Public Input is Crucial to Crafting Vermont’s Comprehensive Energy Plan

This essay by VNRC Energy Program Director, Johanna Miller ran in the July 17 edition of the Times Argus/Rutland Herald.

The many significant energy challenges facing Vermont — and the world — involve difficult issues related to energy supply, generation, costs, environmental considerations and more. An effective response to these challenges must be strategic

Forums to Focus on State Comprehensive Energy Plan Update

To guide the state in making some complex and strategic choices on how Vermont will meet its energy needs far into the future, the Department of Public Service recently commenced a much-needed update to Vermont’s Comprehensive Energy Plan, last officially adopted in 1998. Public input into this forward-looking plan is imperative, and VNRC is helping to organize a series of forums aimed at hearing how Vermonters think and hope the state will meet its energy needs.

VNRC, VLCT Release Guidebooks to Help Communities Address Energy

Planning is a powerful tool for addressing the climate change and energy challenges facing Vermont. Unfortunately, communities have not taken full advantage of available tools to help prepare for the state’s energy needs. A set of tools recently released by the Vermont Natural Resources Council and Vermont League of Cities and Towns outline how communities can comprehensively, systematically and aggressively address energy use and consumption. These tools are meant to help communities lay the foundation for greater investment in renewable energy, innovative transportation and land use policies that require less energy and limit greenhouse gas emissions, and conservation and efficiency programs starts with planning.

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.

Power to the people: A structural fight?

Vermonters, and many other citizens of this nation, have been justifiably angry about the gridlock in Washington and in state capitols around the country, as this fall’s election results attest. On the energy issue, for instance, many of us have been deeply disappointed to find that even our favorite elected officials are unable to enact the legislation necessary to move us out of the oil age into a new energy future. Hermann Scheer, the German parliamentarian who was responsible for the passage in 2000 of the Law for the Priority of Renewable Energies didn’t call it gridlock. He called it a fight, a structural fight.

'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 Co-Hosts Successful Forums on Biomass

In June and July 2010, VNRC co-hosted three forums around the state to create and elevate a strategic discussion about the potential role of biomass in Vermont's energy future. Below is a synopsis of the goal of the forums, the principles that the sponsoring organizations offered as a way to frame the dialogue and all of the notes from the forums.

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.

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.