A new nonprofit aims to empower supporters of local renewable energy projects

The vast majority of people tell researchers they support renewable energy. But when decrees and projects are presented to local governments, opponents appear more frequently than supporters.

Greenlight America, a new national nonprofit, wants to change that. I spoke to its co-founders this week in one of their first interviews about their mission and strategy.

The group launched last year, raised $4 million and has a team of about 20 people. It is incorporated in Washington, DC, with employees throughout the country.

Matt Traldi, CEO and co-founder, said he is inspired by the way the labor movement prioritizes local voices and focuses on organizing. He co-founded Indivisible, an advocacy group formed to combat Donald Trump’s political agenda, and previously spent a decade working for unions.

“There is a lot of support for clean energy projects,” he said. But he found that supporters sometimes “don’t know when and where to show up.”

The stakes are high. The United States needs to add large amounts of renewable energy to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and avoid the worst effects of climate change. Local opposition delayed or canceled many projects.

Greenlight America aims to alert local groups and individuals to issues in their communities and promote greater participation from people who support a shift to cleaner energy.

“The reality is that most people don’t read local government agendas or minutes of proceedings, and most nonprofits are not focused on the local level,” said Ari Appel, program director and co-founder.

He previously ran campaigns for environmental and renewable advocacy organizations such as Building Back Together, which seeks to support the implementation of President Joe Biden’s climate and clean energy legislation.

Ethan Todras-Whitehill, director of communications and co-founder, said Greenlight wants to give renewable energy supporters “the information and training they need to feel comfortable going out there and appearing in front of the city council.” ”.

He previously founded Swing Left, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures.

Although the co-founders have deep ties to groups that support Democrats, they emphasized that Greenlight is nonpartisan.

Public opinion studies, such as a 2023 report from the Pew Research Center, show that support for renewable energy is strong across party lines.

And yet, as I have seen and reported, opponents of renewable energy projects are often highly organized at the local level, to the point that project supporters feel excluded and reluctant to speak out.

People fight renewable energy for a variety of reasons. The most common one I’ve seen is concern about how a project will change the look of a place, something I can sympathize with, especially for people who live closer to the site. The benefits of development – ​​for the environment and the local tax base – are much less talked about.

One way to think about Greenlight is as a counterweight to groups that oppose renewable energy, like Virginia-based Citizens for Responsible Solar.

“We are opposition students,” said Traldi, the CEO. He compared it to the way Indivisible drew lessons from how the Tea Party movement organized against President Barack Obama.

But it would be an oversimplification to say that Greenlight is a pro-renewables version of groups that oppose the projects. Opposition organizations tend to focus on spreading misleading information to make people fear renewable energy. A common message is to say or suggest that solar farms are a threat to human health – which is not true.

In contrast, Greenlight sees itself more as an organizer and convener, and does not necessarily get into the details of what is discussed in local campaigns.

One example is how the group participated in a debate this year in Erie County, Pennsylvania: The County Council was considering revisions to its solar ordinance that contained a provision saying a project needed to have an interconnection agreement with the grid operator. region to be able to apply for a construction permit.

The provision would essentially terminate new licenses because the grid operator is working through a years-long backlog in processing interconnection requests. In most other jurisdictions, a developer would obtain their construction permit while waiting in line for access to the network.

It is not clear to me whether the proposal was a deliberate attempt to impede development. Regardless, Greenlight learned about it from someone in the field and then reached out to groups that typically support renewable energy to speak to the County Council.

Board meeting records show that local representatives from Solar United Neighbors and PennFuture, nonprofits that support renewable energy development, spoke about what the proposal would do and urged the board to remove the provision. The council followed this advice.

“A coalition came together very quickly,” said Jenny Tomkins, clean water campaign manager at PennFuture, who lives near Erie.

The ability of local and national groups to collaborate was essential, and Greenlight helped bring the parties together, she said.

“Local people provide firsthand knowledge of proposed projects, community concerns and close relationships with local elected officials,” she said. “State and national groups bring lessons learned from other communities, relationships with the solar industry, and legal and political expertise.”

Greenlight’s agenda coincides with that of renewable energy developers, but it does not take money from developers. This is an important distinction because opposition campaigns like to say that their supporters act out of financial self-interest.

The success of the organization means that local people show up to participate, and this helps to galvanize the authorities. Don’t wait for Traldi or his colleagues to stand up and speak in your city.

If Greenlight can find ways to fill seats and dockets, it could change the dynamics of local debates. I’ll be watching to see how this group grows and what effect it has.

Other energy transition stories to note this week:

The implementation of the heat pump faced an obstacle: Investment in heat pumps in the United States has fallen, even as other climate-friendly technologies have grown. There are many potential reasons, including a delay in new home construction and federal subsidies that go to consumers rather than contractors, as Shannon Osaka reports for The Washington Post. Heat pumps, which run on electricity and provide heating and cooling, are an essential part of reducing the use of fossil fuels in buildings.

With the Palisades and Three Mile Island units set to restart, could more retired reactors follow? Other nuclear plants could join Palisades, Michigan, and Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, which are being restarted. One candidate is the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa, as Brian Martucci reports for Utility Dive, looking at some of the factors that separate plants that can restart and those that are less likely.

Federal authorities approve major geothermal project, move toward facilitating permitting: The Bureau of Land Management has issued a decision approving the Cape Geothermal Project in southwestern Utah with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts, Scott Streater reports for E&E News. Additionally, the Department of the Interior said it is proposing new rules that will speed up the process of drilling wells used to confirm the existence of a geothermal resource. Geothermal plants use the Earth’s heat to produce steam that turns a turbine. The Cabo project is being developed by Fervo Energy, a company at the forefront of a potential geothermal energy renaissance.

One of the largest solar projects in the US opens in Texas, backed by Google: Three solar farms, with a combined capacity of 875 megawatts, are part of the largest solar power purchase Google has ever made, as Jennifer McDermott reports for the Associated Press. Google said it will use most of the energy from solar projects, developed by SB Energy, to support data centers in the Dallas area, highlighting how data centers are driving a surge in demand for electricity.

Election casts uncertainty over Biden’s signature climate law: The Inflation Reduction Act may prove difficult to reverse, whatever the outcome of next month’s elections. My colleague Nicholas Kusnetz reports on how some aspects of the law gained Republican support and which parts of the law are most likely to be repealed or revised if Donald Trump is elected.

Inside Clean Energy is ICN’s weekly newsletter of news and analysis on the energy transition. Send news tips and questions to (email protected).