Solar for NH

Supporting the Adoption of Solar in the Granite State

Backus: Raising NH’s solar standards would yield many economic benefits

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This article was written by Bob Backus and was originally published as an opinion piece in New Hampshire Business Review.

Any day now, Governor Sununu is expected to release an important decision regarding the future of New Hampshire’s energy market. His choice? Whether or not to sign Senate Bill 168 into law will determine the trajectory of solar energy in the state moving forward.

If passed, the bill will increase New Hampshire’s Class II Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) from a tiny 0.7% to 5.4% by 2025. (The standards regulate the percentage of a state’s electricity generated via solar power.) Compared to policies in many other states, SB 168 would be a relatively modest step forward. For example, Massachusetts’ RPS is set at 16% and scheduled to increase by 2% annually.

While SB 168 would be a comparatively modest policy change, it would nonetheless offer an opportunity to save all bill payers money, add local jobs and economic investment, improve public health and safeguard New Hampshire’s tourism industry.

Many reputable studies debunk a common misconception regarding solar power by providing evidence in support of “reverse cost shifts” – that is, net savings to all ratepayers. A 2017 study conducted by the state Public Utilities Commission found no evidence of a cost-shift from solar generators to ratepayers. In fact, the Acadia Center estimates the value of solar energy to all grid-dependent ratepayers at 19-24 cents/kWh, not including an additional 6.7 cents/kWh in societal value. These benefits are greater than half the full retail value of conventionally-generated electricity.

Studies conducted in Maine and Massachusetts offer similar evidence of reverse cost-shifts — that is, net benefits to the public. These benefits occur primarily because peak solar generation frequently coincides with peak grid demand. As a result, the need for the costly and polluting power plants that supply energy during these peak demand periods is reduced and bill payers are less likely to face surges in utility costs.

Raising New Hampshire’s RPS to 5.4% would increase access to more affordable, efficient and consistent energy generation, lowering the costs faced by bill payers across the board. Far from driving up net costs, passing SB 168 would create a net benefit to New Hampshire utilities and households.

Not only would this bill save money for all bill payers, it would also grow our state economy by adding jobs and expanding local investment.

Currently, solar accounts for only 0.7% of New Hampshire’s energy generation, however this modest figure represents $214 million in local investment and almost 1,000 high-quality, local jobs.

Passing SB 168 and increasing our state’s RPS to 5.4% would increase private sector investments by as much as $1 billion and add thousands of in-state jobs. Jobs in the solar industry are high-paying and trade-based. This makes them an important source of work for young people lacking four-year degrees who might otherwise find themselves trapped in low-skill, low-wage positions or unemployed.

The economic benefits of a utility market that depends on fossil fuels will last only as long as the finite resources on which it depends. The market for solar energy, however, promises a long term return on investment.

The economic costs of vetoing SB 168 are not limited to utility markets. Delaying a statewide investment in solar energy would result in measurable losses to public health and tourism as well. Every year in New Hampshire, energy consumption accounts for 13.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, roughly 100 residents die prematurely due to respiratory problems associated with air pollution. The annual cost of treating these health complications is estimated to be roughly $1 million.

Carbon dioxide emissions threaten not only public health but also many species of wildlife upon which the state’s multibillion-dollar tourism industry depends, such as moose and loons. Every year, a staggering percentage of young moose die due to rising carbon dioxide emissions and resulting shifts in local ecology.

By raising the state’s RPS, SB 168 would offset more than 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year. This reduction is the equivalent to taking more than 120,000 cars off the road and decreasing coal-consumption by over 300,000 tons. A change of this magnitude would significantly reduce the serious costs to public health and the environment that result from a fossil-fuel-dependent economy.

A choice to veto SB 168 is a choice to send billions of hard-earned New Hampshire dollars out of state (and around the world) to buy dirty, non-renewable fossil fuel power. It is a choice in favor of unreliable electricity generation, inconsistent utility rates, and unnecessarily high costs to society.

The alternative? An energy future characterized by a homegrown, self-sufficient, clean energy economy driven by dependable power, consistent and reduced utility costs, growing investments, and reduced unemployment.

Rep. Bob Backus, D-Manchester, is chair of the House Committee on Science, Technology and Energy

A message to Gov. Sununu: It’s time to declare NH open for solar business

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This article was written by Dan Weeks and was originally published as an opinion piece in NH Business Review.

A few weeks ago, I joined a packed house of Concord civic and business leaders for the official ribbon-cutting of the Capitol Center’s new Bank of New Hampshire Stage in downtown Concord. As a thirty-something accustomed to heading south for great gigs in Boston, I was jazzed by what I saw.

For one thing, the BNH Stage is a marvel of modern technology with its wraparound lighting truss overhead, a stage-spanning high-definition display on the way, and retractable stadium seating at the press of a button. An impressive lineup of live performances and a trendy, retro feel are already attracting younger generations, whose tendency to leave New Hampshire has made us the second oldest state in the nation since 2016.

But there is one more feature of the BNH Stage, less visible than the high-efficiency LEDs and exposed brick walls, that points indisputably to things to come and matters greatly to millennials: the theatre is powered by the sun.

On the roof, the 43-kilowatt array, installed by ReVision Energy and financed by local impact investors who share my company’s commitment to solar for schools and nonprofits, will produce roughly 50,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. That’s enough to power most, if not all, of the theatre’s anticipated load at a fraction the long-term cost of fossil fuels.

The BNH Stage is not alone in its embrace of a more sustainable and less-expensive energy future. In the last 12 months alone, New Hampshire’s leading arts organizations, from the Palace Theatre in Manchester to Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, from the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough to MoCo Arts in Keene, have quietly been leading a clean energy revolution.

They are joined by dozens of other nonprofits, businesses and municipalities – not to mention some 6,000 private homes – that are cutting their energy costs and curbing climate damage through solar and energy efficiency. What’s more, they are helping retain New Hampshire’s young people, for whom climate is a top concern.

But while the clean energy transition is undeniably underway – hastened by a 70 percent drop in the price of solar technology since 2010 and similar gains in wind and battery storage – New Hampshire has failed to set meaningful solar goals and consequently lags far behind our neighboring states. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, just 0.61% of our state’s electricity currently comes from the sun, putting us 38th out of all 50 states with 88.3 megawatts of total installed capacity.

Compare that to Massachusetts, which recently achieved 10% solar with 2,535 MW installed (eighth in the nation), representing $6.5 billion on local energy investment and 10,210 direct solar industry jobs. Vermont is a similar story, with 11% solar penetration, and Maine is making bold moves to catch up. All three states are attracting a younger workforce to power their green economies as a result.

More important than interstate competition, the rate of clean energy adoption in New Hampshire is simply insufficient to protect public health and the environment in the face of a rapidly warming climate. Research by the NH Department of Environmental Services has found over 120 premature deaths per year from air pollution alone, which cost the public over $1 billion annually.

Lyme disease, heat stress, allergies, asthma and other chronic diseases are among the many documented human health impacts, not to mention losses in private property values and public infrastructure due to rising seas and extreme weather events linked to global warming.

Why does New Hampshire lag so far behind when homegrown renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels and the cost of climate inaction is mounting every year? Why are we not taking advantage of proven policy levers, like the Renewable Portfolio Standard, to accelerate the clean energy transition, grow our local economy and keep more young people in state?

The answer lies four blocks north of those shiny solar panels on the BNH Stage roof.

For years, Gov. Chris Sununu has questioned or denied climate science while trumpeting false “facts” about the cost of clean energy and ignoring fossil fuel incentives altogether. As an executive councilor, Sununu voted to block every solar project he could, and as governor he has vetoed nearly every bipartisan clean energy bill to reach his desk. He has also raised more campaign money from electric utilities than from any other source.

Now, Governor Sununu has an opportunity to turn the page and declare New Hampshire open for solar business by letting Senate Bill 168 become law. The bill would raise the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard from a measly 0.7% to 5.4% solar by 2025 – modest in comparison to neighboring states but vital to an industry that now employs nearly 1,000 Granite Staters and is itching to hire many more. It is arguably the biggest step New Hampshire can take this year to move forward on climate and clean energy.

The choice is simple: maintain the damaging status quo and keep sending billions of our hard-earned dollars out of state to import fossil fuels, or invest in a brighter future for our youth – one where thousands more theaters and schools, towns and businesses can lower their energy costs with solar. For the sake of our economy, our health, and our environment, I hope Gov. Sununu will choose the second path and let SB 168 become law.

Dan Weeks of Nashua is a director at ReVision Energy, with offices in Brentwood and Enfield.

Weeks: New Hampshire’s new clean energy consensus

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This article was written by Dan Weeks and was originally published as an opinion piece in New Hampshire Business Insider.

If there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s that they agree on nothing at all. At least that is the impression you get watching cable news these days or reading the latest dispatch from Washington or Concord.

Yet in spite of the polarized nature of American politics, a new consensus is emerging when it comes to the defining challenge of the 21st century. It begins far beyond the cacophony on Capitol Hill.

For years now, ordinary Americans in red states and blue states have been paying the price of a rapidly warming planet. While most of our political leaders have dawdled or outright denied the climate crisis, we the people have faced its full effects, one 1,000-year flood or hurricane or heat wave or wildfire or drought after another.

In New Hampshire, Seacoast residents of every political persuasion have seen their property values plummet due to rising seas and floods, as homes become increasingly un-insurable. Warmer temperatures are causing an explosion in Lyme-bearing ticks, which do not discriminate between Democrats and Republicans when delivering their debilitating disease. The same goes for pesky particles of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, emitted from smokestacks and tailpipes, that are indiscriminately causing thousands of hospitalizations and over 120 premature deaths a year, at a public health cost of $1 billion. Even our apolitical moose and maple trees are feeling the strain of global warming and migrating north with the snow — or dying by a million ticks.

For these reasons and more, Granite Staters across the political spectrum now accept the scientific consensus on climate. Where just one-third of Republicans and half of all Granite Staters believed human-caused global warming was a reality in 2010, some seven in 10 adults hold that view today, including the vast majority of millennials.

More than just acknowledging the problem, we want our elected leaders to actually solve it.

According to New Hampshire survey data from Yale and George Mason universities, in 2018, nine in 10 people, including 78% of Republicans, said they want public funding of renewable energy research; eight in 10 (63% of Republicans) supported regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant; and seven in 10 (53% of Republicans) thought corporations should do more to address global warming. Fully 95% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans nationwide even support requiring utilities in state to source their energy from 100% clean, renewable sources by 2050.

As go the people, so go their politicians – and the further they are from Washington the further they seem to go.

Since President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accords in 2017, municipalities across the state, including New Hampshire’s largest cities, have joined over 100 leading businesses in declaring, “We are still in.” At town meetings this spring, voters approved a range of steps to deal with global warming, from zoning changes in flood-prone areas to “rights-based resolutions” against local fossil fuel development to municipal solar energy projects on public lands and roofs. Many communities have even committed to make the 100% clean energy transition.

At the state level in Concord, a raft of climate and clean energy legislation is steadily making its way through the House and Senate and expected to reach the governor’s desk in a matter of weeks.

Of the dozens of bills introduced to move New Hampshire forward on solar and energy efficiency, batteries and electric vehicles, RGGI and carbon pricing, many were jointly sponsored by Democrats and Republicans and have already passed their respective chambers with strong bipartisan approval.

One bill, Senate Bill 159, designed to save taxpayers money and reclaim polluted public lands for solar, even passed the Senate unanimously and won with 70% in the House. It was the same 5-megawatt net metering bill vetoed by Gov. Chris Sununu less than nine months ago.

Indeed, after years of trailing our neighbors to the south and west when it comes to climate and clean energy legislation, New Hampshire is finally poised to join the 21st century. All that remains to be seen is whether Governor Sununu will accept the climate science and join the new clean energy consensus before it is too late.

Our kids are counting on him.

Dan Weeks of Nashua is a co-owner and director at ReVision Energy in Brentwood.