Renewable Energy Generation

Replacing traditional fossil fuel power (coal, natural gas, propane, gasoline) with energy generated from renewable sources, generating that clean energy locally close to where it is used, and incorporating energy storage is the formula to become resilient to power outages resulting from severe climate events. Renewable energy can include geothermal heat pumps, solar PV, solar thermal, wind, biomass-fueled combined heat and power, biogas from wastewater treatment and landfills, and green hydrogen. The cost of solar and wind is at or below the cost of coal and natural gas and makes up the majority of new renewable energy installations.

Solar PV systems can be installed at an individual building or on land, at the community level as a solar garden (typically up to 5 megawatts), at a campus level such as across school buildings, and at the utility level at different scales from 10 megawatts to 350 megawatts. Local fuel energy can be generated for trucks and fleets from renewable natural gas (RNG) derived from biomass digesters from farm and food processing plants and methane from landfills and wastewater treatment plants. Local governments can purchase clean energy as well through renewable energy certificates (RECs) from new local renewable energy projects.

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Equity & Environmental Justice

Equity & Environmental Justice – Equity and justice should be included with each part of the menu. As you explore each menu, consider the most vulnerable populations within your community. Be sure to include and prioritize these groups as you develop and plan your efforts.

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  • Local governments can incorporate procedures and language into codes and permitting to remove unintentional barriers and ensure that all populations have the opportunity to go solar.
  • To get a better understanding of environmental justice issues and a source for teaching about environmental justice, InTeGrate uses a systems approach to address the issues of environmental justice.
  • Community solar is one way for low-income communities to access clean and lower-cost energy. As an example, Illinois has an Action Plan for energy generation and community solar for low-income communities.
  • Improve Energy Efficiency of  Affordable Housing.  EPA  developed a guide for how local governments can incorporate energy efficiency in affordable housing. This not only helps to reduce emissions, but also helps low-income residents cut their energy costs.
  • Lastly, US DOE’s Better Buildings has a large array of resources for low-income communities. Topics include helping single-family homeowners, stakeholder engagement, and action planning.
  • A diverse group of collaborators representing tribal, academic, intertribal and government entities in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, developed a framework to integrate indigenous and traditional knowledge, culture, language and history into the climate adaptation planning process.

Education & Information

Education & Information – provides education and information ideas and resources. These are intended to be some of the first steps a community can take to address certain subsections.

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  • Find info about Wisconsin Energy Independent Communities through Energy on Wisconsin shows a list of the towns, cities, and tribes moving toward energy independence. Included are their goals, actions plans, and reports.
  • Groundswell offers help to get community solar started within your community. They also offer examples of other successful projects. This is a great resource if your community needs a jumpstart on lessening its energy bill and becoming more resilient.
  • In an effort to reduce solar soft costs and assist local governments and other public entities seeking to install and finance rooftop solar systems, IREC developed a comprehensive toolkit on retail solar power purchase agreements (PPAs), sometimes referred to as solar service agreements.
  • The National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP) is a coalition of community solar stakeholders working to expand access to affordable community solar to every U.S. household and enable communities to realize meaningful benefits, such as reduced energy burden, increased resilience, and workforce development.
  • EPAs available information on biogas includes “if bio would be right for you’”, to what you need, to case studies. Biogas is energy generation from manure, plant and organic materials that uses the strong greenhouse gas methane they produce to create energy.
  • Cost benefits of having solar plus storage and different configurations and variables like sales tax, PV cost, and installation. This report also goes over how the different configurations work and how each has different benefits.

Low-Cost Strategies

Low-Cost Strategies – are focused on strategies and accompanying resources that usually will not require intensive staff capacity, fiscal resources, and may be done through staff decisions.

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  • A model ordinance for local governments to help make solar accessible to anyone in the community.
  • Solar calculator to help you find solar options from installers in your area. It is address-specific but could help community members get a general idea about how easy solar can be installed and the approximate cost.

Significant Resource Deployment

Significant Resource Deployment – are strategies that may require more staff capacity, increased fiscal resources, and larger, possibly cohesive decisions.

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  • One way to put solar in your community is by installing solar carports. This article explains how solar carports work, their benefits, and provides case studies.
  • Wide range of case studies and success stories about energy generation from biogas on farms. Using the case studies as references is invaluable as many of the case studies are from the Midwest and are from a wide range of scale of farms.
  • The Farm Energy Community of Practice is a virtual, or online, community that includes over 240 members from land-grant universities and other agencies, including USDA, SARE, NREL, Sun Grant, ATTRA, NCAT, and state and county governments. Community members have combined their expertise to provide this eXtension Farm Energy website. It is an information source for farmers and agricultural educators interested in all aspects of farm energy–from conservation and efficiency to renewable energy production.
  • The USDA provides info about biogas, incentives, reports, and maps of where current biogas operations are within the state.

Celebrating Successes

Celebrating Successes – are actions and strategies for communities to celebrate and keep the momentum going. They will help address positive outcomes of previous strategies taken and inspire further action.

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Grants & Funding

Grants & Funding – help communities support actions through financial means such as grants and other resources.

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  • Updated lists of incentives relating to clean energy:
  • The Midwest Renewable Energy Association(MREA) has an initiative that provides grants, case studies, and other resources to get solar on top of your school.
  • A UW-Extension publication that covers financing for solar projects ranging from local and tribal governments installing solar systems on their own roofs and land, to assisting local businesses and residents with acquiring solar. It includes case studies of successful solar energy systems across the state and outlines creative local government actions, strategies, and partnerships that can lay the groundwork for financing those systems.
  • Solar Finance Simulator is an easy-to-use online tool for universities, hospitals, municipalities, and businesses to simulate long-term financial forecasting for four types of solar photovoltaic (PV) investment.
  • Case studies on how Wisconsin nonprofits used grant money to incorporate solar onto their buildings. The savings generated from cost saving helped the nonprofits free up funds to help advance their mission.
  • This paper helps identify financing strategies for low-income communities to have solar plus storage. It addresses the financing gap that these communities or building owners cannot get and helps by presenting the option of having third-party owners of the solar.

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