  
Dear
Kim --
You recieved an email a few weeks ago from David Lescohier, an
MCAN member in Brookline, encouraging you to work with your local
elected officials to have them sign a letter supporting solar, which
could go to the statehouse. I am following up to tell you we did it in
Newton!
You read that if we send letters from lots of towns, it will show
the governor and the legislature that there is broad public support
across the state for clean energy. And it will show that it is an
issue important to cities and towns.
We did it in Newton, and
it was actually pretty easy. It only took us two weeks (that's the
advantage of someone else doing the first writing)!
Can you help us win on solar by getting a letter from
YOUR board of selectmen, city council, alderman, or
similar group in your town or city?
how we did it in Newton:
- we reviewed the email with David's letter from MCAN (also here)
- we decided to draft a Newton letter
- Green Newton leaders edited David's letter
- Our champions on the city council tweaked the letter to make it
"more Newton" and they convinced fellow councilors to vote for it
The text of the Brookline letter is on MCAN's website here
and the Newton letter is below. You can copy and paste and edit as
needed.
Please let Carol at MCAN know if you are going to do a
town letter (carol...@massclimateaction.net) - or if you are
already doing one!
thanks,
Marcia Cooper
President of
Green Newton and MCAN member
Here's the text of the letter
Newton sent (which is slightly different than the Brookline one):
Dear President Rosenberg, Speaker DeLeo, and Members of the
Conference Committee,
We appreciate the efforts of the Legislature to ensure that the
Commonwealth continues to lead the nation in energy efficiency and
renewable energy. We urge you to support only energy policies that
sustain continued growth in these industries.
House Bill 3854, proposes a radical departure from the current
program, and would serve to undermine rather than stabilize solar
industry development in Massachusetts.
Solar generated electricity must be a key part of satisfying energy
demand in the future. In recent years, Massachusetts has become a
regional leader in solar development, with approximately 1,000
megawatts of solar generation capacity now installed statewide. This
is a significant step toward the current goal of 1,600 megawatts by
2020. Local effort in cities and towns to host solar
developments has been the bedrock of this success. It is
clear that the policy framework established by the 2008 Green
Communities Act has led to important growth in the solar industry.
Massachusetts is behind on its carbon reduction requirements under
the Global Warming Solutions Act, and the closing of Pilgrim nuclear
plant will take over 80% of the carbon-free electric generation in
Massachusetts offline. These factors emphasize the need for a stable,
strong, and capable solar industry to meet our goals as
a Commonwealth.
In order to sustain progress toward the state goal of 1,600
megawatts installed by 2020, and continue building on past
achievements, we strongly support the elimination, or significant
increase in, the metering caps, as well as maintaining fair market
reimbursement rates and a similarly robust incentive program as exists
in the current program.
Net metering is a critical part of solar development financing. The
caps have already been reached in the National Grid and Unitil service
territories, stalling many projects currently under development and
precluding new ones from beginning. Soon the applications for projects
in other areas, including Newton, will hit their cap limits as
well.
The value of net metering credits must be kept at a reasonable
level. Current policy, in many cases, is to value net metering credits
at the full retail rate. After all, the net metering ‘credits’ are to
pay for locally generated energy at a fair rate. This is not a
subsidy. Several of the solar bills under consideration
would decrease the value of net metering credits for new projects,
once the goal of 1,600 megawatts is reached.
Finally, the SREC II incentive program is set to expire once 1,600
megawatts are installed. We strongly support the creation of a new
incentive program that lowers costs for ratepayers and allows us to
invest further in local solar energy generation.
Although the intention of these bills may be to support solar
projects and sustain solar development, we are gravely concerned that
cuts in reimbursement rates and elimination of incentive programs at
this early stage will put future solar projects at risk. Our
engineering consultants tell us that several solar projects currently
planned in Newton, which are reasonably estimated to save Newton over
$4 million in avoided energy costs, would not be possible at wholesale
reimbursement rates.
Sincerely,
Councillor 1
Councillor 2
Councillor
3
etc
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