 Aloha and welcome to PowerUp Hawaii. I am your host, Raya Salter. I'm an energy attorney, clean energy advocate, and community outreach specialist. I'm also principal of Imagine Power LLC. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today we are here to talk about clean and renewable energy for everyone. This is closer to becoming a reality in California and hopefully very soon here in Hawaii. I've worked as a private attorney and a clean energy advocate for 10 years. In that time a lot has changed in clean energy technology. More and more companies and homeowners have been buying or leasing rooftop solar. This has led to tremendous and encouraging growth in the clean energy market at a time when we need to move away from fossil fuel. This boom however has not happened across society equally in America as a whole. People who live in rental housing or otherwise don't own or control their property have not been able to see the benefits of solar energy. Similarly, people with low incomes have not seen the benefit of clean energy. This means that clean energy has seen like it is only for the wealthy. However, if we are to make the switch to clean energy all of society must participate. This transition cannot be done by the wealthy alone. Enter community renewables. Today in the news it is in the news that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has voted to move ahead with the solar program aimed at bringing access to low income customers for renewable energy access for low income customers. Thus far in Hawaii distributed renewable energy systems such as PV systems have only been available to those who can afford the significant upfront cash payment required for a system installation. A community-based renewable program provides an alternate means of investing in renewable energy to individuals and groups like schools or community organizations who may be otherwise precluded from installing their own systems. So what might this look like? I think we've got a picture of what a community renewable energy system looks like. So there you've got in the middle the community solar garden. There are means or supports incentives and tax credits that are that go in to help this work financially and then you've got several people who can off-take from that particular garden and it can also be sold back to the utility. So on June 8th 2015 Governor David Igay signed into Law Act 100 which requires Hawaii's electric utilities to create a renewable based community renewable based program. This process is ongoing and has not yet resulted in a completed tariff as yet. Here we've got a picture of what solar can look like on a multi-family building. So this is a project is in Wisconsin so this is something that can and has been done. California is a state that has made tremendous strides in community based renewable energy programs. To talk about this progress and what it can mean for Hawaii I am joined by Skype by Jorge Madrid. Jorge is campaign manager energy and climate for the Environmental Defense Fund and is based in Los Angeles. Jorge is a nationally recognized voice on climate equity issues and works to ensure clean energy policies and inclusive and are inclusive and benefit all communities particularly low in communities and people of color. He holds a master's in urban planning and public administration for the University of Southern California. Welcome Jorge. Hello Raya thank you for having me. Thank you so much for joining us. So Jorge awesome news coming out of California and utility dive and in the LA times today. Can you please explain what happened with this latest vote and what this means for community renewables in California? Sure Raya and thanks again for having me. I think what's really important is that we took a first step a much needed first step here in Los Angeles. Now Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is the largest municipally owned utility in the country serving about four million customers and as you mentioned in California and in Los Angeles in particular we've had really tremendous strides in installing solar. We have more solar installed than anybody in the country but as you mentioned a lot of it is concentrated in wealthy homeowners. At the recent vote of the board we approved a new pilot project to extend what we're calling a solar leasing program. The program is actually called the solar rooftops program. It's going to be relatively small pilot with about 400 homes roughly about one megawatt of solar. The department is going to install solar on these homes at no cost and maintain the panels and the customer is essentially leasing the roof space and is going to receive about a $30 per month credit on their bill. Interesting. Why are community renewables important and why are they important in California? I think as you mentioned and what's really important about as we transition to a new clean energy economy we have to understand that everyone needs to participate and in a market like Los Angeles you have about 55% of all residents are renters and that is usually going to be low-income communities usually communities of color who are going to fall into that demographic and because of that large swaths of the community have essentially been locked out of the market and I think when we talk about the success of our solar programs in California and in Los Angeles we have to understand that we designed them to really favor upper and middle income homeowners who have good credit scores who have a roof that can support solar system that actually have upfront capital to spend and that really doesn't fit the profile of a lot of families in Los Angeles and really in cities across the country. So that this is going to be a really important way to extend access but also a California and the city of Los Angeles to meet its extremely ambitious renewable energy goals and I think the other thing to remember is that we need lots of tools in our toolbox in order to achieve that this is certainly going to be one of them and one that we're very excited about. That is awesome and it is exciting that California has such ambitious rps Hawaii also has extremely ambitious goals for clean and renewable energy let me ask how can communities in particular low-income communities and people of color benefit from having access to clean and renewable energy? So one of the things to look at is a average low-income family a typical low-income family and we know that there's a strong correlation between being low income and being the person of color in the United States so there's already a connection there but a typical low-income family is going to spend between seven upwards of 20 percent of their monthly income on energy costs depending on where you are and what kind of climate zone you're living in and what kind of housing you have but that's a significant chunk especially for a family that's already just getting by so to free up those resources by reducing the cost of energy and I want to point out it's not necessarily just cheap energy what it is is stable energy costs one of the things we know about solar power is that we can you know predict the amount of energy that we can produce on a given rooftop solar system and really be able to build that into a family's budget so there's monetary savings one of the important parts of the Los Angeles program is that there's also a workforce development jobs development program associated with it oh please tell us tell us about this program absolutely um so the Los Angeles Department of Waterpower probably has in my mind one of the more impressive job development programs called the union pre-craft training program the UPCT and what it does is it brings in folks who come from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds people who've been formally incarcerated folks who may be only achieved high school equivalency degree but who want to work and who want to you know improve the city and it really sort of creates this pipeline of people into the Department of Water and Power and those are going to be the folks actually installing the solar in part of this program so that's going to be another way that it could benefit the communities and lastly you know in Los Angeles we're lucky we don't have a lot of coal-fired power plants but what we do have is a lot of peaker power plants and those are plants that we flip on when the weather gets really hot when we need more energy than we're normally producing and those power plants are extremely polluting and they create not only greenhouse gases but a lot of other coal pollutants and more than likely those power plants are located in low-income communities of color so you sort of have this solution that's going to help alleviate costs it's going to create jobs and it's going to reduce local pollution well that is fantastic and I know that those are all things that we here in Hawaii would also like to see happen why don't Jorge go ahead and tell us what type of work have you and EDF been doing in California on community renewables so EDF is really interested in opening up new markets for clean energy and so we really feel that you know using these market forces and providing enough information and access to the market is really going to help clean energy not only expand but expand in a way that's accessible to lots of people and we really see opening up a market for renters for low-income people for communities that have traditionally been left out of the clean energy conversation and market is really going to help in this transformation and the other piece that i think is really important is for us it's not about just doing this because this is a good thing to do we know that in order to meet our climate goals in order to really be an example for the rest of the country we have to have a clean energy economy that works for everyone that is accessible to everyone regardless of income and really regardless of where you live geographically in the state as i'm sure you can assume it's it's it's not very surprising to know that most of the solar this far has been coastal has been wealthier upper and middle-class neighborhoods but we can't get there on just focusing on one market alone and so EDF has been really striving to really open up as many markets as possible and to create the best kind of clean energy ecosystem where that really works for everyone oh thank you thank you so much for that whore hey i think we are about to take a break and when we come back we'll pick up with whore hey madrid from the environmental defense fund on community renewable power hi i'm stacey hayashi with a think tech hawaii show stacey to the rescue highlighting some of hawaii's issues we can catch it at think tech hawaii on mondays at 11 a.m aloha see you then hi i'm stan energy man and i want you to be here every friday noon think tech hawaii dot com watch the show be there i pity the fool who ain't aloha my name is josh green i serve a senator from the big island on the conus side and i'm also an emergency room physician my program here on think tech is called health care in hawaii i'll have guests that should be interesting to you twice a month we'll talk about issues that range from mental health care to drug addiction to our health care system and any challenges that we face here in hawaii we hope you'll join us again thanks for supporting think tech aloha i'm kawaii lucas host of hawaii is my mainland every friday here on think tech hawaii i also have a blog of the same day at kawaii lucas dot com where you can see all of my past shows join me this friday and every friday at 3 p.m aloha hello and welcome back to power up hawaii i am your host raya salter we are talking today about clean and renewable energy for everyone with whore hey madrid climate and energy campaign manager for the environmental defense fund based in los angeles hello again whore hey hello so before we went to break you were talking about the importance of having a clean and renewable energy be for everyone and really expanding markets to get beyond this idea that clean and renewable energy is only for the wealthy you also did a great job telling us about the myriad of benefits that a low-income community can derive from a clean and renewable renewable power be it financial be it health and safety wise in terms of reduced carbon emissions and co pollutants so that means we've got it up you know so here we are we're at one place now and we've got to get to a new place a new place where everybody has access to cleaning and renewable power so that must mean engaging communities engaging people in place where they are so i'd be interested to hear more about what you and the environmental defense fund are doing in california to engage communities with this work well i can talk about my work here in los angeles because that's really what i've been mostly focused on i work with several coalitions here in the community and these coalitions are very diverse they're folks that are focused on social justice economic justice environmental justice you know edf is a large which you call mainstream environmental organization and i think that we're probably not as well equipped as these community organizations to understand the needs of the community and also to really have that level of trust that needs to be built in i mean one of the important things to remember is that you know a lot of these clean energy products and programs have been marketed at households with other kinds of profiles and you know a lot of households frankly are are a little are a little concerned about getting into a new financial agreement with the clean energy company trying to sell them something so that that issue of trust and that issue of really understanding the sort of needs of a particular community are so important and so to that end we really made a strong emphasis on partnering with those community-based organizations now those community-based organizations are very aware of the real dangers of climate change but they also understand that their constituents that their community my own community have a lot of other needs again like jobs like economic development like breathing clean air access to clean energy food a lot of the things that sort of are part of this package of what really it means to have a sustainable community and in that way i think edf is both able to bring resources and bring technical know-how but also to learn and that exchange has been a very powerful one for me and for a large organization like edf and i think it really needs to be the new model that private sector non-profit sector and community sector is really able to work together to achieve these solutions that i couldn't agree more i'm excited to hear that this is happening that it's happening with environmental defense fund i will note caveat i am an alum the proud alum is environmental defense fund i was a regulatory attorney with edf several years ago but that caveat aside that's very exciting can you tell us for hey what's an example of how where the rubber meets the mode when you guys actually go out and work with your communities our communities to make these changes happen and develop these markets well i'll tell you a really fun example and it's an event that we have has become a yearly event it's called east side soul it is an event that is on its surface it's a big party right and it's a big party powered by solar we bring in large solar generators to sort of have this off-grid food trek art and music festival we invite the entire community because if you really wanted to do something and you wanted to get folks from the community out you got to have good food you have to have have a good time now while they're there we bring out plenty of resources information clean clean energy demonstration projects to really show the community these are the technologies that are out there and one of the things that we want to do is sort of take away the mystery that you really need to be a wealthy homeowner or you have to fit the profile of an environmentalist which is not really something that a lot of folks in marginalized communities can identify with right hugging the trees and the polar bears and the baby seals we really make a strong connection that clean energy solutions and other solutions related to a healthy environment like good food clean water transportation is something that can really benefit them but one of the other things that's important about this is that we also want to honor the fact that for a lot of these communities they've been living sustainably for a long time things like doing carpools growing your own food you know really sort of living small and compact and with a small carbon footprint those are things that you know may be trending now to sort of the eco hipster environmentalists but it's something that these communities have been practicing for a long time so we also want to honor those things while introducing new technologies and the last thing I'll say about this is that the outcome of these events these that we've had now for the last two years and have been really fun there's actually been real policy change because I think that our elected leaders are seeing that these community groups also are demanding solutions and solutions that work for them and community solar and shared renewables is one of those solutions that's going to work for them and really sort of expand the the reach of our clean energy goals. What are some of the key challenges to community renewables? Well I think for one you it has to make sense financially so if you're opting into a community renewables program and and you know we would like low-income folks renters to be able to access these it has to make sense financially so you know right now there is a sort of a need to bring down those costs and to be able to reach scale so that it become can become more affordable but you know the other thing that's really important is we want to make sure that we emphasize energy efficiency and sort of behavioral changes so that along with receiving clean energy at a fixed cost so meaning as energy prices increase the cost of this community solar program and the energy produced is going to remain fixed that they're also able to save energy while they're doing that and that's a tricky thing to do and so you know we're working that out there's lots of programs around the country which is trying to figure out that correct price point and then the other thing I'll say is the marketing and actually getting folks to sign up and I think some of that goes to the trust issues that goes to the issues of folks maybe not necessarily seeing themselves as an environmentalist and what we're trying to do is change that sort of stigma and say this is for everyone and this is something that you can afford and also a way for you to contribute to your community growing stronger yeah that's that's really interesting thank you so much for sharing that with us what are some of the sort of key outtakes or key lessons that if you were looking at a jurisdiction like Hawaii we've got the highest energy prices in the country we have tremendous energy poverty we have a lot of folks living in multifamily buildings particularly on Oahu what are some of the lessons you think that we could take from some of the good stuff that's happening in California sure I mean one things is that you need many different kinds of solutions to fit different kinds of needs and so you know you have your traditional sort of net metering feed-in tariff power purchase agreements other kinds of policies that really make sense for upper middle class homeowner that has a newer house but you also need shared renewables and I'd like to add things like shared storage you know access to energy efficiency programs to really be able to fit the different kinds of needs of different kinds of customers and that's really important I would say the other thing that is probably equally important and that we're starting to really see in California is it's not just about sticking a bunch of solar power you know and that solving all of your problems you also have to solve for what time of day is that energy demand happening and that demand you know do we have new technologies like the next thermostat we have batteries and we have just good old-fashioned behavioral change that can help align the demand for that energy during the time when we're actually producing the most sun and so it's a technology issue but it's also really sort of a education and outreach issue as well thank you so much Jorge here in Hawaii we are on the cutting edge on a lot of these issues we are in the midst of developing our community renewables tariff and I think that I think there's a lot that we can learn from the work that you're doing and I think wouldn't it be great if we could have we could create connections and have some some cultural exchanges and arts and music and share some of these techniques that can move communities forward and make communities stronger because I think that here at Hawaii as we engage communities and think about what our needs and solutions look like that that could also offer lessons to California. This is just extremely exciting that this project is moving forward in California. Do you have any last thoughts you'd like to share with us Jorge? I sure do I mean first of all I'm so honored to be here and I'm so inspired by the work that is happening in Hawaii and in other states local municipalities that's where the real leadership is coming from I think a lot of us are looking to you know what is our clean energy future going to look like moving forward and I would say that what gives me hope and that would really give me a lot of optimism is that the real innovation and the real problem-solving and solution is going to come from the state local and regional level and all of these examples are going to help teach us and we're going to learn together how to get there in a way that is the right cost but also the way that has the levels of equity and inclusion that we need. Well thank you so much for joining us in California Jorge. I look forward to including you in work discussions going forward and just thank you for sharing your work and your success and your vision and I wish you the very best of luck with this incredible new pilot project that has been approved for community renewables in Los Angeles. Thank you Raya it was great to be here so that is the end of our show thank you so much for joining me Raya Salter for Power Up Hawaii and also my guest Jorge Madrid thank you so much thank you guys for bearing with us.