Sierra Pitches City On Clean-Energy Campaign

If Burlington, Vermont, can do it, so can New Haven.

A speaker from the Connecticut Sierra Club issued that challenge Wednesday night in a pitch to have the city sign on to a national ​“Ready for 100 campaign” clean-energy campaign.

The speaker, Diane Lentakis, pitched the campaign at a meeting at City Hall of the New Haven Environmental Advisory Council.

Under the campaign, cities from San Francisco to Burlington have pledged to switch all government operations over to renewable energy sources. Burlington has already succeeded in making the full switch, Lentakis said.

“If they can do it, we can do it here,” Lentakis said, noting that the cost of renewable energy has dropped significantly in the past five years. This drop in renewable energy prices and the Paris climate accord gave mayors a standard to look to, Lentakis noted. She said that towns and cities should expect to make a transition to clean electricity generation for utilities by 2035, given the fall of prices, increases in efficiency and the savings in health care and environmental spending.

“It’s a race to the finish between towns and cities. Let’s see who can do it first,” Lentakis said.

She suggested that the city could host other mayors committed to clean energy to act as a political launch for this effort in Connecticut. She said the first step in this program would be the announcement of voluntary goals. Following that, she said, organizations like the Sierra Club and Environmental Advisory Council could work towards identifying a path to clean energy for the city to implement.

Kathy Fay, a member of the Environmental Advisory Council (EAC), said cities have a harder time making the switch to solar power, because high-density housing makes it impossible for rooftop solar or on-site solar to provide power for a whole town.

“We need community shared solar, and that’s not happening at the state level,” Fay said.

Fay noted that non-binding agreements and local initiatives lack the power to rapidly transform energy markets.

​“So long as the utilities can sell any mix of power and consumers can buy whatever mix of power they choose to buy, how can you achieve 100 percent renewable energy in a city?” Fay asked.

Lentakis called community shared solar a political possibility, as the states surrounding Connecticut have implemented similar policies due to grassroots pressure. One person in attendance noted that utility companies are able to offer lower and more stable prices for renewable energy than for fossil fuels, as fossil fuel energy relies on volatile global markets for supply.

John Calandrelli said that economic pressure in addition to grassroots political pressure will ultimately hasten the transformation of energy from fossil fuels to clean energy. A dirty economy, Calandrelli said, is bound to fail when competing with a clean, efficient economy.

Calandrelli said that new federal policies on climate change have led to cities taking the lead on the issue. He noted that when President Trump cited the citizens of Pittsburgh as his constituents to justify withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, Pittsburgh had already signed on to the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 campaign for clean energy.

EAC member Esther Armmand, another member of the council, said energy policy directly impacts community health. So the council and the city should make efforts to ensure clean energy is actually clean, she argued.

City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said the Ready for 100 campaign falls in line with many of the city’s goals, especially given Mayor Toni Harp’s stated public commitment to following through on the Paris climate accord and plans to install an additional two megawatts of solar capacity at schools in 2018. .

Despite its global nature, Zinn noted, climate change is intensely local. As a result, local governments bear much of the strain from the climate crisis, especially given the national political situation.

“It’s municipalities like New Haven and mayors like Harp that have to show leadership,” Zinn said. He noted that Ready For 100 already lined up with many of the city’s commitments, including a commitment to transitioning city operations to clean energy over the next few years. That effort has seen the city install a megawatt of solar power on New Haven Public Schools, Zinn noted.

Zinn argued that clean energy is also economically advantageous. Burning fossil fuels for electricity maxes out at about 30 percent efficiency, meaning less than a third of the energy released by burning fuel is converted to electricity, he said; the rest is expended as heat that dissipates into the environment. Compared to this, he said, clean energy is much more efficient. Sustainable energy sources are no longer more expensive than fossil fuels, he said. Zinn added that this is also true of electrical vehicles, explaining that gas driven cars are less mechanically efficient and in the long run more expensive than electric cars. Thus, Zinn said, clean energy is good for quality of life, for the economy and for community health.

“A future for New Haven is a renewable energy future,” Zinn said. Zinn said cities have a moral duty to be sustainable and to use only what resources are necessary.

Click on the Facebook Live videos for highlights from the meeting.