Delaware Gov. John Carney Announces New Clean Energy Investments Throughout State

hello are we good all right all right well thank you very much i'm i've got the honor to kick off today's uh event and to host the event as well my name is jesse grossman and i'm the ceo and co-founder of soltage and we are an independent renewable energy provider and we welcome you to our two megawatt facility today i want to thank governor john carney state senator stephanie hansen and all of the great people of delaware that made this possible today we're very pleased to host this historic event for clean energy as we celebrate the signing of senate bill 2 to transform community solar and community growth in delaware community solar provides a path for local residents businesses and non-profits and other groups access clean energy through a subscription service not everyone has a rooftop or suitable property in delaware to host solar power and roughly 30 percent of all delaware residents rent rather than own their homes options like community solar are critical for making clean energy and cost savings it provides available to everybody and one of the nice things about the community solar bill that's passed in delaware is that there is a component of low and moderate income subscription which is required with each and every solar asset that is created in delaware which means a minimum of 15 percent of the power generated from each and every solar asset in delaware in under this community solar program will be going to low and moderate income communities which is a very important sort of equality point of getting solar assets put up in the state soltage has been an early advocate for affordable energy in the state of new delaware we put this asset up in 2013 so eight years ago so it's great to come back here eight years later and reflect on all that has happened in the nation and in the state of delaware since that time this type of legislation that is being put in place today is key for opening up markets driving economic growth driving investment and driving job creation in the states so thank you all who made this possible today now the governor's asked me to say a couple of words about exactly what is behind us here today and i'm not the technical person on our team but as i told the governor i can play one on tv and for 30 seconds at a podium from time to time so what we've got here i'll describe it across a couple of vectors number one the size this is around a two megawatt system this used to be a pretty big system it's thankfully no longer a very big system but it's a sort of size that can fit in an urban or peri-urban area where you don't have a lot of open land that's not that doesn't have another highest and best use if this was not a brownfield and a landfill you know you would want to have residential housing on here you'd want a hotel i understood this at one point was a potential casino property and none of those were possible because of the impacted nature of the soil so we were able to to put a solar acid on here sized at two megawatts at the time this would have been a nine million dollar investment today eight years later this would be a four million dollar investment which is a great testament to how we've been able as a nation as we've scaled solar production and solar investment to drop the costs down of creating this sort of uh this sort of asset um i'd like to give a good statistic about how many households or businesses this this asset could provide it would be around 300 households would be taken off the grid on an annual basis by by an asset of this size the power from this um project is being sold to home depot under a contract for differences a swap there's no physical interconnection to home depot and it's in a different part of this state but what we do is you put it on the lines there and um and it's a it's a commodity and so in fact you know the local businesses and residences are using the solar power from this asset but the financial transaction is happening with home depot miles and miles away which is really in practice how the community solar program in the state of delaware will work one last point before i turn it over to the governor is you will notice that the solar asset behind us has cinder blocks it's ballasted most solar projects ground ground-mounted solar projects you're sticking a pole of metal around eight feet down to anchor it for wind and other events over the course of the day sometimes you can have tracking actuators on there so they're tracking the sun as it goes across the horizon over the day this one is ballasted because we are on a brownfield landfill and you do not want to disturb what is below the ground and so this is kind of an interesting engineering uh technique that that is used for for assets of this nature so with that i will conclude my remarks thank everybody for coming here today we're so glad to host you i'll turn it over to governor carney thank you jesse that was way cool i thought that i knew every inch of ground in our state and it had been there in person but this is the first time i've ever been here and the first time i've heard an explanation of solar community solar like the one that you you just gave and this uh today we're going to sign a piece i'm going to sign a piece of legislation finishing off the great work of many of the people standing by behind me those standing in front of me and delawareans across their state i can't help but think about just a couple weeks ago we responded to a community just a little bit over there on the northeast side of our city after we they experience an incredible flooding of their properties due to a unique and unusual storm but storms that we're continuing to see across the east coast and across this country and around the world wreaking havoc in communities just like the little one not too far from here most of us understand that part of that is a result of global warming and that that is probably the most important issue that we as as a state uh we as a as a city and as a civilization face and so the bills that we're we're signing today are small steps to address the reduction the reliance on greenhouse gas emissions here in our state important ones and we're going to in the process celebrate the sponsors the leaders the advocates that have made it happen as i think about we've signed a lot of bills we haven't signed any any bill with the number of people standing by behind me standing behind me and i think that's an important message which is that it takes all of us right it takes all of us working together to address this ex existential threat to our communities and to our planet i love the sign right here that says there is no planet b and that is absolutely right i can't help but think about the commentary from astronauts who have traveled into outer space looking back on our planet and recognizing how fragile it is all of all of you and all the people standing beside me recognize how fragile our planet is and the threats that we all face so it's really my distinct pleasure as the governor of our state to finish the great work of these legislators and the advocates who stand behind me and those across our state i do want to single out in particular senator stephanie hanson who's been just an incredible leader [Applause] we're going to hear from her next she's just been an incredible leader here on the community solar bill an id and a bill that was left on the on the legislative floor by former senator harris mcdowell senator hanson picked up that ball and ran with it with all of you with representative bill bush and the other sponsors in the general assembly and all the supporters and i think jesse made it very clear to me the potential for this the fact that the cost has been cut in half for if i did my math right about half in just a short period of time for this installation senator hanson and other legislators behind me also provided great leadership in resetting our renewable portfolio standard 40 of renewable energy by 2035. i think i have that right and we're going to need lots of community solar installations to meet that goal as well as individual homeowners putting solar arrays on top of their their homes as you travel around our state and other states in the region across the country you see more of these uh again and again as well as uh wind wind energy installations at the same time so again it's a privilege for me to finish this great work and with that we're also going to sign as senate bill 21 which will advance our efforts to transition to electric vehicles another really big priority for us so if you think about the challenges of reducing our reliance on greenhouse gases the two big areas are in electricity generation and in transportation we've made pretty good progress and continue to make progress on electricity generation here in our state we need to do a better job on transportation and for us i believe electric vehicles oppose the real opportunity since we don't have the densities of other states to make real mass transportation services economically feasible but with that i want to introduce senator stephanie hanson who's the sponsor of senate bill number two senate bill 21 and senate substitute one for senate bill number 24. [Applause] thank you and i'd like to thank soltage for making this uh the site available for us it's certainly very telling for us to be here today um and for wilmington city councilman um nathan field who actually helped put the help arrange for us to be here today and kind of us meeting here today was his idea so i want to give a shout out to councilman field about this this was a great year for environmental and energy bills in the delaware state senate the delaware general assembly um the three bills that we'll be signing here today are also good companions to two additional bills that um that we had passed earlier one the governor mentioned the rps bill which raised our renewable energy portfolio standard and another one being the ban on the sale of invasive species uh which we which we passed as well so all together we have the senate bill 2 which is the community solar my my sponsor in the uh in the house being representative bill bush we have the balloon bill which is banning the mass release of balloons which is five balloons or more something that plastic-free delaware and many others um in the marine marine studies area had been asking for for a long time and we really really needed to do and that was um we'll be signing that one as well here today and i know we have uh d durham who is here from newcastle county council who's also the chair of plastic free delaware we'll be speaking about that one and we have senate bill 21 which is uh will allow further development of energy excuse me of electric vehicle charging stations throughout the state by allowing the state to charge then for the for the cost of the energy but you know the if you want to go fast go by yourself right but if you want to go far you go with a group and that's really i think what a big part of today is celebrating is the group of people that came together to get these bills and particularly the community solar bill off the ground that was their community solar stakeholders group continues to meet and continues to talk about energy policy issues and is now advanced from going from being just a community solar stakeholders group to an energy stakeholders group and we are not done this is the beginning this is the beginning of what we can accomplish so we have a lot more to do we are continuing to do it so expect to see new legislation going in the future so who's on the stakeholders group because i want to call them out specifically because these are people that have given every other week hours of their lives to this issue coming together hearing from people on different sides of of the issue to try to come to what are the next best productive steps on these issues these big environmental and energy policy issues in our state so who are they representative bill bush and representative deb heffernan from the legislature tremendous advocates our public service commission raj barua who had been on the original community solar stakeholders group has moved on now we are talking with pam knotts and matt hardigan our public advocate drew slater who i know is with us here today our delaware sustainable energy utility with tony deprima is a member of our group rob underwood from denreck who was part of the to the chair of the renewable energy task force we've got the department of justice represented through marion cork and catherine devaney the governor's office is there through natalie cresenzo of course our secretary of denrick sean garvin we have the delaware electric co-op has a seat at the table and are very active in this through bill andrew their current recently retired ceo and now dave shapley we have dmek who has been at the table actively talking about this pat mccullar who is retiring now kimberly schlichting we have delmarva power at the table because if you're going to talk about energy you need to make sure everybody's at the table right delaware's not just delmarva power a lot of it is delmarva power but dmacc and and deck if you're not if you're not engaging if you're not engaging the co-op and dmacc in these issues that's half the state you've got the other half of the energy equation they have to be at the table and they are the delaware solar energy coalition dale davis the caesar rodney institute dave stevenson because you have to make sure all voices are heard that's why this legislation goes through unanimously or near unanimously environmental legislation doesn't generally happen that way right but if you bring everybody to the table and you give everybody a chance to to talk about the issues that are important to them and why they stand where they stand then you get everybody standing together and moving forward and that was the idea and that works we had uh frank murphy from the delaware state senate and carol kirschner that were very helpful in putting the together and of course former senator mcdowell we also have three people that were part of the uh that are currently part of the stakeholders group that have been in the past will in the future who are going to hear from today as well one is dustin thompson who represents the sierra club and the rps coalition which is a coalition of 38 organizations in delaware pushing for equitable energy policy so dustin's going to say a couple of words we have solar nani from turning point energy and the coalition for community solar access this is a national trade organization of community solar businesses and non-profits working to expand solar access to solar and we have mr jeffrey richardson who was the president and ceo of imani energy that focuses on bringing solar and other renewable energy to low income and communities of color so these are the people when i talk about the the community solar stakeholders group now transitioning to the energy stakeholders group this is the group that i'm talking about and if there are other people that you believe people in organizations that you believe need to be a part of that i want you to call me and let me know because this is a big area we're looking at all different types of energy and we're going to continue to look at all different types going forward because you have to you can't put all your eggs in one basket right um let me know who else ought to be on here and we can make sure that we bring them in and continue those discussions because we want to go far we don't want to we'd love to go fast we're going to try to go fast but we want to go far so with that uh we will we will also have councilwoman d durham who will be saying a few words on our uh our mass balloon prohibition release bill which is the senate bill 2024 so we'll be hearing from from councilwoman d durham as well so at this point i will turn it over to our secretary of denrick sean garvin [Applause] um thank you senator i've been informed that since it's such a light agenda that i have 15 minutes to speak so everybody uh settle in um this is really an exciting day uh i'd like to thank uh the governor and senator hanson and and all the the co-sponsors of of these three bills uh transition to clean energy sources and electric transportation are key elements in reducing greenhouse gases if you look at sb 21 which we affectionately refer to as charge the charger bill it really is just a small piece of a much larger effort that we are under taking here in the state of delaware 31 of our greenhouse gas emissions come from vehicles so if we're really going to get a handle on our impact on climate change and what we can do here in the state it's really electrifying our transportation grid our ability as a state to put electric infrastructure at state facilities and have those who are using it pay for those services provide us an opportunity to expand that throughout the state of delaware which is a benefit to our employees and to our vast visitors that come to not only state buildings but state parks and everything in between and so this is really a key piece to what is a very a long effort and as the members of the general assembly and the governor knows we've gotten some money in our budget we also have a lot of federal dollars that have come in and will hopefully be coming in that will really help support that effort and uh it's really a key piece um to what we're we're doing here and then there's the community solar bill sb2 which really was a labor of love for senator mcdowell my former senator who did a lot of incredible work and and passed the baton over to senator hansen and representative bush and others and we look at community solar as an important piece to how do we get renewable energy into the state of delaware a very big piece of renewable energy but it really is also about environmental justice those who have the ability to take advantage of renewable energy and particularly solar energy shouldn't just be the people who are well off and those who have a lot of land or have a rooftop that they can put solar panels on we really need to make it available to all and that's really what this bill does it creates a dynamic that all delawareans have an opportunity to have access to renewable energy and that's it's critically important and and jesse you were talking about this land and governor you had said you had was kind of the first time you were down in this area i used to wear a different hat for a different environmental agency and we were part of cleaning up this site and turning it into a brownfields and at the time we didn't envision solar panels being one of the many things when we talk about putting sites back into productive use but you're seeing it more and more of taking these these lands that have had negative impacts on communities and putting in infrastructure that directly benefits those communities not just now but into the future and i want to recognize dana cobb um who is the director of our climate coastal and energy division and when we talk about both the charge the charger and community solar it's dana and her team tom noyes and others uh who really did a lot of the heavy lifting from the department's perspective and supporting the efforts of all of those uh that are behind us in front of us so thank you very much dana for all your work and then lastly before i turn it over uh to a good friend and colleague i just want to touch on the the balloon release bill and a lot of folks think as balloons as being balloons when they let them go but when they come back down when they come back down they are they are litter um they are they are contributing to harming our environment and harming our wildlife and so this bill creates not only a law that says you're not allowed to do it i think more importantly it just it brings an awareness to people that that sometimes something that is is a a commodity or a benefit when you have it in your hand becomes a waste later on and we need to be conscious of that um as we do coastal cleanups like the governor and i did last week the amount of reports of things like balloons that people don't normally think of as as pollution and harming our our our natural resources and wildlife is is often one of the things that we find so i commend all of those who who took a leadership on that and with that i want to introduce our next speaker who is drew slater public advocate the public advocate and department work very closely together when talking about energy issues particularly when we're talking about renewable energies and how do we uh infuse that into our portfolio and do it in a way that makes sense for our consumers but also moves the ball forward in both having a benefit on the the wallets and pocketbooks of our citizens but also uh has a a positive impact on addressing climate change uh and and really other um public health and environmental issues so with that let me introduce drew slater our public advocate um so good morning i want to thank uh secretary garvin and uh and the public service commission especially matt and pam you know this is a total collaborative on the community solar bill that really wouldn't have happened without everyone behind us and so many more and that really goes to senate to senator hansen and the forums that she's created we have spent countless time and many many hours not only on the forums but outside of the forums coming together and especially with our state partners with denrik and the public service commission staff to really try and create a bill uh with all with everyone's input that that gets to the heart of our issue which is climate change and so i just want to thank everyone um up here for all of their help uh and with that i have the i have the great honor to represent my representative who is bill bush and so i will ask you to come forward and thank you for your sponsorship of this bill [Applause] thank you and you know all the comments have been said today are so true um if it was really the stakeholders working with senator hanson and what i really want to talk about is just the true leadership of senator hanson you know when harris mcdowell was here he was such a leader when it came to the environmental issues within our state legislation what senator hansen did when she started taking on the environmental bills in the senate is just it's remarkable it's incredible the way she put these stakeholder groups together her leadership the ability to identify specific issues with these environmental bills and the community solar she really went through piece by piece and identified the issues and made it better and came up with a great solution work with the stakeholders and i truly truly want to thank you senator hansen and i i think we can all look forward to a great future of what she's going to do with her stakeholder group in the environment of bills that are going to come out in the future uh they are working hard now and um you know it's it's small steps you know we go through certain issues that are out there fix them make them better and you know as we all want to do we become legislators is you know when we leave this office we hope that we have done something in the state of delaware to make delaware better and i know for our children and for the future of delaware this is a great bill and again i just want to thank senator hansen thank you good morning thank you everybody i'm representative christa griffith and proud sponsor of sb 21 which is our electric vehicle bill we need solar energy but we also need electric vehicle energy to really help save this planet and for the last three years we've been working hard to get this bill passed and have it signed by you today governor carney thank you to my colleagues everybody's who's here it's the first step of many that we need to do to expand infrastructure so that we can reduce fossil fuel use here in delaware so thank you and it's my honor to introduce dustin thompson solar nani and jeffrey richardson as well as councilwoman durham thank you [Applause] hello my name is dustin thompson i am the volunteer and community outreach coordinator for the delaware sierra club which is the oldest environmental organization in the nation and a prominent voice locally for advocating for equitable renewable energy policies and commenting climate change here in delaware we were honored to work with the 38 different organizations that make up the rps coalition many of whom are here to celebrate with us today and we wouldn't be here together without them from the beginning of the journey for those of us on the rps coalition and at sierra club the big part of this bill and the community solar for all legislation that we're signing here today was specifically focused on solving the very major issue of bringing equity into access for renewable energy we saw the opportunity that community solar provided to bring equity and access to solar and we saw the great promise that it held to help those who need it the most and we saw the great partnerships that we could build to help bring those benefits to all delawareans what we have done here is nothing shy of amazing and it is in large part thanks to the dedication of senator hansen and the commitment of all those on the community solar stakeholder group to come together in good faith and work on a very difficult issue that has been trying to be addressed for many many years what we have created i think will become a model piece of legislation for how to build a community solar program that guarantees benefits to all but especially to low-income families who pay a disproportionate amount of their income monthly to pay for energy costs by requiring that every project guarantee on a regular basis that at least 15 percent of their clean affordable energy is going to low-income families we are ensuring that there is finally community engagement that there is finally community education in low-income communities and that the benefits of solar energy don't just go to those that can afford solar installations or that have broadband internet access and and can easily be reached we're getting it to those who are very it's very difficult to get to that it's very difficult to help and that have been taken advantage of over and over and over again we're finally bringing the benefits of renewable energy to those families together with senator hanson and others in the ga and the advocates here today we have shown other states how you can bring everyone to the table and break down barriers to access for those families and get them the help that they need and deserve all while helping to protect our planet and increase high paying green jobs in their states we are excited to see how this industry is going to progress in delaware and the benefits that soon all delawareans who choose to participate in this great program will be able to enjoy when they flick on their lights and know that the power coming through is coming from locally sourced locally produced green energy thank you all very much to the advocates who helped make this happen thank you senator hansen for allowing us to be a part [Applause] uh good morning everyone uh you know first off i just want to say how honored i am to be here today uh this is a historic day not just as it relates to the passage of sb2 and community solar but also the evidence of the clean energy revolution being shepherded through sb 21 and the adoption of clean energy vehicles which collectively effectuate the goals set earlier this year through the renewable portfolio standard today not only does delaware have a goal but it also has a means to get there can we just take a moment to pause and applaud the governor and legislature for this very historic day the clean energy revolution is here in charging forward pun intended not only am i amped but i am energized and heck i'm even electrified by the prospect of implementing community solar here in delaware it's now up to the industry to rise up to the challenge set forth by state government and deliver results that delawareans can be proud of i can attest that not only are we up for the challenge but also humbled by the opportunity we have a long way to go but together we will beat the climate crisis i also just want to acknowledge the fact that this legislation was passed during one of the most challenging times our world has ever faced in modern history it took a lot of coordination and debate across many various stakeholders and i just wanted to take take a moment to thank some of those individuals thank you to all the members of the rps coalition without whom we wouldn't have the grassroots support to make this happen i also wanted to thank all the members of the administration including matt hardigan pam knotts drew slater marion quirk rob underwood tony deprima with the scu dustin thompson with the sierra club jeffrey richardson dale davis with the delaware solar energy coalition who unfortunately could not be here today anne lindner with delmarva representative bush governor carl carney but most importantly senator stephanie hansen we would not be here today if it wasn't for her leadership her stakeholder process has been very unique and is a true testament and example of how democracy and the modern of democracy in the modern day and age please wonder one more round of applause for the these folks [Applause] thanks again for the time and i'm looking forward to continuing to work with all you in the future thanks jeffrey richardson secretary garvin used her for his 15 minutes so i'm up against my departure time so we're gonna have to sign these bills we've got a couple other folks that that have remarks to deliver but uh if i don't get out of here in two minutes i'm gonna be in big trouble so look this is uh this is a big deal uh it's a big deal that has received great leadership from senator hansen or colleagues in the senate in the house the imperative for us i think is clear the challenge is great but i think what you should see from all the folks that are here behind me that the will is there here in the state of delaware and we're going to do our part all right so we've got as has been said three bills to sign all with the main prime sponsor senator hansen the first bill is senate bill number two the community solar bill you've heard how much work went into the development the stakeholder group the ball being passed from senator mcdowell the important opportunity it gives us to move to renewable energy here across our state great work by senator hanson and her colleagues ask you to hold that one next is senate bill 21 this should be the electrification bill again senator hanson representative griffith great work another step in the direction of clean energy in our state particularly on the transportation side i should mention that our department of transportation is doing incredible work moving towards electrifying our transportation net network in our state and with the federal resources hats off to senator carper center coons representative rochester we're going to get additional revenue hopefully from the infrastructure bill that's uh past this house i want to say maybe the senate and then again the bill that uh limits reduces balloon releases in our state to keep our state safe and clear and protect our wildlife just incredible work by senator hanson and her colleagues and this one will go to [Music] stephanie there we go final word to all the advocates thanks for your great work look forward to working with you on more legislation in the future have a great day [Applause] you

2021-09-20 05:16

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