{"id":1750,"date":"2025-08-05T06:48:47","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T11:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itparadise.net\/2021\/07\/05\/the-places-paving-the-way-to-100-percent-renewable-energy\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:57:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T05:57:23","slug":"the-places-paving-the-way-to-100-percent-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/?p=1750","title":{"rendered":"The places paving the way to 100 percent renewable energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shortly before Darren Springer <\/strong>interviewed for a job at the Burlington Electric Department (BED) in 2016, the city proudly proclaimed that it would become a \u201cnet zero energy city\u201d by 2030. That meant no more gas or oil to heat residents\u2019 homes and swapping out gas-powered cars for electric vehicles and more public transportation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s got to be one of the most ambitious goals anywhere\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n

\u201cI said, that\u2019s got to be one of the most ambitious goals anywhere in the country,\u201d Springer, who is now BED\u2019s general manager, tells The Verge<\/em>. \u201cThat was one of the things that drew me to this work at Burlington Electric.\u201d Since then, he\u2019s worked to get the city on track to meet that goal. And while the target might have been unheard of in 2016, it\u2019s now just one early example of the splashy renewable energy aspirations that more and more governments seem to be dreaming up. <\/p>\n

As of September 2020, 452 cities and 22 regions had made commitments to slash and offset their planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions, reaching net-zero CO2 pollution by the middle of the century. It\u2019s all part of a race to stop the worst effects of climate change from becoming reality, which scientists say requires the entire world to nearly completely gut greenhouse gas emissions by that deadline. <\/p>\n

President Joe Biden is setting the US on a path to run entirely on clean electricity by 2035. That\u2019s not an easy target, considering renewables only make up about 20 percent of the country\u2019s power mix today. Luckily, Biden, and other state and city leaders with similar aims, have roadmaps from communities like Burlington, Vermont that are already ahead. The city offers a glimpse into what a clean energy future might look like for the rest of the nation, what it might take to get there, and which potential pitfalls it would be best to avoid. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving such an ambitious goal encourages creativity and innovation because you have to find ways to scale up, to pilot different approaches, to try something [and] fail in some cases, and then evolve your approach,\u201d Springer says. <\/p>\n

The city has largely tried to get its residents on board with its clean energy plans through carrots rather than regulatory sticks. It\u2019s focused on incentives, like rebates for residents who install energy-efficient heat pumps. City leaders have gotten some pushback for tougher stances, like when the City Council proposed a change to Burlington\u2019s city charter that would allow it to impart an \u201cimpact\u201d fee on homes and buildings that still rely on fossil fuels for heating. Voters ultimately approved the measure this year. <\/p>\n

Voters will have to approve proposed fees again if the charter change is approved by the state legislature. But if they do, it shows some of the distinct advantages the city has that helped it turn to renewable energy so early. Its residents, city leaders, and a local utility all aligned on environmental efforts. Since the 1960s, people have flocked to Vermont in search of an alternative way of life \u2014 often escaping big cities or looking for greener living. One of its most famous transplants is Green New Deal champion Senator Bernie Sanders, who moved there from New York City in 1964 and eventually served as Burlington\u2019s mayor throughout the 1980s. <\/p>\n

\u201cEnvironmental leadership began in the late \u201880s, and we have really been able to sustain that,\u201d says current Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger. \u201cYou need just two things if you want to do this: you need the political will to forge this kind of climate emergency progress. And then secondly, you do need technical proficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need just two things if you want to do this\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n

For Burlington, its municipally owned utility is the technical arm fulfilling much of the political leadership\u2019s aims on climate change. It was founded more than 100 years ago after residents got fed up with high rates from the previous privately owned utility. <\/p>\n

\u201cBurlington had a long history of local control, local management \u2026 People in the city are involved and know where their energy comes from,\u201d says Jennie Stephens, director of Northeastern University\u2019s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. \u201cThat is something that\u2019s unique, that not all communities and cities have, that allows Burlington to be really creative and innovative early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the city\u2019s control over the utility makes it much easier to enact changes without facing a power struggle. The city essentially manages everything from energy generation to distribution. <\/p>\n

For cities that get their power from investor-owned utilities, she says, \u201cit\u2019s this whole complicated, constant negotiation with the utility \u2026 the tendency with a lot of these organizations is to try to keep everything the same, because it\u2019s worked and they\u2019ve been making money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

A beautiful dam day pic.twitter.com\/QZOaoPcDIf<\/p>\n

\u2014 Winooski Dam (@winooskidam) June 3, 2018\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the biggest advantages for Burlington is that they have easy access to both water and wood. Over 30 percent of Burlington\u2019s electricity comes from burning wood, much of it waste leftover from the region\u2019s logging industry. Another 40 percent comes from hydropower, which made Burlington the first city to run on 100 percent renewable electricity in 2014. Wind provides another 25 percent. Just over 1 percent of Burlington\u2019s electricity came from solar last year.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s reliance on wood and water allows it to sidestep some of the infrastructure headaches that can come with solar and wind. Electricity grids were built to facilitate a constant flow of energy from fossil-fueled power plants. Those old grids don\u2019t currently have the storage \u2014 aka batteries \u2014 built in to store energy for use when the wind doesn\u2019t blow and the sun doesn\u2019t shine. Burning wood and spinning water turbines also generates a constant flow of energy, making it more compatible with the existing grid. Nationally, the transition to clean energy is going to require a major grid upgrade to accommodate more intermittent sources of renewable energy.<\/p>\n

Burning wood and damming up waterways have a smaller impact on the climate than fossil fuels. But they\u2019re also more controversial than solar or wind. Larger, older dams are notorious for wrecking ecosystems. Wood-burning, meanwhile, comes with other pollutants that can affect air quality. <\/p>\n

Cities looking to make renewable energy goals will need to find their own balance<\/q><\/aside>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a balancing of different factors, you know. We want renewable energy, we want to mitigate impacts from different projects,\u201d says Springer. \u201cFrom all of the different literature that we\u2019ve looked at, it\u2019s far more beneficial to have renewables than to use fossil fuels.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cities looking to make renewable energy goals will need to find their own balance. They\u2019ll also have to take into account who might be bearing the burdens of that transition whether it\u2019s air pollution from burning biomass like wood, or some households seeing higher electricity bills from utilities shouldering the costs of building new energy infrastructure. \u201cThis transformation is an opportunity to invest in people and communities in very different ways. And it\u2019s also a real risk if we don\u2019t,\u201d Stephens says.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a reckoning within the mainstream environmental movement to ensure that the benefits of clean energy are felt equally, and that low-income households aren\u2019t disproportionately saddled with the costs and burdens of an energy transition. Stephens points to New York state as a good example of finding equitable solutions: it plans to reach 100 percent clean electricity by 2040 and stipulated that 35 to 40 percent of the benefits from new climate and energy policy go to disadvantaged communities. <\/p>\n

Moving beyond Burlington, there are more grassroots efforts to build equitable, green energy infrastructure. The nonprofit, Indigenous-led Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation is developing what it calls a \u201cnet-zero energy\u201d community for members of the Oglala Lakota Nation on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The goal is for the 34-acre development\u2019s power to come completely from renewable energy, for now primarily solar. <\/p>\n

At the moment, the homes, apartment buildings, and community center that are part of the development still only get about half their power from solar. They haven\u2019t been able to figure out the intermittency problem yet with solar, and batteries are still too costly. (Thunder Valley has also had setbacks from more extreme weather, like baseball-sized hail that actually broke through solar panels last year.) <\/p>\n

Thunder Valley recently put out a request for proposals on how to get its development the rest of the way to its goal. And in the meantime, it\u2019s leaned on traditional building styles to make structures more energy efficient, like including large south-facing doors that allow more sunlight into homes to heat floors. Similar to Burlington, another strength is how involved residents are in crafting how the development progresses, says Chance Renville, a project manager at Thunder Valley. \u201cTribal members are really the designers and the ones shaping and making this place what it is,\u201d says Renville.<\/p>\n

\u201cTribal members are really the designers\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve lived in harmony with Mother Earth for generations, and more recently we have gotten away from that,\u201d says Renville. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s important for us to really take a look at what we\u2019re doing and how we can get back to living more sustainably.\u201d <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no one-size-fits-all plan for moving communities to a more sustainable future. Communities and leaders will have to take stock of the strengths and resources each community already has \u2014 whether that\u2019s traditional knowledge, strong civic participation, or existing policies and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are just so many good reasons to have an ambitious goal and to strive for it, even if it requires trial and error,\u201d Burlington\u2019s Springer says. \u201cEven if it feels at first that it might be more than is achievable, I think we\u2019re trying to prove that it can be achievable.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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