'Atlas' Maps Vermont's Renewable Energy Opportunities

On Earth Day 2010, the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund released its eagerly anticipated renewable energy mapping tool - Renewable Energy Atlas of Vermont. This GIS-based web application uses state-of-the-art technology to identify, analyze and visualize existing and promising locations for renewable energy. The Atlas is an accessible tool for any interested Vermonter seeking more information about potential resources out their back door. The VSJF specifically also targeted the tool to serve as a resource for Vermont's growing network of community energy committees.

PACE: A Tool to Develop More Renewable, Energy Efficiency Projects

This year, with the help of VNRC and a broad network of organizations, businesses and concerned citizens, the Legislature passed a far-reaching energy bill. One of the most exciting provisions of the bill enables Vermont municipalities to create 'clean energy assessment districts act' or PACE program to help interested property owners more affordably finance renewable energy and efficiency projects.

VNRC Offers Energy Planning Assistance to Vermont Communities

Planning is a powerful tool for combating Vermont’s energy and climate change challenges. Unfortunately, communities, regions and the state have not taken full advantage of available planning tools to help prepare for a carbon-constrained world. VNRC can offer technical assistance to Vermont communities interested in updating the energy component of their local plan or serve as a resource to municipalities and energy committees.

Town Energy and Climate Action Guide

The Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network's "Town Energy and Climate Action Guide" offers an important resource to communities interested in establishing, or currently working on, town energy committees.

Planning: A Powerful Climate Action

Most Vermont communities and regions have chosen to adopt town and regional plans that guide development and public investments. Only in the past 20 years, however, have those towns and regions been required to include an energy element. It's this component that offers Vermont communities a powerful, and largely untapped, opportunity to plan for an energy-constrained world. More and more Vermont communities are tapping into that opportunity.

Hydro-Quebec Green? Implications of a Deal Require More Thought

The Vermont Legislature is pushing through a major shift in Vermont's renewable energy policy without thoughtful consideration of the implications.

Having heard cursory testimony on the impacts, with no word from the entity looking for the change, and no public debate, lawmakers are poised to confer a gift upon Hydro-Quebec that amounts to a green seal of quality by defining massive hydro power as "renewable." To date, Vermont policy has been that large-scale hydro is not "renewable" in large part because of its significant environmental and social costs.