City of Ithaca Public Meetings, NY Green New Deal, 5 Jul 2022

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From YouTube: CCA Update to Municipalities

Description

An update from the City and Town of Ithaca on CCA program development.

A

Okay, 30 minutes, my name is uh paul. Fenn from a company called local power.

A

uh We are have been working with the city and town of ithaca and sustainable tompkins for the past six months, seven months, eight months, uh and so this presentation uh is intended to give you a sense of how it's uh become to be defined and where we're at and how how you might join it uh in the coming year.

A

Let me see if I can get this thing.

A

So uh the background to this is essentially a parallel path between the city and the town focused on climate change. The city uh arrived at cca as a strategic concept as part of its green new deal.

A

uh Efforts and the town had similar goals, and so it was a easy uh fit for them to pursue uh a a a climate-oriented cca.

A

Recognizing that cca creates this special opportunity and leverage to scale up and accelerate energy transition and is fits the city's electrification, decarbonization framework and approach, and so we have. We have worked on um a model of cca um focused on climate, adapted to the specific uh location and and specific goals uh of the city and town uh so and looking for for communities with similar goals about often with with with special needs special interests and and sometimes special goals within that.

A

So the concept of that really of the cca is you know? How do you get to rapid decarbonization, rapid meaning in the decade, not in three decades um to to sort of cut to the chase and looking at the uh the whole cause of climate emissions by uh new york communities? You have what are called addressable carbon sources and those are sources that local governments are in a position to to mitigate or change or transform.

A

Those are electricity known as power heating, which included hot water, automobiles and waste that would include sewer waste and municipal waste municipal waste being in many communities, the third largest cause of greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to other toxins.

A

So if you look at you know the conventional idea of green 100 green power, the green upper left hand corner there, it's only capturing really about a quarter of addressable carbon. When you go 100 renewable versus.

B

A

At all, four and adapting a cca program that includes all four uh that a 25 um energy transition for all four uh is is uh comparable or greater. 200, renewable energy and even a 50 is, is considerably greater in in decarbonizing the airshed. So to speak. If you go to 75, you see a true energy transition uh taking place which can only take place if all addressable carbon comes into scope.

A

So that's the the basic concept, uh how you get scale and speed for climate mobilization- and this is where cca 3.0 so so-called comes in the third version model of cca developed over the past 25 years uh is, is intended to multiply the carbon impact of the cca, not just improve it or increase it, but multiply it and to present uh significant improvements in terms of how quickly um the system can be changed not merely through the procurement of renewable energy certificates, which is mostly how it's done now, or the development of of renewable energy supplies at a distance, but a local energy transition uh in where people live in neighborhoods, which otherwise is very limited under the current business models of utilities and of old old ccas.

A

So, under this approach you know we have this full spectrum approach to decarbonization across all addressable carbon, but we also want community each community to choose what what it's willing to do interested in doing what its needs are and what is ready to do. So, it's not intended to sort of force a cookie cutter on everyone, but to start with with power and gas aggregation.

A

That's capturing the you know the half of addressable carbon, because it's power, heating, hot water uh to add, um distributed energy resource options for residents and businesses, and these are local, renewable energy and energy efficiency measures known as distributed energy resources to id to add municipal options so to to decarbonize and electrify municipal facilities or to start from the beginning with the full menu. So it doesn't require that you jump in 100 in order to join.

A

It recognizes that you have to go through the decision making process, but that is the intention of the program to offer you those options.

A

So, in terms of the elements of implementation, um uh the key elements enrollment and billing for voluntary investment in distributed energy resources- and this is facilitating uh customer choice of solar or geothermal heating systems or any number of on-site renewable energy energy efficiency measures that today require um essentially uh a a private loan uh or cash uh or a third party ownership to access.

A

And so this is really about making it easier through enrollment to billing, for people to make investments in things like on-site, solar or, as I said, heating systems or electric vehicles and we'll get into some of the details there in terms of technologies, but then to also to facilitate planning uh and and the the agreements that are entered into to to transact these projects so to on one side to enroll the customer on the other side, to pre-qualify vendors and lenders and introduce them to customers to make a choice between options that they have to offer in terms of project types.

A

We're focused on deep building retro commissioning, which means a comprehensive electrification, decarbonization of the building from on-site renewable power and heat to heating and hot water, electrification to energy efficiency and appliance retrofit measures and then, beyond that across the other addressable carbon, the the inclusion of electric vehicles and sewer and municipal waste as energy resources.

A

The the model originates from a uh a project from the the uh urban sustainability direct directors network, with a dozen municipalities and clinton new york municipalities. It was released a couple years ago, but the model is focused on using aggregation in order to get scaled local action first to aggregate to get that market power. Second, to finance, uh to provide um this.

A

The missing piece for for new local development to occur third engage engagement of of customers uh so that they can make these decisions and make them without a great deal of difficulty through sharing, specifically a shares system that makes participation, voluntary investment, flexible and inclusive of people that don't have high credit ratings, for example, who don't own their homes, for example, of cooperation, which involves the physical sharing of things like electric vehicles or or of heating micro districts, for example, a geothermal heating micro districts, where there is a physical sharing of an energy resource that is renewable on-site and then the use of democracy to engage people um in in the public process so that they they participate as citizens.

A

In terms of the approach, uh in summary, we're talking about on-site consumption so distributed energy resources being developed at the building level, the block level, uh possibly in brown fields as well, depending on the community, but in the community, as opposed to outside the community across power heat transportation, waste with voluntary investment loans made available to participating customers for shares, cooperatives or individual ownership of distributed energy resources.

A

So the basic definition of the program as a cca is will include municipalities in or near tompkins county. uh We we're creating an energy transition model, that's replicable, so it doesn't have special subsidies or special resources.

A

Other communities can use it without having special resources uh that we would beat or beat utility rates for the annual average power and gas over the previous year.

A

uh We we approached the cca through an equity lens which, whose goal is to make every customer eligible for investment, so not to restrict it to the few, which is pretty much the case today, but to extend uh through the program, broad availability of participation in energy loans for uh equity in in local projects and then to empower citizens uh through user cooperatives and municipal government uh to voluntarily invest in and operate der projects.

A

These and, and so that involves the organization of the projects, facilitation of the projects and the the back office or billing for for the for the product, the operations of the project in terms of roles, local, it's a partnership structure, so local power is the cca program consultant.

A

uh The city of ithaca is the co-founder of the cca as well as a member. In addition to providing this, uh this adjunct this financial resource that it has organized uh over the past few years for electrification, decarbonization to finance distributed energy resources. The town of ithaca is also a cca co-founder and member sustainable tompkins.

A

uh Is the cca working group organizer and and uh essentially started this this activity with local power and engage the the the city and town uh in a process to get us where we are today and finally, the cornell cooperative extension, uh which which will provide um support in our outreach and education activities?

A

So the basic concept to the to consumers is here's an opportunity to invest in and share on-site distributed energy resources through a facilitation of owners of buildings and the occupants of those buildings through standardized agreements, so that the parties can easily cooperate and easily participate in projects to provide billing support and to monitor report and and and ensure contract compliance by the parties that provide these these services we're going to eliminate barriers for small customers uh in markets that exclude small customers unless they're high income, small customers, through an ease of subscription ease of signing up through facilitation of sharing, to create, essentially a safe zone for people to to share energy resources that are physically on their their on their street or props, on their building or next door through the use of direct mail to actively engage people to uh to participate.

A

In these ways, through opt-out notification inserts which are made by the ccas to offer alternative products, but also to offer the opportunity to opt out in the service as required by the state, uh it will overcome credit rating requirements that currently restrict voluntary investment and ders to a small minority of the population.

A

No building ownership will be required. Another uh sort of uh barrier to voluntary investment in equity and to to run a secure loan portal uh using an app so that customer specific uh information can be made available to each customer uh both to evaluate these investments and to track their performance.

A

So, just looking at at the the money side of energy, which is the key to driving investments, uh the the you can see that this is the average new york uh in 2021, a ratepayer that paid 102 a month for electricity uh for heating, for natural gas, 68 uh for heating oil, less half of that and then motor fuel. So you can see that the energy wallet for motor fuel is about the same as electricity uh with natural gas coming in third.

A

But it gives you an idea of how electricity alone, as a source of decarbonization, is incomplete, and so we're going after all of them and trying to to make it um navigable for consumers, the the fear of the market and and and a lack of familiarity with the technologies that are involved um being major barriers uh to participation. When you look at just going left these symbols here, first, the piggy bank, the money: what's it gonna cost, uh what what's the? How much is the loan?

A

um What what are the uh the legalities, the contractual terms of the agreement? Do I trust them? What is that's the scales, then the? What is the forecasted benefit of this system? Is it going to pay back well or not? Do I trust the source of the forecast, uh then? Finally, just fear of uh the the the safety not finally, but the the skull and bones there fear of is: are the? Is the system safe? Can I trust it physically?

A

uh The handshake who am I dealing with here is this company x from houston, texas, or is this the town? Is this local, something I can trust um and uh sorry? I actually can't see the light, oh and then the key. What is the? uh How is it? What is the control system? How does it work?

A

Who controls it uh oops, and so through these these, by assisting with that customer engagement, which is really a big part of the program, there's also the use of data to lower the cost of uh developing these types of facilities, because the the engineering costs are primarily the the cost center that drives up uh urban area on or or in home, on business energy systems, uh and so um the reducing those engineering costs and reducing the customer acquisition costs uh are significant ways to bring down the prices that can be offered for the systems, and so data analysis and ccs have unique access to actual energy usage data for electricity and gas to evaluate buildings and design solutions for them to target energy-intensive areas to get the the biggest bang for the buck and uh to create and and and design energy resilience benefits to building owners and occupants.

A

You know most systems today just shut off when the grid goes down. It doesn't have to be that way, and so, in terms of the timeline the list there goes down, but the the arrows just reflect the list. But but you know, between now, between last november and july, we've been doing outreach, uh drafting local laws uh and and now completing a draft administrator agreement uh in in march between I'm sorry, pardon me that this this slide has gotten screwed up.

A

You can see it better now, sorry and uh this something happened here, my my apologies.

A

This is very confusing glitch, so the march doesn't go there, uh we're currently november to july uh period on the left, with outreach, local laws and administrative agreement being drafted, and then, from next month, through august and september, we'll be doing data collection, municipal outreach and drafting the required plans and those are the implementation plan.

A

The customer engagement plan, the data plan, those go to the public service commission, but also a finance plan, which is a local plan that concerns how the city's um finance program will work with the cca, how that will be folded into it. The plans will be approved in october. Again I had a glitch here. So let me come back here and then the rfps here march for power gas and distributed energy resources with recommendations on on the the bids that are received. So that's that's the the scope that that we have underway right now.

A

So as far as uh choosing an administrator, the uh we're drafting the agreement uh now, the cc administrator will organize the cca as a third party administrator for power procurement, gas procurement, education, outreach, engagement, supported by local partners like cornell, customer data management and collection, voluntary investment, billing and vendor, and lender pre-qualification.

A

What's going on here, so one of the big questions that's come up that you might be thinking about is when, when when can we join? um You have your schedule going up to march. When can we get in? uh If, if you start now, uh there may be time to get in at the point of launch, uh because there is a waiting period from the the submission of the implementation plan of to the public service commission, which should be in october.

A

There would be a waiting period of some months before we receive approval, and during that period there would be time to adopt the implementation plan and submit it so that by the time we get approval, we could include your municipality in the rfp, uh the rfps. I should say that go out for power, gas and service resources, so uh otherwise we anticipate a short-term contract initially. So, if you don't want to start, your local process focused around the adoption of a local law.

A

Now, if you want to wait, then there would be probably a one-year wait from the time that that we launch our program so there's a chance to get in now, really uh by the the the the town, the city will vote on their local laws, uh we're thinking expecting in august and once that's done, you'll have a boilerplate to work with to have your local public hearings and uh adoption of local laws in the following months, so that we would we would have. We would have time to get you in.

A

Finally, uh there is a matter of of of the financing side and uh in order to participate in the financing side of the program, um you will.

A

Need to consider joining an intermissible agreement with the city of ithaca in order to participate in that program and access those financial resources or provide should say, provide your residents and businesses. Acts who participate in the cca, with access to energy loans to to voluntarily invest in shares and and in cooperatives as as described.

A

And that uh concludes my presentation.

B

uh Thank you paul. I think you can stop sharing, but if need be, we can always go back to a specific slide uh and you did great you didn't. You did less than 30 minutes.

A

B

uh Because we definitely wanted time for q a, I just want to stress one of paul's early points. You know we're tompkins county, so we like to do things um proactively. We like to be innovative, so we're writing something that gives lots of flexibility for meeting uh climate change goals, but we recognize several municipalities may just start out with that early component of joining.

B

I just want to join the cca and maybe down the road uh grow into other parts, so that's definitely part of the process, but in what we submit to um the public service center, we have to give this more complete picture to keep the door open for other municipalities, adding on the der and some of the finance goals later on, but.

A

I wanted to stress.

B

Paul's early point that you can start with just a more basic component of this uh robust uh picture. The other thing I just want to clarify before we open it up for questions so paul.

B

um You said that uh if uh some municipalities want to start on the process of adopting a local ordinance soon, they can be named in what gets submitted. I think, through the public service center through the implementation plan, I don't it's not really if they don't and once we get approved so we get approved in march of next year. I don't think they'd have to wait a whole year from then to join.

A

Well, it would depend on the length of that first contract, uh so uh you know we could go very short on the initial contract, uh it's difficult to predict exactly because when we go out to market it depends on what's going on in the market. At that time,.

B

And you're talking about the the rfp the contract, we would be signing with the cca administrator.

A

No well I'm talking about the the rfps to for power supply gas supply and ders. So that's sort of the end output that once the city and town adopt the implementation plan that we will have the green light to issue those rfps.

A

Once the public service commission approves the plan, so we're basically in a waiting game at that point, waiting for the public service commission and that creates a window really where, where the the municipalities that are one or two months behind adoption, uh the city and town of ithaca would have time to to um to hold hearings uh and adopt those documents uh and and but it would take a concerted effort to do so. uh But would have a couple of months to do that.

A

So, if, if they were prepared earlier- and that would be, I think- by taking starting on their local laws immediately after the adoption of the city and towns, local laws and getting those done so that they're prepared to to deal with the implementation plan. Once it is uh submitted to the public service commission. They know what they're dealing with and.

B

I think the expectation would be so just for the city and the town ordinance are basically the same ordinance uh we would expect. Other municipalis would basically use what we're bringing to our elected bodies as your templates as well. So it's not like you're starting from scratch.

B

You know we will say that you will just have to remind your board members. This is for the big picture because it um you know, there's there's a lot to unpack in there. So you might. If you choose to move forward, you know we can work with you on this stress that really this could just be our entree into a uh cca.

B

The other components we can decide later so, but all of the language is in the draft ordinance.