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Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates
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Green Technology Interview |
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Power to the People!
Berkeley's Energy Financing District
by Barbara Crane
The City of Berkeley has long defined the cutting edge on issues of
climate protection and sustainability. Berkeley was the first city in the
nation to introduce curbside recycling and one of the first to support the
Kyoto protocol. In 1984 the city passed a
Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance that makes a set of
energy upgrades mandatory when a home is sold or owners make major
renovations.
Now, Berkeley has released a bold
climate action plan. A major move towards achieving its goal of
lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050, the plan
was written with heavy community input. The city has now posted the draft
online, so residents can review and comment on any part of it. Additional
information on ways to get involved in local climate protection efforts
are also posted on the city’s website.
The plan will make investments in energy efficiency and solar energy
affordable for the average home or business owner. It calls for creation
of a citywide voluntary “sustainable energy financing district” in which
the major upfront cost of energy efficiency upgrades and solar thermal or
solar photovoltaic roof panels would be paid by the city. The cost would
be added to the owner’s property tax and amortized over a number of years.
If the property changes hands, payment will be transferred to the new
owner.
The plan is a result both of the city’s long commitment to sustainability
and last year’s public endorsement of an effort to combat climate change
locally. In the November 2006 municipal elections, Berkeley voters were
asked two questions posed by
Measure G on the ballot: Should the city have a goal of 80
percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and should the
mayor work with the community and city council to develop a plan to
achieve that target? Eighty-one percent of the voters responded with
“Yes.”
Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates takes the mandate seriously. “Reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions is the issue for me,” he says. “I want to
look at my public service time and say I did everything I could about this
issue.” (Read an interview with Mayor Bates
here.)
“One of the main barriers to going solar is the high upfront cost,” says
Timothy Burroughs, Berkeley’s climate action coordinator. “We are modeling
the sustainable energy financing district on the existing underground
utility district, where a group of homeowners get together and decide to
put utilities underground in their neighborhood. The city pays the upfront
cost in a bond, and homeowners repay the bond as an assessment on their
property taxes over 15 or 20 years.”
Burroughs says, “we’ve had good feedback about the program’s potential” in
discussing the plan with potential lenders, community members and
representatives of other city governments and state government. Dan
Kammen, a professor at the Energy and Resources Group, University of
California Berkeley, and member of the mayor’s advisory committee, is
enthusiastic. “It’s brilliant because it removes the number-one roadblock
to solar [the high upfront costs] and allows property owners to take
advantage of the city’s ability to find the best rates,” he says. “I’m
talking with the state attorney general’s office about it. The idea has
gotten a lot of attention.”
The effort is being designed to encourage major energy efficiency
improvements as well as a shift to solar technologies. It will require
property owners to take several steps, each one further reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. The first step would be a comprehensive energy
audit on the property, which would provide a blueprint toward becoming a
zero-energy user home or business. Next, property owners will carry out
the energy efficiency improvements - things like installing insulation
where needed and changing lighting systems.
The third step is to look at the potential for solar photovoltaics or
solar thermal. The city’s goal is to make financing available to pay for
the audit, the energy upgrades and the solar installations. “We want to
advocate that people reduce energy use through energy efficiency first,
because those savings are the most significant,” Burroughs said. “If you
don’t, the solar installations will have to be larger and more expensive.
Kammen agrees. “Energy efficiency measures cost the least,” he said. “As
they max out, solar saves in obvious ways. It’s self-generating power that
reduces the need for new power plants. Another big advantage is that solar
produces power when the sun is up, that is, when the need, and the cost,
is the greatest. That’s when solar provides the most energy, saving both
money and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Neal De Snoo, the city’s energy program officer, estimates that every
household puts out about four tons of emissions a year. “We can cut these
emissions down considerably through a combination of energy efficiency,
solar photovoltaics, solar thermal and behavior,” he said. A photovoltaic
installation in an average home would cost about $12,000 after rebates
from the
California Energy Commission and
tax credits from the federal government.
Solar thermal systems used for water heaters will also be eligible in the
assessment district and have a “good economic payback after an initial
$3,000 to $5,000 investment,” De Snoo said. The City of Berkeley has
already built several municipal buildings that use solar photovoltaics,
and more are in the offing. The city’s corporation yard, which is used for
storing and servicing city vehicles, has a 20-kw system that generates
about 12 percent of the total electrical requirements for the site, which
saves approximately $5,500 a year and 2.5 tons of greenhouse gases.
A Berkeley public swimming pool lacks sufficient roof space to heat
the pool but uses solar thermal panels to heat the showers year round. The
nature center in the Berkeley marina is an example of a nearly wholly
sustainable structure. There, solar panels supply electricity and solar
thermal supplies hot water and heat. A newly installed small wind turbine,
sized for residential loads, also feeds into the system. “I believe this
is the first wind turbine on the grounds of a municipal facility in the
country,” De Snoo said.
While the city prepares its solar assessment district plan and other
strategies that will meet the goals of Measure G, it is also cooperating
with others that can help. The City of Berkeley joined in discussions with
the
Berkeley Unified School District
(BUSD) and the grassroots organization,
KyotoUSA, as they
talked about installing solar roofs on the district’s schools. “It was
probably good hearing from a city organization that used solar,” said De
Snoo, because it demonstrates that the city sees value in solar and wants
to invest in it. Washington Elementary will get a solar roof in the summer
of 2008, the first BUSD school to do so. (See
sidebar.)
“As part of Measure G, we’re doing a lot of community education around
climate change,” Burroughs said. “The financing concept has to be coupled
with community education about why you take these steps. We think that
financing, combined with community education and empowerment, will be a
successful combination for our community and can be a model for other
communities as well.”
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