Hey John, here is one thing at least reported by Sightline Institute. Bend is highlighted part way through the article as an example of building more densely to avoid increasing wildfire risks:
After listening to the episode on Kathy Hochul, I'm curious about the clash of affordability politics and clean energy policy in other blue/green states across the country. I work in Maine, where the legislature restricted their net energy billing incentive for solar plants last year, claiming that the policy caused stranded costs to be passed onto consumers. (Supposedly, the state is developing a revised policy incentive to replace it.) I wonder if we'll see more rollbacks like this? Or if Dems can use it to make a more convincing case for clean energy (e.g. solar is the cheapest form of energy)?
The credible policy to rapidly create affordable, reliable community energy that I'm aware of is already adopted and being deployed by France and South Korea: Mandated solar canopy micro-grids, including on-site BESS +Vehicle-2-Grid chargers at ALL existing parking lots larger than 80 spaces, nationwide, within 3 to 5 years; largest lots first.
This could also be accomplished by a determined City Council that directed planning & permitting staff to inventory existing suitable lots in their jurisdiction, create expedited permitting for pre-approved modular solar micro-grid system designs, co-ordinate batch interconnection approvals with the utility company, and issue RFPs to pre-qualified microgrid developers for multiple air-space leased projects. This strategy sends an explicit economic message to qualified developers: "Our town is open for business. Help us rapidly build an affordable, reliable, city-wide solar energy micro-grid matrix here, instead of wasting your time and money trying to acquire customers and wading through permitting swamps elsewhere".
While solar canopies on parking lots are very cool, they definitely aren’t cheap. Not sure building more of them is going to bring down the cost of electricity. For that we need more utility scale solar (and preferably much lower tariffs on panels)
You're right, your car is much cooler parked under a solar canopy. In California, gasoline and fossil gas peaker power on summer afternoons was so expensive before the Iran Debacle, that solar parking lots could pay for themselves in less than 8 years. The development bottlenecks are "soft-costs", like acquiring customers, permitting projects 1 at a time, and lack of property owner incentives; they don't pay utility bills, their tenants do. Air-space leases for canopies reward property owners with new income. Cities can fix all these issues and significantly reduce project costs,.....if they want to. It's not economic or technical issues now,...it's political will. If we don't get busy developing our affordable community energy tier, we're just going to continue being exploited by the existing industrial scale BigOil&Gas and utility monopoly tier.
It is true soft costs are a big driver of high rooftop solar costs. However you already have a roof to put them on. Most parking lots aren’t already covered. Utility scale solar is around $1/watt to build. Rooftop is around $2.70 to $3.50 in the US, and carport pv is $3.50 to $4.00. I’m guessing that isn’t going to be cost competitive with anything but nuclear. I’m a big fan of putting solar panels anywhere we can, but I am skeptical that building parking lot covers is going to save anyone money.
Solar parking lots are not competing with rooftop solar. They're competing with gasoline and the cost of new high voltage transmission from remote industrial scale utility generation to "fuel" EVs. All the healthcare and upper education facilities in my county in CA have already covered over 50% of their big parking lots with solar canopies. It works. And it's obvious how rapidly this technology can be deployed on under-utilized, valuable, paved urban land that is already equipped with grid connections, especially if cities act to dramatically reduce development soft-costs for multiple air-space lease projects that reward property owners. 40 widely distributed, rapidly deployed, large solar parking lots in a city of 180k population is a VPP peaker plant, right where most residential and small business owners live, work, and commute.
Jerry's answer already covers it pretty well, but I was going to say that this is something like pedestrian overpasses where we've just collectively accepted that they are going to cost a few million dollars and we'll have very few of them, but if you started from a blank slate you could quite easily have prefab, modular pedestrian overpasses for a small fraction of that cost, and then have them in enough places that they really ate into pedestrian mortality. In other words, it's a question of political will and social organization, not really the cost of the canopies themselves. I'm not sure that should make us much more optimistic about their large-scale deployment, but it's better than a hard physical/economic constraint.
This would be a fantastic (and potentially uplifting?!) topic for a Volts interview. Can you recommend for DR a couple possible speakers/interviewees on this subject? I pretty much have this thought every time I go past a parking lot (so, a lot), but it would be wonderful to hear about it actually being implemented.
Agreed. Lorenzo Kristov has expert knowledge on this subject. David interviewed him on Volts a couple of years ago. Maybe it's time for an update. He might also have some insider info about what's happening in France & South Korea. I don't want to trigger an AI debate here, but Claude AI has some very detailed, interesting information on this topic, if you have questions. BTW, all the healthcare and upper education facilities in my county in CA have already covered over 50% of their big parking lots with solar canopies. It works.
The policy team at the nonprofit I work for was involved in getting the MN legislation in place that will require data centers coming into MN to pay into the state's low-income weatherization assistance program:
My understanding is that the added cost is a drop in the bucket for data centers, but the two Google data centers that are planned for the state will approximately DOUBLE (!!) the state's WAP budget. That's a good start!
My understanding is that Google has also made a zero-water use pledge for these data centers, which is a core concern in MN as in many places.
The next step in my mind is to get data centers building their own VPP/DPPs to accelerate speed to power, pay their way in the communities they're coming into, and leave the grid better off than it was before they got there, just as David has been outlining (and is a focus for the WATT coalition, the Building Performance Association, and many others.
I've heard whispers about balcony solar legislation efforts in MN. My mind goes to this and permissionless, scalable batteries like Pila as shoe-in opportunities for data centers to come to the table with plans for VPPs, which can scale and deploy MUCH faster than sitting in the interconnection queue.
First, thank you for not joining the pundit party of "how will going to war with Iran affect the future," when we don't even know whether tomorrow there is "peace" or blowing up half the world's LNG and ammonia and aluminum and whatever. That BS keeps me off NPR.
Love the impulsive blogging from the wrong side of the stroad, and the sitdown with the mayor. I just met a gal who's moving there, and she was all about the bike, both for commuting and on the great MTB trails right out of town.
As far as the dire snow situation, I live 30 miles from Aspen/Snowmass (there was a reason for the latter's name, and there was a Snowmass Ranch well before the ski area), but in early Feb, I felt compelled to buy plane tickets Denver to Michigan's UP and ski someplace where the towns still had below-freezing daytime temps, and four feet of snow on the ground. Turned out to be grand in every respect.
So I was amused to see a story about recent testing of the small-simple Slate BEV pickup at the industrial park next to the airport (two scheduled flights/day). https://electrek.co/2026/03/27/slush-slate-pickup-winter-testing-video/ You can also see their snow situation was far from dire.
Someone from Slate Auto might make for a good pod.
Please join our new LinkedIn Group, the Community Voices in Energy Network, to learn/discuss energy policy that centers the people most affected by utility decisions, how to engage effectively in PUC proceedings, and how to translate that insight into action. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/17278010/
Today, the Trump administration reached a nearly $1 billion agreement with French energy giant TotalEnergies to cancel & buy-out at taxpayer expense, its previously approved offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. This is "US Energy Planning" at the behest of US BigOil&Gas: Freeze out European offshore wind developers.
Since there have been mentions recently about being able to see methane by satellite now and about flaring having relatively low cost compared to the potential impacts, I thought I should share this startup with you that is flaring methane.... Using old Alaskan Brewing kegs as a part of their apparatus! 😄
Their name is Frost Methane. Style points for novelty aside, they also provide a legit example in the carbon market (and can talk intelligently about it). They started in Arctic locations, but are now working largely with farmers to flare emissions from manure ponds (because, economics & impact align). They are also a brilliant example of getting rural folks into the game.
Plus, their lead engineer is a delight to talk with and quite witty. ☺️
This pitch is from their CEO at an Ag grant competition of some kind.
(She only talks 10 min though the clock starts counting down from 20)
I am not spam--but I administer a voluntary, nonprofit (free) local social media group sharing the ideas of Rewiring America and other information sources such as Volts in eastern Washington. If you are interested in local home electrification, finding contractors, EV adoption, and news about the energy transition, please consider joining the Nextdoor group Electrify Spokane. https://nextdoor.com/g/o700bi8qx/
An adjacent Market Transformation team is hiring for a Channel Manager for Luminaire Level Lighting Controls (LLLC). Please pass along or apply if you or someone you know has commercial lighting and/or Midwest lighting market connections.
This role will lead that team's outreach strategy and training, relationship building with local market actors, market trend tracking, and provide technical support.
my first post hehe just wanted to say hi cool to meet you all happy glorious spring awesome on many out on streets and online for No Kings protest and wondering about out loud about we do lest waste of energy food water and why mad scientists aren't finding ways to capture lightening harvest rain and better use earth energy? just saying
The status report on balcony solar is out of date in WA. The legislation identified as "deferred until 2027" passed the Legislature this year. It is apparently awaiting the Governor's signature.
You need to follow up this. Increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere is not only about climate, but also about our brain and cognitive functions. Professor Ugo Bardi, Italy was one of the first to warn for this:
I asked Swedish Professor Peter Stenvinkel, expert in nephrology and the blood chemistry, and his comment was; ”Scary but unfortunately it is likely. We know that more CO₂ in the blood leads to acidosis, altered oxygen transport and effects on electrolytes and enzyme function.”
These are much higher concentrations than we'll see in the atmosphere in any of our lifetimes. Indoor CO_2 (from breathing or combustion) is a concern, sure, but outdoors we have many more things to worry about than this...
--- QUESTIONS ---
Hey David, if you have a chance, mind sharing a bit more about what Bend is doing?
Hey John, here is one thing at least reported by Sightline Institute. Bend is highlighted part way through the article as an example of building more densely to avoid increasing wildfire risks:
Oregon’s Land Use Law Creates Wildfire-Adapted Communities | Sightline Institute https://share.google/ei0OzBQoQA9Y7E3m1
After listening to the episode on Kathy Hochul, I'm curious about the clash of affordability politics and clean energy policy in other blue/green states across the country. I work in Maine, where the legislature restricted their net energy billing incentive for solar plants last year, claiming that the policy caused stranded costs to be passed onto consumers. (Supposedly, the state is developing a revised policy incentive to replace it.) I wonder if we'll see more rollbacks like this? Or if Dems can use it to make a more convincing case for clean energy (e.g. solar is the cheapest form of energy)?
--- CLIMATE JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES ---
Work for Run On Climate in one of our various local climate action positions!
1. Door-to-Door Canvassing positions (Burlington, VT & Evanston, IL) https://runonclimate.org/job
2. Communications and Development Director (Remote, USA) https://runonclimate.org/job
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--- EVERYTHING ELSE ---
Is there an actual policy perspection for cheaper electricity that won't take decades to implement?
The credible policy to rapidly create affordable, reliable community energy that I'm aware of is already adopted and being deployed by France and South Korea: Mandated solar canopy micro-grids, including on-site BESS +Vehicle-2-Grid chargers at ALL existing parking lots larger than 80 spaces, nationwide, within 3 to 5 years; largest lots first.
This could also be accomplished by a determined City Council that directed planning & permitting staff to inventory existing suitable lots in their jurisdiction, create expedited permitting for pre-approved modular solar micro-grid system designs, co-ordinate batch interconnection approvals with the utility company, and issue RFPs to pre-qualified microgrid developers for multiple air-space leased projects. This strategy sends an explicit economic message to qualified developers: "Our town is open for business. Help us rapidly build an affordable, reliable, city-wide solar energy micro-grid matrix here, instead of wasting your time and money trying to acquire customers and wading through permitting swamps elsewhere".
While solar canopies on parking lots are very cool, they definitely aren’t cheap. Not sure building more of them is going to bring down the cost of electricity. For that we need more utility scale solar (and preferably much lower tariffs on panels)
You're right, your car is much cooler parked under a solar canopy. In California, gasoline and fossil gas peaker power on summer afternoons was so expensive before the Iran Debacle, that solar parking lots could pay for themselves in less than 8 years. The development bottlenecks are "soft-costs", like acquiring customers, permitting projects 1 at a time, and lack of property owner incentives; they don't pay utility bills, their tenants do. Air-space leases for canopies reward property owners with new income. Cities can fix all these issues and significantly reduce project costs,.....if they want to. It's not economic or technical issues now,...it's political will. If we don't get busy developing our affordable community energy tier, we're just going to continue being exploited by the existing industrial scale BigOil&Gas and utility monopoly tier.
It is true soft costs are a big driver of high rooftop solar costs. However you already have a roof to put them on. Most parking lots aren’t already covered. Utility scale solar is around $1/watt to build. Rooftop is around $2.70 to $3.50 in the US, and carport pv is $3.50 to $4.00. I’m guessing that isn’t going to be cost competitive with anything but nuclear. I’m a big fan of putting solar panels anywhere we can, but I am skeptical that building parking lot covers is going to save anyone money.
Solar parking lots are not competing with rooftop solar. They're competing with gasoline and the cost of new high voltage transmission from remote industrial scale utility generation to "fuel" EVs. All the healthcare and upper education facilities in my county in CA have already covered over 50% of their big parking lots with solar canopies. It works. And it's obvious how rapidly this technology can be deployed on under-utilized, valuable, paved urban land that is already equipped with grid connections, especially if cities act to dramatically reduce development soft-costs for multiple air-space lease projects that reward property owners. 40 widely distributed, rapidly deployed, large solar parking lots in a city of 180k population is a VPP peaker plant, right where most residential and small business owners live, work, and commute.
Jerry's answer already covers it pretty well, but I was going to say that this is something like pedestrian overpasses where we've just collectively accepted that they are going to cost a few million dollars and we'll have very few of them, but if you started from a blank slate you could quite easily have prefab, modular pedestrian overpasses for a small fraction of that cost, and then have them in enough places that they really ate into pedestrian mortality. In other words, it's a question of political will and social organization, not really the cost of the canopies themselves. I'm not sure that should make us much more optimistic about their large-scale deployment, but it's better than a hard physical/economic constraint.
This would be a fantastic (and potentially uplifting?!) topic for a Volts interview. Can you recommend for DR a couple possible speakers/interviewees on this subject? I pretty much have this thought every time I go past a parking lot (so, a lot), but it would be wonderful to hear about it actually being implemented.
Agreed. Lorenzo Kristov has expert knowledge on this subject. David interviewed him on Volts a couple of years ago. Maybe it's time for an update. He might also have some insider info about what's happening in France & South Korea. I don't want to trigger an AI debate here, but Claude AI has some very detailed, interesting information on this topic, if you have questions. BTW, all the healthcare and upper education facilities in my county in CA have already covered over 50% of their big parking lots with solar canopies. It works.
Wanted to post here to celebrate!
The policy team at the nonprofit I work for was involved in getting the MN legislation in place that will require data centers coming into MN to pay into the state's low-income weatherization assistance program:
My understanding is that the added cost is a drop in the bucket for data centers, but the two Google data centers that are planned for the state will approximately DOUBLE (!!) the state's WAP budget. That's a good start!
My understanding is that Google has also made a zero-water use pledge for these data centers, which is a core concern in MN as in many places.
The next step in my mind is to get data centers building their own VPP/DPPs to accelerate speed to power, pay their way in the communities they're coming into, and leave the grid better off than it was before they got there, just as David has been outlining (and is a focus for the WATT coalition, the Building Performance Association, and many others.
Batteries, batteries everywhere!
I've heard whispers about balcony solar legislation efforts in MN. My mind goes to this and permissionless, scalable batteries like Pila as shoe-in opportunities for data centers to come to the table with plans for VPPs, which can scale and deploy MUCH faster than sitting in the interconnection queue.
More details on Pila, which comes in at something like half the cost of an equivalent-sized PowerWall if memory serves, because it's modular and doesn't need permitting(!): https://www.pilaenergy.com/blogs/updates/der-task-force-going-permissionless-with-cole-ashman-ceo-and-founder-of-pila-energy
First, thank you for not joining the pundit party of "how will going to war with Iran affect the future," when we don't even know whether tomorrow there is "peace" or blowing up half the world's LNG and ammonia and aluminum and whatever. That BS keeps me off NPR.
Love the impulsive blogging from the wrong side of the stroad, and the sitdown with the mayor. I just met a gal who's moving there, and she was all about the bike, both for commuting and on the great MTB trails right out of town.
As far as the dire snow situation, I live 30 miles from Aspen/Snowmass (there was a reason for the latter's name, and there was a Snowmass Ranch well before the ski area), but in early Feb, I felt compelled to buy plane tickets Denver to Michigan's UP and ski someplace where the towns still had below-freezing daytime temps, and four feet of snow on the ground. Turned out to be grand in every respect.
So I was amused to see a story about recent testing of the small-simple Slate BEV pickup at the industrial park next to the airport (two scheduled flights/day). https://electrek.co/2026/03/27/slush-slate-pickup-winter-testing-video/ You can also see their snow situation was far from dire.
Someone from Slate Auto might make for a good pod.
Please join our new LinkedIn Group, the Community Voices in Energy Network, to learn/discuss energy policy that centers the people most affected by utility decisions, how to engage effectively in PUC proceedings, and how to translate that insight into action. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/17278010/
Today, the Trump administration reached a nearly $1 billion agreement with French energy giant TotalEnergies to cancel & buy-out at taxpayer expense, its previously approved offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. This is "US Energy Planning" at the behest of US BigOil&Gas: Freeze out European offshore wind developers.
--- CLIMATE EVENTS & MEETUPS ---
Building an Energy Future that Leaves No One Energy Poor - Register for free webinar co-hosted by Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Law Institute: https://www.eli.org/events/community-lawyering-environmental-justice-part-15-building-energy-future-leaves-no-one
--- SHARE WORK, ASK FOR HELP, FIND COLLABORATORS ---
Since there have been mentions recently about being able to see methane by satellite now and about flaring having relatively low cost compared to the potential impacts, I thought I should share this startup with you that is flaring methane.... Using old Alaskan Brewing kegs as a part of their apparatus! 😄
Their name is Frost Methane. Style points for novelty aside, they also provide a legit example in the carbon market (and can talk intelligently about it). They started in Arctic locations, but are now working largely with farmers to flare emissions from manure ponds (because, economics & impact align). They are also a brilliant example of getting rural folks into the game.
Plus, their lead engineer is a delight to talk with and quite witty. ☺️
This pitch is from their CEO at an Ag grant competition of some kind.
(She only talks 10 min though the clock starts counting down from 20)
https://youtu.be/kgF3salWbLs?si=aVyEYopnCfw_Xij_
I am not spam--but I administer a voluntary, nonprofit (free) local social media group sharing the ideas of Rewiring America and other information sources such as Volts in eastern Washington. If you are interested in local home electrification, finding contractors, EV adoption, and news about the energy transition, please consider joining the Nextdoor group Electrify Spokane. https://nextdoor.com/g/o700bi8qx/
An adjacent Market Transformation team is hiring for a Channel Manager for Luminaire Level Lighting Controls (LLLC). Please pass along or apply if you or someone you know has commercial lighting and/or Midwest lighting market connections.
This role will lead that team's outreach strategy and training, relationship building with local market actors, market trend tracking, and provide technical support.
LinkedIn Post with some more detials: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mncee_are-you-a-lighting-expert-with-a-focus-on-activity-7449464856275103744-nBh8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAOfAsQBE9FElvtKuEyKwRwzk1YnKt-UwZ0
Job posting on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/gef6X2NY
my first post hehe just wanted to say hi cool to meet you all happy glorious spring awesome on many out on streets and online for No Kings protest and wondering about out loud about we do lest waste of energy food water and why mad scientists aren't finding ways to capture lightening harvest rain and better use earth energy? just saying
Love the blog. I'd like your thoughts on how I could start getting involved in activism on these issues. I'm in Naperville, Illinois.
The status report on balcony solar is out of date in WA. The legislation identified as "deferred until 2027" passed the Legislature this year. It is apparently awaiting the Governor's signature.
From what I can tell, the balcony solar language in that particular bill was removed. Here's the bill that passed: https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/House%20Passed%20Legislature/2296-S.PL.pdf#page=1
I read the bill as passed. I'll go back to look at the original bill to see what was removed. Or read the bill report. Thanks.
You need to follow up this. Increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere is not only about climate, but also about our brain and cognitive functions. Professor Ugo Bardi, Italy was one of the first to warn for this:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23008272/
I asked Swedish Professor Peter Stenvinkel, expert in nephrology and the blood chemistry, and his comment was; ”Scary but unfortunately it is likely. We know that more CO₂ in the blood leads to acidosis, altered oxygen transport and effects on electrolytes and enzyme function.”
These are much higher concentrations than we'll see in the atmosphere in any of our lifetimes. Indoor CO_2 (from breathing or combustion) is a concern, sure, but outdoors we have many more things to worry about than this...