Renewable Energy Developers Need Help, And Help Is On The Way

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About 30% of all renewable energy proposals in the US die on the vine, with local opposition among the top three causes. The outlook for a healthier industry could improve if developers were more adept at communicating about benefits and neutralizing misinformation, and a new, first-of-its-kind training program offers to do just that.

Four Hours To A Successful Renewable Energy Proposal

The new training program is a collaboration between the clean energy communications firm Tigercomm and the Community Clean Energy Coalition, a non-profit branch of the US trade organization Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

If you’re interested in attending, register at this link and plan on being in Anaheim, California, on Monday, September 9, which is the start of the RE+ (formerly SPI) trade show, known as the largest renewable energy event in North America. The four-hour training session takes place on the 9th and the package includes follow-up consultations for specific projects over the next two days at RE+.

The training session features expert guidance on leveraging emotional appeal to focus more attention on community benefits, how to enlist influencers, and how to take the opposition by the horns, whether in person or online.

With a teach-the-teacher approach, the training focuses on building a campaign that participants can use to train and skill-build with their colleagues.

Renewable Energy On The Rocks

The need for a new approach to community engagement is clear. Earlier this year, the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory drew a gloomy picture of the state of affairs, based on a survey of 123 professionals representing 62 renewable energy developers.

“Approximately one-third of wind and solar siting applications submitted in the last five years were canceled, while about half experience delays of 6 months or more,” Berkeley Lab observed.

The Berkeley Lab analysis also takes note of the high cost of project cancellations, averaging more than $2 million per project for solar and $7.5 million for wind.

Delays are also expensive, raising costs by $200,000 per megawatt for both wind and solar. Considering the 100+ megawatt scale typical of many renewable energy projects, those costs can add up.

As for the cause of both cancellations and delays, Berkeley Lab notes that the grid connection bottleneck is one of the top three factors. Local ordinances and zoning laws are another one. However, the main concern is the third factor — community opposition.

“For both wind and solar, opposition is becoming more prevalent and is more expensive to address than it was five years ago,” Berkeley Lab notes.

“Developers expect this trend to continue, becoming even more prevalent in the next five years,” they emphasize.

Renewable Energy & The Changing Landscape Of Communications

If you’re wondering why renewable energy developers can’t just simply describe all the benefits of wind and solar development to solicit community approval, that’s a good question. Tigercomm cites a survey of rural residents finding, reasonably enough, that “most communities want the job creation, tax revenue and economic activity […] generated by building wind and solar farms.”

The problem, as Tigercomm describes it, is that renewable energy developers have been working under the presumption that they can sashay through the permitting process just like energy stakeholders have done in years past, and that is simply not the case.

“An industry survey last year showed that many of the community engagement practices used by renewable developers were inherited from more mature industries and developed in a time when permits were granted with little controversy,” Tigercomm notes.

In years past, energy developers could rely on relatively complacent local media to relay news about their intentions, if anyone was paying attention at all. That is no longer the case, either.

As explained by Tigercomm in a press statement, “the collapse of local media, increased partisanship and heavy social use on mobile phones have reshaped the communication environment renewable energy developers must navigate.”

Tigercomm doesn’t say the quiet part out loud, but the reference to the impact of social media is consistent with online campaigns waged on Facebook in opposition to local renewable energy projects that are larded with misinformation on climate change. The campaigns have been linked to organizations connected to fossil energy stakeholders.

More Help For Wind & Solar Developers

A new survey from Pew Research Center adds additional evidence regarding the influence of partisan politics on renewable energy development, reflecting the preponderance of Republican voter registrations in rural areas.

Nevertheless, the partisan divide is showing signs of crumbling. Participants in the Tigercomm–CCEC training session can anticipate being in a better position to take advantage of support from local farmers who are eager to gain an additional revenue stream by hosting solar panels and wind turbines.

“Large solar projects increasingly lead to more trade-offs with current agricultural uses,” Berkeley Lab noted in its analysis of renewable energy project cancellations and delays.

“Wind projects can also require more landowners, which can result in greater spread of benefits and create a stronger support base,” the lab added.

Renewable Energy Is Coming For Your Fossil Fuels

In regard to landowner buy-in for renewable energy projects, CleanTechnica is keeping an eye on the agrivoltaic movement, in which solar arrays are designed to allow for livestock grazing, pollinator habitats, and other agricultural activity (see lots more agrivoltaic background here).

Solar arrays are also being paired with habitat restoration projects and groundwater restoration plans.

Another factor that could come into play is the community solar concept. Community solar emerged in 2010 as a solution for ratepayers who want more renewable energy but lack the opportunity or desire to install solar panels on their own property.

The community solar field has been growing robustly since then, and it is not limited to farmland. Commercial real estate stakeholders are also beginning to eye community solar projects as an effective revenue-generator that also helps them burnish their community relations image.

Another area to watch is distributed wind. That mainly refers to smaller wind turbines — though, by definition, the distributed wind field includes turbines of any size that are used for onsite energy generation or that are connected to a local distribution grid.

The small and distributed wind industry has been lurking in the shadows until now, but new cost-cutting opportunities and a helping hand from the Energy Department could result in hundreds of new wind turbines in the hands of farmers across the US, so stay tuned for more on that.

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Photo: Rural solar projects can be designed to support pollinator habitats and other agricultural activities (courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory).