You know, renters, public housing owners, condominiums, Co. Ops have all these different types of there, there have different kinds of Co investment that will correspond to that. So what we did in the local Dr. Plan was to set up a protocol

[49:35] Paul Fenn: to create templates for agreements between different types as they emerge because it is iterative. We have to to sign people up that want to basically lead the idea here is to use leadership in the community.

[49:49] Paul Fenn: To drive the process. One of the takeaways of

[49:53] Paul Fenn: what we had from CC, 2 point was that this is lacking. There needed to be something for the activists to do, people that want to need

[50:02] Paul Fenn: And so the leaders then can can

[50:08] Paul Fenn: through the enrollment process. We'll work with them to to develop template agreements with the the early groups that form and then bring those back to the Cca Advisory Group for review and sign off. And this pretty much matches the Public Service Commission

[50:27] Paul Fenn: Protocol

[50:29] Paul Fenn: for approval of Cca. Supply documents. So it's it's like a little a little version of the Psc approval process. At the Dr. Level, recognizing, though, that those agreements are consensual. They're not regulated. And so

[50:46] Paul Fenn: we believe, and we agreed that that the municipality should have some oversight. even though it's not required

[50:53] Paul Fenn: just so that there is a coherent process, and so that it sets a good example for others that may follow. In implementing this kind of a model. So it isn't just some

[51:05] Paul Fenn: a broker with a black box, and no one knows how it works, and and they use whatever agreements they want, and can take advantage of people, but instead to have a

[51:14] Paul Fenn: some process around that for review and sign off before the templates are approved, then, once the templates approved, it can be reused. Ultimately we'll end up having a bunch of different templates

[51:25] Paul Fenn: reflecting the different types of groups, different kinds of technologies. But those will take some time to develop. And and we didn't wanna sort of over determine or over design a priori how that's gonna work.

[51:37] Paul Fenn: Recognizing that diversity is a very important part of universal service, universal access that you really don't get universal access.

[51:46] Paul Fenn: If you over determine how those agreements are gonna work. Yeah. So thank you for that clarification. I just want just wanted to ask one

[51:55] Rich DePaolo: verifying question. So these projects, they're all gonna take shape in different ways. They're all gonna have different values based on the investment that is needed in order to get them

[52:05] Rich DePaolo: up and running, there will be a finite number of shares available. Am I to presume the the the investor base can't be infinite. Right? It just is, there's a yeah.

[52:19] Paul Fenn: So yeah.

[52:20] Paul Fenn: it'll be based entirely on the size of the project the number of participants. So if you're in a you know, if if you're in a

[52:27] Paul Fenn: a multi unit, residential building or a mixed use, high density, urban area downtown city of Ithaca. Then you might have hundreds of people right that are in a co-OP

[52:37] Paul Fenn: the the the users in the building, and then the neighbors, if you're in a small S. Edge of town of Ithaca single family homes

[52:48] Paul Fenn: it could be, you know, 7 people.

[52:52] Paul Fenn: 2 houses that are connected.

[52:54] Paul Fenn: And so that the the users, the site owner and the users are the first steps of decision making

[53:07] Paul Fenn: for enrollment and and and for

[53:11] Paul Fenn: specifying the size of the facility and with the technology components

[53:17] Paul Fenn: to physically serve the buildings that are involved. Right? So it's essentially scale to the buildings, appropriate technology kind of approach.

[53:24] Paul Fenn: And then, once that has occurred, that and that's the key challenge right to to to enroll people in investment decisions is a hard, harder part of it who are actually going to use the system. That's the hard part.

[53:37] Paul Fenn: The easy part is enrolling investors because it's essentially a financial decision. It is strictly

[53:45] Paul Fenn: on paper does not require real cooperation like you need between people that are going to share an electric vehicle right? 2 people going to share electric vehicle. They have to decide

[53:56] Paul Fenn: how it is we're gonna share this car right? Or if it's a heating system, or if it's a solar panel on a micro grid. That's a serious relationship that takes some parsing and coordination. And that's the hard part the easy part is, who in the neighborhood wants to buy into this system, and that'll be based upon availability of shares which are entirely the result of the size of the project. So it goes back to the need for diversity. It's not cookie cutter. It's based on specific

[54:23] Paul Fenn: parameters in specific buildings that whose occupants and owners have responded to this message.

[54:31] Paul Fenn: And the the share buyers that participate financially are essentially are the third step in in in enrollment

[54:41] Paul Fenn: and the number of investors will depend on basically what amount of equity the users and owners are opening up to investment.

[54:51] Rich DePaolo: Okay, that all makes sense. I'll I'll stay out of the weeds, for now I will eventually there'll be be more clarity as to what happens, let's say, when a resident in a multi family building or department building leaves town, their share becomes available. Somebody else wants to purchase a share. Is that bought at par value? Is there? Is the equity taken into consideration? All those questions that I still have. But I appreciate your your clarification to this point.

[55:23] Rod Howe: So other questions it would be really helpful for those who haven't been. Cj.

[55:30] C.J. Randall, TOI Planning: yes, thank you so much. For this presentation. That's Rebecca and Paul. So fascinating. Topic.

[55:37] C.J. Randall, TOI Planning: You know, being a land use planner first and foremost. I'm trying to understand a little bit about how you foresee the different renewable technologies. And what scale? If I think, if I'm hearing you correctly.

[55:53] C.J. Randall, TOI Planning: This could be a variety of renewable generation technologies at both, a say, smaller parcel, urban parcel

[56:04] C.J. Randall, TOI Planning: scale, as well as perhaps more quote utility scale. When I mean utility scale like large scale. You know, the community solar, maybe size or community wind 5 megawatt or 5 to 20 megawatt size.

[56:21] C.J. Randall, TOI Planning: and just conceptually trying to understand how a program can address. You know all those different scales and how it works with this. And then you know what we can do? We, as you know, planners to to help.

[56:40] Paul Fenn: Should I take that, Rebecca, are you? We won't take it, or

[56:44] Paul Fenn: okay, I'll give mine. I'm taking notes. So if you don't mind, that'd be great.

[56:48] Paul Fenn: Yeah. So there, there are. Cj, there, there are essentially, I guess, 2 categories

[56:54] Paul Fenn: one category, which is really the the emphasis of this program because it's focused on decarbonization is on the building level.

[57:03] Paul Fenn: And that's where the generation and the load are physically connected on the same site. And so it's not seeking to export back onto the grid, seeking to self consume on the site

[57:15] Paul Fenn: that's where you get your biggest carbon impact per per dollar, you know, per, per Watt.

[57:21] Paul Fenn: and so that is the strategic focus is getting that to happen, because that's the

[57:27] Paul Fenn: really the main part of the market that has never been penetrated at scale

[57:32] Paul Fenn: effectively, I mean, except for very few places

[57:35] Paul Fenn: but typically is, is is under exploited. That is the urban core, right? But also people's

[57:44] Paul Fenn: most homes, most businesses. Whereas the market tends to gravitate out into green fields.

[57:50] Paul Fenn: The reason is that the transaction costs are higher and and that the system is really set up for that arrangement right? Other utilities prefer it because they get revenue from transmission. And and so the whole regulatory paradigm has been sort of pushed things out into the suburbs just like development. Right? This is where there's preference for Greenfield. And so

[58:12] Paul Fenn: we anticipate that there will be you know, brown field systems that are that are grid connected. And there may be some

[58:22] Paul Fenn: some green field systems that come into play. Those have to basically feed through the grid like any other system. They have to basically feed through the the energy service provider to the Cca so they effectively. That would be a sort of conventional part of the program.

[58:40] Paul Fenn: But it's really not the the, the

[58:46] Paul Fenn: the core goal really, of this program which is to break into behind the meter systems

[58:53] Paul Fenn: that are eliminating grid load

[58:57] Paul Fenn: and and natural gas load. And so when I say the systems, they're not just generation systems, they're also appliance retrofits their billy envelope, envelope retrofits and efficiency measures. So it's it's really a deep retro fit approach to buildings that really fits into the city's decarbonization program.

[59:15] Paul Fenn: Building decarbonization programs very partly. Why, I think we we got hooked up was that it's very aligned to that kind of paradigm. But yeah, there can. There may be some some Greenfield elements to this.

[59:28] Paul Fenn: but we're trying to minimize it. And just because that's become a problem, right? I mean, so that's become a big conflict area where farms are getting converted to essentially industrial uses. And it's causing a lot of opposition to renewable energy. And it's just the missed opportunity.

[59:48] Paul Fenn: And and these markets just like redevelopments in this opportunity that that you know, the urban cores are left to rot.

[59:56] Paul Fenn: and then the farms all get destroyed. And it's because of essentially a dysfunctional market that

[1:00:03] Paul Fenn: that continues to to cause a lot of damage in effect, when, when, if the transaction costs can be addressed.

[1:00:12] Paul Fenn: which more the the approach we're taking is really designed to do.

[1:00:16] Paul Fenn: Then the create, the the added marginal cost of developing systems in buildings can be reduced. The marketing costs can be reduced. Those are very significant percentage of the costs installed systems like half right. And then the photovoltaic arena.

[1:00:36] Paul Fenn: Half of the cost of your install system is customer acquisition

[1:00:42] Paul Fenn: of the cost of your system was to find you.

[1:00:45] Paul Fenn: and which is retarded. And so, you know, we're we're trying to to to rationalize those processes in this program. Use the aggregation just the way. Same way, aggregation lower the cost of supply

[1:00:59] Paul Fenn: and broke a lot of the the assumed economic rules of the market, namely, that green power is more expensive than brown power. That was an unquestioned rule until about 15 years ago, and it was mostly Cca. That broke it

[1:01:14] Paul Fenn: because aggregations enabled Ccas that were greener and cheaper, and before that there were that didn't happen.

[1:01:21] Rod Howe: So let me stop you there, cause I think you've answered the question. I'll see if there's other questions. Now the town is head of Rebecca. Sorry, just wanted to add one thing to Cj's question. I think

[1:01:33] Rebecca Evans: one of the benefits of this program is to your question about utility scale, or, you know, larger than just a couple of buildings, is that this would provide a pathway for, say, the municipalities to co-invest in, say, large-scale battery storage.

[1:01:50] Rebecca Evans: That it's a different relationship, I think. Then say, a group of neighbors or something like that. And I think that allows for the scale to be bigger but just wanted to to add that as well, that this would provide the the financial structure, I guess, to to enable that.

[1:02:07] Rod Howe: So the town has had a couple of opportunities. Oh, good Cynthia, Cynthia has a question, Cynthia, you need a different picture. It's summer.

[1:02:19] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): Yeah. Sorry about that. That's a hold over from a while ago, apparently.

[1:02:23] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): Thank you also. Thank you for all the work on this, and thank you for Rebecca for bringing in the answer to the question that I'd raise at the Peep meeting. having to do with the energy coming in into this grid as well as coming out of the grid, and I think you use the traffic analogy. So thank you for that.

[1:02:42] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): and also appreciate, your mentioning that battery storage can open up the the zones that can participate.

[1:02:51] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): As you all know, I'm I'm from Hawaii. My, my island is actually Maui. So I'm paying a lot of attention to what is happening in communities. You know it's a tropical island, and the island is on fire.

[1:03:06] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): And I am reminded the of the importance of creating

[1:03:11] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): resiliency in the system. It was mentioned that the system is not talking about distribution.

[1:03:18] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): that you are basically talking about production and purchasing processes and and ownership processes.

[1:03:26] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): But, as we see on Maui, the distribution

[1:03:30] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): system of of energy is equally important. If we want to be resilient. Many decisions were made over the years to

[1:03:40] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): Do not put our distribution system underground.

[1:03:43] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): And that makes us exposed, obviously, to fires and droughts.

[1:03:49] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): I'm recalling recent discussions on the county level, having to do with the fact that much of the undeveloped land in Tompkins County has been planted with red pine

[1:04:02] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): as a mono crop in 1930. Red pine has a very shallow root structure. Very obviously it burns very hot and fast during a drought.

[1:04:12] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): So as we look to Canada as we look to Mali, as we look to other cities that are facing drought and the risk of fire.

[1:04:21] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): Are we going to at some point include a conversation about making our electrical distribution systems more resilient? I know it's not part of the con. The conversation at this point, but I think it needs to be in terms of a long term, holistic view of how do we support our community.

[1:04:43] Rebecca Evans: I may be able to just comment on that. I know there wasn't. There wasn't really a question in there. I think we can remain flexible in terms of where this goes in the future. I don't think that

[1:04:54] Rebecca Evans: anything is out of the question at this point, but we would need to have the capital in order to to purchase that infrastructure. The other thing that's important to remember is that we need to get off of gas

[1:05:05] Rebecca Evans: before we can start undergrounding our electrical utilities. If we want to save a boat located dog is so cute if we want to save a boatload of money, because we can actually utilize that infrastructure, and then the utility will actually have to pay for it. So when the util, when we are no longer using natural gas. It is the utilities responsibility to decommission, that infrastructure.

[1:05:29] Rebecca Evans: and they have to pay for it. When we do that. That's a really really good time to start undergrounding our electrical lines.

[1:05:37] Rebecca Evans: But I think if we start trying to do step 2 before doing step one. It causes a lot of unnecessary costs.

[1:05:46] Rebecca Evans: So as we have neighbors, for example, investing in these,

[1:05:51] Rebecca Evans: say, heat pumps or otherwise electrifying thermal loads. That is the time to start having the questions of, okay, can we start decommissioning neighborhood? And then what's the next step?

[1:06:02] Rebecca Evans: But I don't think we're. I don't think we're close to the point of having a conversation at the whole city scale. Not yet. And I do know that you're right, Cynthia. This is

[1:06:16] Rod Howe: somewhat broader than obviously what we're focused on right now. But I do know that Terry Carroll and others are having conversations to try to figure out this broader resiliency issue. So I think those I I've sort of lost track, but I do know that those discussions

[1:06:32] Rod Howe: are happening

[1:06:34] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): and and it's fun to see your travel and a dog and all that kind of stuff so good just very quickly, I mean, I don't know if it's something where, when the city or town is looking at, putting in and replacing water and and sewer pipes, and so on, and dealing with I and I. Is this something that

[1:06:56] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): can be folded into that

[1:06:58] Cynthia Brock (She/Her): project as well just just to put that out as an aside

[1:07:04] Rod Howe: noted.

[1:07:06] Rod Howe: yeah, you're you're you're taking us in directions. We weren't ready to go in yet, but that's good. That's good. So other questions from the city and Bill, this is kind of newer stuff for you, I mean. So I'm I'm I'm hoping you might have a question in part to help us

[1:07:24] Rod Howe: figure out. Oh, you know we missed that. We need to dig more deeply into some issue, and even though I had said to my CC. Colleagues, we'll wait for you to ask questions at the end. You can ask questions now, too. So if any of our CC colleagues have any questions, please just raise your hand.

[1:07:56] Rod Howe: Guillermo.

[1:07:59] Rod Howe: Thank you, Emma. You some people may not know who you are. So if you can just

[1:08:04] Rod Howe: introduce yourself.

[1:08:06] Guillermo Metz: Yeah. Hi, thanks. I do. You know what's with cooperative extension? I run what's called the energy and climate change team. So we

[1:08:14] Guillermo Metz: run a variety of programs that help residents and municipal officials understand their energy use and programs that

[1:08:24] Guillermo Metz: allow them to reduce energy use and convert off of fossil fuels essentially

[1:08:29] Guillermo Metz: at extension in Tompkins County. And we, we run programs throughout the Southern tier and even more broadly.

[1:08:38] Guillermo Metz: but a very specific question to the investment side. Is there

[1:08:44] Guillermo Metz: thought at this point in how to make it available to everyone, Rebecca, you talked about it being accessible to everyone at every level renters, etc.

[1:08:55] Guillermo Metz: No credit check. It sounds like, and no minimum investment. Is that the idea?

[1:09:02] Paul Fenn: That is yes, that is the idea? The the obviously we have to to pre-qualify, enroll banks and define the terms that are gonna

[1:09:14] Paul Fenn: work for them with co-ops. But part of the idea is to use a shares vehicle

[1:09:19] Paul Fenn: to open up investment. So that. And that's the emphasis on on. You know, users de R. Users and site owners.

[1:09:30] Paul Fenn: To, you know. Provide the project, the platform for the project, and but to define it as as as open to to the neighborhood

[1:09:42] Paul Fenn: and to have active enrollment people in the neighborhood in those projects. But it does depend upon consent of parties. It is a voluntary activity consent of the owner. Consent of the users and consent of the lender. So you know, there's there's work still to be done on, on

[1:10:01] Paul Fenn: facilitating that, and specifically on establishing security for the parties an adequate security to for the lender.

[1:10:14] Paul Fenn: But that's partly the concept here is that you, instead of just exposing or requiring the lender to deal with

[1:10:21] Paul Fenn: with? Sub whatever sub. 6 70 s. Credit score borrowers to essentially bundle together. Credit worthy borrowers

[1:10:33] Paul Fenn: with non credit, worthy borrowers in into co-ops, right? So that there is a structure to that relationship, and then to work out the security factors in the cooperative agreements between them in a way that's sensitive to their situation rather than cookie cutter.

[1:10:53] Paul Fenn: so it's it's it's

[1:10:56] at this point an art, not a science.

[1:10:58] Paul Fenn: but the structure of those intended to be more robust than what the market gives you, which is just individual exposure to credit conditions, and therefore de facto redlining of the vast majority of of consumers.

[1:11:13] Rod Howe: Jeremiah, do you have a follow-up question, or did that?

[1:11:16] Guillermo Metz: No, that's very helpful. I think that there is a lot to be figured out in the details. And I

[1:11:22] Guillermo Metz: would wanna see, I guess, little concerned about the timeline that it would take for a project to be identified, a developer to edit be identified, the founders

[1:11:32] Guillermo Metz: or institutions that can fund the project

[1:11:35] Guillermo Metz: to be identified, and then investors to be identified, and then the project actually built.

[1:11:40] Guillermo Metz: etc. So I think I would want to be realistic with

[1:11:44] Guillermo Metz: off takers on what the expected timeline of something like that could be. And obviously it it depends on whether it's solar or geothermal or whatever. But I expect that they would be quite long.

[1:11:59] Paul Fenn: Yeah, I mean, it would be, I guess, a comparison of the site acquisition process A

[1:12:08] and the development process

[1:12:10] Paul Fenn: versus the interconnect queue.

[1:12:14] Paul Fenn: Yeah, that's true. And so we're just like we're trying to. We'll have a new set of problems through this strategy and and clearly. But we're but it won't have that problem.

[1:12:27] Paul Fenn: and it partly will, I think, offer relief to that problem and and just open up a new pathway to

[1:12:34] Paul Fenn: to a rebels development that isn't there right now. So it's

[1:12:38] Paul Fenn: but yeah, no, it's it's a lot of work in the process.

[1:12:43] Paul Fenn: You know, we're we're there, are obviously there.

[1:12:46] Paul Fenn: there, there are.

[1:12:47] Paul Fenn: That's why we want to use this template process so not to be over standardized, but to work towards standardization

[1:12:55] Paul Fenn: and and hopefully, that will speed up the enrollment processes. And obviously we'll have to develop a a like, I said, adequate up terms for the lenders to participate. That's gonna be a whole discussion but it's yeah. It's a 2030 strategy. It's it's not looking to

[1:13:14] Paul Fenn: complete the whole thing in one or 2 years. It's it's, you know, 6, 7 years out, but it's trying to set up a robust process with good principles, you know, so that

[1:13:24] Paul Fenn: we've got a solid basis

[1:13:29] Paul Fenn: to to work out those those those problems, and hopefully, that by doing it speed up the process.

[1:13:36] Guillermo Metz: That's great. Thank you.

[1:13:38] Rod Howe: So I put Bill Goodman on the spot, and he left. So I'll see if Texan or Dev have any questions, and see if that means they leave too. Dixon or Deb. Do you have any questions?

[1:13:49] Deb Mohlenhoff: No, I'm good. I've been in a few iterations of this presentation, and I have direct access to Rebecca anytime I need. So I'm set. But, thank you.

[1:13:59] Rod Howe: Dixon.

[1:14:05] Rod Howe: he's also good, he says in the chat.

[1:14:11] Rod Howe: Anyone else have

[1:14:13] Rod Howe: questions rich. Did you want to circle back around to anything.

[1:14:18] Rich DePaolo: No, I only prolong the meeting for everyone else

[1:14:23] Rich DePaolo: I mentioned. There'll be. We'll be meeting going forward. If we get into any specifics. I'll hold off until those meetings.

[1:14:32] Rod Howe: So one last chance for any questions. If you think of things afterwards.

[1:14:39] Rod Howe: just email me rich. Rebecca, whoever you know, just email us questions, and we'll the Cca team meets. We still call it the I guess we call it the Tjen

[1:14:51] Rod Howe: team meets every other week. So we meet on a regular basis. So feel free to ask us additional questions.

[1:15:00] Rod Howe: We will be starting to think about education and outreach about the broader Cca. Picture fairly soon. But we this was important, since both the city and the town will be presumably voting on the Dr. Plan in September. So

[1:15:16] Rod Howe: any final questions.

[1:15:21] Rod Howe: So Rebecca and Paul, thank you very much. For your presentation.

[1:15:26] Rod Howe: and I think it's it's a beautiful evening. So go out and enjoy the evening

[1:15:32] Paul Fenn: next chair.

[1:15:33] Paul Fenn: Alright. Thanks, everybody.

[1:15:35] Gay Nicholson: Thanks. Do see you later.

Town and City T-GEN Meeting

Transcript