 Welcome to INSIGHT, produced in partnership with Lakeland Public Television, serving North Central Minnesota. Today we are chatting with Jason Edens of the Renewable Energy Alliance. Jason has generously agreed to share some of his experience with us. I'd like to thank you, Jason, for joining us today. Thank you for the opportunity. So let's talk about solar, let's talk about converting light into energy, let's talk about electricity. How does the Renewable Energy Alliance function within this area of the country? So the Renewable Energy Alliance is a non-profit organization and our mission is to fight energy poverty with solar power. So we are a licensed general and electrical contractor, but we are unique in the solar design-build community in that our intention is actually to leverage the power of solar to address low-income energy poverty. So although we're based in North Central Minnesota, we've actually developed a model that is nationally relevant where we can actually address the challenges that our low-income communities face in terms of the cost of energy using a clean energy technology. Let's talk about the definition of energy poverty. It's such an interesting way of framing the question and then as you frame the question you actually are also framing your solution. So what is energy poverty? Well, that's a great question because unless you live in energy poverty or unless you work for an agency that addresses energy poverty, you may never have heard of that term. But each and every heating season, when many of us are thinking whether we're going to ski at Breckenridge or Aspen, a lot of low-income families are wondering whether they can pay the health care bill or the heating bill, whether they can make the house payment or pay the energy bill. And quite frankly, in the most extreme cases, energy poverty can actually represent the heat or eat conundrum, an impossible choice. And in warmer clims, in desert environments, you have the opposite issue. In the summer, you have temperatures rising to 100, up to 110, 120 degrees and it is a health danger. And you are then faced with a similar issue. Do you air condition? Do you draw down your resources by keeping yourself in a reasonably cool state or do you suffer the heat? And that can lead to deaths. It can lead to physical harm, particularly for the elderly and particularly given the fact that many elderly live in southern climates, in places like Florida, in places like Arizona. You do have a death spike because people living in energy poverty just do not have the resources to cool themselves. So true. In fact, one in eight Americans must choose between home energy and other basic needs. And that's really the definition of energy poverty. When families have to choose between home energy, be it cooling or heating, you're absolutely right. When families have to choose between home energy and other basic needs, families are living in energy poverty. And nearly 40 million Americans grapple with energy poverty each and every year. So when you think about a loved one, many of our friends and family and neighbors are struggling with energy poverty. And so fortunately for those families that are grappling with energy poverty, there is a federal safety net. It's something that people call energy assistance or heating assistance or fuel assistance. And it basically supports those families that are having to make those choices by simply paying their energy bills. Now it's a critical social safety net. I've personally depended on it myself, very important service, but it doesn't truly empower families nor does it provide a long-term solution. It doesn't actually address the root causes of energy poverty. So rather than simply paying low-income families energy bills, which we do each and every year. In fact, in a state like Minnesota, we spend in excess of $100 million every single year paying a portion of low-income families energy bills. Quite frankly, it's like putting a band-aid on a wound that needs a tourniquet. I mean, we're just hemorrhaging public resources without that long-term solution. So what real our organization is advocating is the use of clean energy within that program to permanently address and empower low-income families. Because the other thing that's interesting about energy poverty and the energy assistance program is our low-income neighbors actually have very little agency in where their energy comes from. Whereas you might be in a position to deploy a solar energy system on your home, that's not really on the menu for most of our low-income communities. Yet, low-income communities have the opportunity to benefit significantly from the cost-stabilizing benefits of clean energy. Because clean energy is really the only technology where you know what every single cost of, you know, the cost of every single unit of energy is going to be 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now. So our low-income communities are actually disproportionately affected by the upward pressure on the cost of energy. So by using clean energy, we can permanently address low-income energy poverty. And, you know, another interesting element of our work is that it's actually a more fiscally responsible approach. You know, a lot of people perceive clean energy to only address our environmental concerns, but we're arguing that it's actually a more fiscally responsible model of energy assistance. So as we're integrating solar into energy assistance here in the upper Midwest, we're demonstrating a national model for both families that struggle with cooling loads and families that struggle with heating loads. One of the challenges is the different cost structures of solar versus conventional oil or coal energy generation. In solar, the capital costs are individualized and they are up front. And then the subsequent costs are very small. It's actually reversed in the, given the current existence of oil-based infrastructure, those capital costs are already booked and the energy costs are comparatively small, they trickle in. And so you have a bit of a challenge in that you have some upfront costs in order and upfront investments to create that infrastructure. How do you approach that problem? How do you solve that problem? Well, it's a very good point and that kind of relates to my point about when you invest in clean energy, you're basically fixing your per unit of energy cost over the lifespan of that system. And that per unit of energy cost is a future benefit that is going to trickle in. So you have the upfront cost, but then you have to recoup that cost over the next 20, 30 years. So in the case of low income communities, what we're arguing is we're already making a very substantial investment in the energy security of our low income neighbors through energy assistance. So although we're spending $100 million in Minnesota paying low income families' energy bills, nationwide we're spending somewhere between $3 and $5 billion on behalf of our low income communities. And that's every year, so it's $100 million in Minnesota in 2017 when oil prices are low as oil prices go higher. Let's leave that aside. Next year you're going to be spending another $100 million and the year after that another $100 million. You do that for 10 years, you've got a billion dollars right there. Exactly. And an energy assistance recipient household in Minnesota can receive up to about $1,500 per year and basically bill assistance. And many families depend on energy assistance for years and years and years, which is again part of our argument is that it's not actually creating that long term solution, right? So over 10 years, if a family receives $15,000 in bill assistance, we're simply asking the question, is there a better investment? At $15,000. Correct. Because a $15,000 investment in the same household could easily address the energy poverty of that household, not for one year, not for 10 years, but potentially for many decades. So we're simply saying, let's take the energy assistance investment that we're making in our low income communities and let's divert a portion of it to a long term solution. So that's over time, we can slowly reduce the size of energy assistance by permanently addressing energy poverty. Are there opponents to this type of an approach? You know, there are so many value propositions to the work that we're doing, that there's not a whole lot of resistance other than the fact that the energy assistance program basically emerged out of LBJ's war on poverty. So back during the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration, the war on poverty was initiated, which led to the energy assistance program. So the main resistance that we face is the fact that that program is calcified. That's simply not how we do it. And so what we're trying to argue is that it's both environmentally appropriate, it's climate appropriate, it's more fiscally conservative, it empowers families. Families glean a sense of pride by knowing that they're providing for their own energy needs for their families. So there's not a lot of resistance other than the fact that it's not the status quo. We're a disrupter in this space. Instead of consuming resources every year, every year, every year, in a way that solves our problem today, but doesn't solve our problem for tomorrow, tomorrow we have to consume resources again. You're basically investing in infrastructure. Infrastructure means jobs, because you have to install these systems. And tomorrow you don't have to consume the same level of resources for the same level of service. You can consume actually less resources for higher levels of service because of the power of solar, this idea of using the sun that shines to deliver a benefit to people on a sustainable basis. So too, the sun shines for everyone. And we're really trying to demonstrate that solar is actually a really powerful tool in the fight against poverty. And another interesting element of energy assistance is that that massive investment that we're making on behalf of our low-income families, it doesn't go to the low-income communities or the low-income families. When I received energy assistance, I didn't see the dollars. They certainly helped, and I'm certainly grateful. But they all went to utilities. So each and every year, we're literally sending three to $5 billion to gas utilities, electric utilities. And agencies like the International Monetary Fund have actually called out the energy assistance program as yet another fossil fuel subsidy. So it really begs the question, is energy assistance providing or postponing a solution? In terms of your own constituency and your own funding base translating those benefits into funding, how does that work? So funding has definitely been a challenge. What we're hoping to do is persuade decision makers that peeling off a small percentage of energy assistance on an annual basis to deploy solar on behalf of low-income communities simply makes more sense. Now we have yet to accomplish that. So our organization has essentially been footing the bill for most of our deployments. And we've done that certainly with the support of the foundation community and a lot of folks who see value in our model. But the other thing that we've done is we realize that the nonprofit community cannot depend on contributed income exclusively. That's not a sustainable business model. And so our organization has been one of the early adopters of social enterprise. So our nonprofit organization actually is the sole owner of a subsidiary that does market rate solar design build. For example, if you lived in our community and you were interested in a rooftop solar project, you could call our organization and at market rate we would deploy a system for you. And of course we'd be competing with the solar industry and our peers in the solar industry. But by having a social enterprise, a subsidiary social enterprise, we're able to do exactly what we're advocating, which is to stand on our own two feet, to be independent. And so we're hoping that we can continue to keep the doors open and the lights on through social enterprise long enough to persuade policymakers that it's simply a better use of public dollars. And something else that I think is really important to share is that there's a lot of rhetoric about making a transition to a clean energy economy, an economy that's based largely on clean energy. If we don't have mechanisms to ensure the participation of our low income neighbors in that clean energy economy, that rhetoric is hollow. We cannot make a transition to a clean energy economy without including our low income communities. Well, Jason Edens, thank you so much for sharing with us. The work of the Renewable Energy Alliance, thank you so much for your work on behalf of Minnesotans living in poverty. And thank you so much for your insights.