Research & Policies

Our quest to decarbonize by electrifying everything, while essential, poses significant challenges to our current energy infrastructure and supply. Remarkable advances in wind and particularly solar energy technologies offer a solution, but the amount of these resources required - on a short timeline - is daunting. Since renewable costs are 'front-loaded' to build the infrastructure, this translates to a substantial new investment. The payback will also be substantial since once the renewables are generating, fuel costs disappear. The question facing us is how to finance these investments in our collective futures. Community Solar is a proven mechanism providing the upfront capital without finance costs in return for a viable return on investment (ROI) for community members (Subscribers) investing in their community. Community Solar investments, to the extent offered, are wildly popular. For example, five years ago, Clark PUD offered Community Solar Subscriptions through a 'bill-stuffer' to be conducted two weeks later, starting at 08:00. The entire initial subscription sold out within 4 minutes. After a short reconsideration, Clark PUD again opened their website for a 2nd equal amount that sold-out in 15 minutes! This past Fall, the East Vancouver Project was fully subscribed in 2 hours. Regrettably, there was a 5-year lag between the two projects. The Subscriptions offer payback through bill reductions credited to the Subscribers electricity accounts. They offer a degree of portability to Customers, but only as long as the Customer remains within the Clark PUD Service Territory. For individuals moving outside of the Service Territory, their investments become a 'write-off'. We can change that, and we need to make the change. Already, the Pacific Northwest is forecast to be in energy deficit, particularly in the Summer months due to HVAC adoption. While Solar is an intermittent resource, it is most assured to occur on hot, Summer days - by definition, when the Sun is shining. Looking more closely, our peak demand conditions typically resulting in high HVAC loads are the result of a 'static high-pressure cell setting up on the east-side of the Cascades'. Those conditions coincide with cloudless-skies - and no wind generation. Add to this the impending exponential increase in electricity demand from transportation electrification and local population growth, and we can see a crisis brewing. One relatively simple change to existing statutory law will result in an equally robust increase in available solar energy: Treat Community Solar investments the same way we do Equities, allowing Customers to recoup their principal investment when they leave the Service Territory.

For two centuries, our economy has run on monetizing finite commodities. Dig it up, burn it, sell it, and make a handful of people extraordinarily rich. Renewable energy proposes something different: we stop being miners and start being farmers. We harvest the energy that arrives on its own every day, and we keep harvesting it. That distinction matters for Clark County specifically. Extraction economies export their wealth. Harvest economies keep it local - in construction, in maintenance, in the ratepayers who own the system. This is good for our planet and our posterity, but I want to be clear that it is also, plainly, good business. We stop being miners and start being farmers.