Below is the text version of the webinar, "2020 Peer PReview: Leading Local – Clean Energy Approaches." See the video.

Harry Bergmann:
Well, thanks, everyone, for joining, and welcome to our panel on "Leading Local," talking about clean energy approaches. Over the last few years we've been working with local governments around the country, cities and counties, and there are a lot of really exciting and interesting ideas and programs being implemented and stood up around the country. And we wanted to take some time today to highlight those and discuss them and share lessons learned, best practices, and so on. And so I think I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Johanna Partin, the director of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, who's going to be moderating the panel today. And so for a little bit of background here, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance is a collaboration of global cities committed to achieving carbon neutrality before 2050. And that's the most aggressive greenhouse gas reduction target undertaken by any cities anywhere. Previously Johanna served as the North America regional director for C-40 cities and was the senior policy advisor on environment to San Francisco mayors Gavin Newsom and Edwin Lee. Johanna has 30 years experience in the field of climate change, renewable energy, microfinance, sustainable development, and gender equity, and I think will be a great person to guide us through the conversation today around what these local governments are trying to do and where buildings and building technologies can fit into the picture. So with that, Johanna, I'll turn it over to you.

Johanna Partin:
Thanks so much, Harry. Can everyone hear me? OK. Good. Great. Hi, good morning, everyone. As Harry mentioned, I'm Johanna Partin, director of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, which is an alliance of 22 of the world's leading cities, working to achieve carbon neutrality. We've actually increased our goal to the next 10 to 20 years, which is, as Harry mentioned, the most ambitious climate targets undertaken by any cities in the world. And local government leaders across this country, the U.S., are adopting and implementing the aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets. The science is telling us that we need to meet to address the climate emergency, and this requires local governments to take aggressive local action over the emissions they directly control. And then of course to work with constituents, utilities, and utility regulators and their states to influence the emissions that they don't directly control. So in this session, we're going to be learning how and where the clean energy programs are going across leading cities and what challenges these cities have encountered and what obstacles they've been able to overcome. We've got six wonderful panelists from cities leading the way on advancing clean energy across the U.S. Mark Chambers from New York City, Patricia Gomez from Miami-Dade County, Brian Blackmon from Knoxville, Andrea Durbin from Portland, Oregon, Erick Shambarger from Milwaukee, and Edward Yim from Washington, D.C. Each of our panelists is going to speak for about five to seven minutes, highlighting their key goals for the next five to 10 years and how they are planning to reach them. And then we'll enter into a bit of dialogue about some of the key issues that these cities are facing. And we'll try and leave 15 to 20 minutes at the end for audience Q and A. So Mark Chambers from New York City, can we start with you?

Mark Chambers:
Absolutely. Thank-you, Johanna, and hopefully everyone can hear me, as well. Exciting to be here and to join all of you. So quickly, Mark Chambers, I am the director of sustainability for what I like to refer to as the great American sanctuary city that is New York. And within that positioning, we have the ability to really do a lot as the largest city in the country and really be aggressive in our policy development to combat climate change. So within that responsibility, it's very clear that I need to be able to work aggressively to guide our city's fundamental relationship with our home planet. And a lot of what that has to do is really crafting out what are the next five years, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years look like. We pack all of that kind of knowledge and data-driven decision-making into a series of reports and analysis. We have a 1 NYC 2050 document, which really lays out what we believe to be the future state of the city and helps us to create a guiding glide path towards being able to achieve that. And we can use government and the different levers at our disposal to unpack and remove obstacles along the way, whether they're social or technological, in order to be able to quickly transition all sectors of our economy away from fossil fuels and wasteful consumption.

Now where it comes to the building sector and the energy sectors, those are really fundamental to how a city like New York has to really unpack its path forward. Buildings in New York City represent the lion's share of our greenhouse gas emissions, the energy to heat and cool those buildings, and so they have to sit at the core of our climate response. Now we've undertaken over the last few years very aggressive policy-driven stances to be able to unlock the potential of those buildings -- in New York City there's over a million of them -- to be able to truly equip owners, residents, tenants with the ability to retrofit those buildings in a way that can be part of our larger climate response and climate resistance. One of the critical ways we've done that is by something we refer to here as Local Law 97, which is our building energy performance mandate here in New York City, the first of its kind when we passed it, to be able to fundamentally draw the line in the sand and say that we are going to have a limit to the amount of carbon that certain, that large buildings in New York City, buildings over 25,000 square feet, could be responsible for. Starting in 2024 and then with ratcheting it down further, and 25 years later, buildings that are not able to retrofit and make sure that they are operating those buildings within the parameters. We'll see fines, annual fines that are commensurate with them actually doing the work in the first place. So we've really tried to create a clear incentive to be able to allow for the building owners to meet this moment simultaneously.

We also put in place mechanisms to help them be successful, because that's what we really want. We want building owners to be able to get this work done and make better spaces for their tenants and occupants. So simultaneously we've been rolling out what we call the New York City Accelerator, which is an enhanced version of a previous project called Retrofit Accelerator that allows for the city to provide free technical assistance to building owners in order for them to be able to be met exactly where they are, depending on different levels of engagement, and be able to take on the actual work and the analysis if necessary to know what's the best ways for them to retrofit their building. It may be operational; it might be systems. This allows for building owners to not have to invest that upfront cost, to be able to know what they should be prioritizing. Simultaneously, we've also been rolling out PACE financing, property assessed clean energy financing, which many of you are familiar with. And several of you have it operational in your cities and states. But to be able to have another option for access to capital for building owners to take out low-interest long-term loans, to be able to facilitate doing the capital investment up-front without having that money on hand and pay it back through property taxes, it's great for investors, it's great for building owners, it's great for tenants, because everyone is allowed to be able to benefit from a lot of those improvements while they're being paid back over time in a way that really allows for a lot of work to happen simultaneously.

Those are kind of things that really allow for us to really build on a legacy of aggressive data capture. You know, we've also have a very long history of benchmarking energy audit data and utilizing both our building code and our energy code to drive performance. So it's all-hands-on-deck approach to be able to yield as much response from our built environment as possible. And it also lets us drive the attention to where we know it needs to be focused. You know, our energy sector is also huge as part of this. But we don't have as much control over it. So one of the other components that we've embedded into our mandate is the fact that building owners that want to take advantage of buying renewable energy to offset some of their demand, that has to be renewable energy that is directly injected into our portion of the grid, the Zone J of New York City's grid. That's a fantastic way for us to use the collective response to be able to drive a lot of attention towards the work that we know needs to happen within our city and so that residents can also benefit from the co-benefits that go along with that, improved air quality and better health conditions, which now from cities all across the country, ours in particular, that have been dealing with the devastating impacts of COVID-19, it's really clear that the connection and interconnection between the health of residents and the health of your city in general, the overlap is one to one.

And so for us it's really clear and important for us to then be able to prioritize those benefits that really come back to the health and well-being of New Yorkers. And so for us, we look at this as a really critical time in the story arc of our species. And it's something that we know that in order for us to meet the moment, we have to lead not just with ambition but also with empathy, and making sure that we are taking every opportunity to push on the levers and pull the levers that we have, but also loose them to be able to drive in ways that are unlocking the ability for us to also unpack and dismantle a lot of the social injustices that are actually like baked into some of the decision-making and that happens in any city but also like in as the kind of pillars that of different societal systems. It's baked into our energy systems, building systems, transportation systems, all of that. So we know that the only path forward is one that confronts social injustice at the same time that we are developing climate solutions. That's the way forward, and that's the way we're committed to being able to again meet the moment of these next 10 years, which are incredibly critical. And for New York City to take that role seriously as the means by which we can unlock and unblock the path for other cities to be able to do the same. So we're excited to be a part of this, excited to kind of drive on legislation, excited that we are cautiously optimistic about having an incredible federal partner. And that is something that we are incredibly looking forward to, to be able to drive a lot of the work forward that we know needs to happen to be a part of the decarbonization of multiple sectors of our economy simultaneously. So excited to be here and looking forward to talking with all of you later on.

Johanna Partin:
Thank-you so much, Mark, and you know, the building energy performance standards that you talked about has really been a leader in the world and so we're really looking forward to ways that we can work with other cities that want to follow New York and other city's example. And loved what you said about kind of leading with empathy to dismantle the systems that have caused a lot of the social injustice that we're seeing today, which is top of mind for for many of our cities and I'm sure we'll talk about that. And I'm seeing a number of questions coming into the chat, which we'll hold until the end. And so for now, I think we will move to our next panelist, Patricia Gomez from Miami-Dade County. Over to you.

Patricia Gomez:
Thank-you, Johanna, and I'm gonna be sharing a couple of screens; hopefully everything works great. Bear with me for a second, and hopefully you'd see it out. So thank-you, again. My name is Patricia Gomez; I'm with Miami-Dade County Office of Resilience. And I'm assured -- OK it's going to the fullest screen -- Miami-Dade County Office of Resilience. And I will be talking of a few programs that we have and implemented in Miami-Dade County, which are focusing in three main areas: mitigation or reducing climate pollution, adapting to the climate change, and engaging and communicating with our community.

The first program is Resilient 305 strategy, which was released in 2019 in partnership with our City of Miami and City of Miami Beach and is divided in three main areas, places, people and pathways, and includes 59 actions. These actions can be implemented or are being implemented in the entire Miami-Dade County area. And it's 35 municipalities here in South Florida. One of the projects or actions in the Resilient 305 strategy is the Building Efficiency 305. and it's a step behind New York, so thank-you, your city, for your leadership. And it focuses on increasing the energy efficiency and the performance of large existing buildings. We know that most buildings waste up to 30 percent of their resources. So this program starts with a very fundamental basic exercise of looking at the whole building and energy, water consumption, which is known as benchmarking, and around that program, of course, we are providing training and options to finance improvements, and of course Miami-Dade County leading by example. There are many benefits of this program that are here summarized in this slide, so I just wanna highlight some of the most important. Reducing operating costs is as critical and nowadays is even more important. Increasing awareness of building efficiency and data-driven decisions. Assisting our vulnerable community by reducing their expenses. And protecting our natural resources, of course, such as water, which is critical here in the state of Florida. We have created a hub to provide information about this program to our community and the stakeholders. And this is all fed into our sustainability plan. We are in the process of updating it. Our sustainability plan is GreenPrint 2.0. And of course includes the Resilient 305 strategy as well the climate change action plan. And that's all I have for this moment, so I'm going to stop sharing the screen. Thank-you.

Johanna Partin:
Thank-you so much, Patricia, and Miami-Dade of course leading the way and really thinking about the integration between mitigation strategies and resilience and adaptation strategies. So thank-you so much for that quick overview. Brian Blackmonn from Knoxville, over to you.

Brian Blackmon:
All right, good morning. Thanks, Johanna. So Brian Blackmon, sustainability director for the city of Knoxville. I've been with the city for about six and a half years now, and to share just a little bit about our programming and I guess the trials and tribulations of a midsize city in the southeast, and the things that we battle up against. So generally, my approach, I describe ourselves as a tactical problem solver, both on the community level and within city operations. And my basic tenets to me and my staff are make good, make friends, be flexible. That's how we live. It keeps us dynamic, keeps us nimble. And whenever you have a small budget and relatively few levers to pull like some of the other leading communities, you know, we rely on partnerships, we rely on collective action, to really start moving the needle. And in some ways that makes it a little bit easier, and I can talk about that, as well. Generally speaking, we're working towards -- we like most cities have carbon reduction goals. We've had a 20 percent by 2020 goal for a little over a decade or so. And municipal side, we actually achieved that this past year; we're 31 percent over our 2005 baseline. And we knew that as we were coming up on that, we needed to look a little bit further out. So we've got a 50 percent by 2030 municipal goal, and 80 percent by 2050 community goal. And that's the focus of our efforts right now primarily. We're adopting the 50 percent by 2030. We originally thought we were going to be a little bit below we were expecting to be. And thankfully some investments at the utility scale have driven carbon way down and we got a little bit more bang for our buck.

So generally, city 31 percent reduction over baseline. Our energy intensity across all city properties is down 24 percent, and our costs are only down about 7 percent. So we've seen some increases in electricity, and gas has been pretty steady. So that kind of limits it. One of the big projects that got us over the hump was an LED retrofit on our streetlight system, which is about 30,000 lights, and that brought the energy used there down about 43 percent on a partial bill. We're expecting that to be a little bit closer to 60 percent with a full year captured. And even with that partial year, it dropped streetlight contributions to our city portfolio by 10 percent relative to everything else.

On the community side is where it gets a little bit trickier and where I want to spend a little bit more time, and I think what makes us a little bit more unique being a small southern hospitable town in Knoxville, Tennessee, nestled in the Tennessee Valley. So we've seen a boom in business growth. Our GDP's up, population rising, the area is really thriving, all the surrounding areas are thriving. Electricity has been slightly I would say low. It's been more or less flat, but slightly increasing. But on the building side of things, it's been pretty steady since baseline, despite all these developments. And buildings still hold to about 40 percent, which is kind of a national average as well of our contribution. And transportation is ever-growing. But buildings make up about 40 percent of our area emissions. And we've seen a reduction in emissions from buildings during that same time, about 23 percent. And that's due to the lower carbon delivery of electricity. And those are primarily investments made by TVA for greater renewable share, bringing since our baseline period some larger nuke online. So we've been very benefited by those sorts of investments. And in the past year they've launched some investment tools where our local utilities investing significant dollars in supporting utility scale solar in our region, as well. But I guess the key takeaway from my perspective is at a mid-size city where most of us on a municipal level are thinking about levers that we have to pull -- some of us have access to more levers than others -- on the city level, we try to pull everything we can, whether that's making sure that we're adopting the most up-to-date building codes, making sure that our policies that support solar adoption and or wind, however unlikely that might be within city parameters or city footprint, are supportive and create a pathway for that sort of adoption.

Same problems at New York, where you may not have the lever to pull in a private sector, just as much of an issue for us. So we've been inviting those friends, that "making friends" tenet that my staff lives by, and by friends I don't mean just our environmental advocates. Those folks are really easy to get to the table. We've been embarking on a process in the past year that we're calling the Mayor's Climate Council. There's a number of those around the nation, at least in title. And one of my goals in that was how do we bring a collaborative atmosphere for utilities to come to the table and share and not feel like they're just getting beat up, and they feel like it's a productive conversation? How do we bring the development community to the table to share and not feel like they're getting beat up? And we arguably over-engineered a process to drive that, but the conversation's been productive and right now everyone's feeling very positive about it. And we're getting all sorts of actions, and we're getting leadership in-between those meetings from those individuals without having formally completed the process, where folks are hearing the perspectives and ideas around the table and they're saying, well, that's something that we could do now, that's something we should be looking at now. And part of that's been inviting kind of a balance of perspectives and making sure that people have an opportunity to feel heard and not just get preached to by the advocacy community. And that's our next step. You know, how do we get this into action? We're only as good as our actions and what we're able to deliver based off these sorts of inputs. And so we're taking their feedback, we're incorporating it. And then we need to shop that out to the community. One of the core components of our climate council endeavor is that we have working groups to discuss everything from buildings, transportation, their potential impacts on, from electrification on building systems and energy delivery and load growth and waste. But we've also got equal and embedded in every part of that process is an equity working group. And so those are community-based organizations. They are not -- there are some that are environmentally leaning but most of them are not. And so there's a bit of an education process. But also what's the lived experience? When we talk about transportation, it's great for folks to get around and talk about what does the future look like in a building, but I've already seen some questions in chat about how do people afford those things? If we're talking about decarbonizing houses and you've already got 2 percent of your ratepayers struggling to pay their bills, they're probably very unlikely to be able to make the investment to get rid of a natural gas system and upgrade to a newer high-efficiency heat pump. So they're discussing all these sorts of lived experiences and how we might create avenues to see those actions implemented equitably. So I'm happy to answer any questions, and I'll hold those until the end.

Johanna Partin:
Thanks so much, Brian, and I love that you started with, you know, let's make good, make friends and be flexible. Words to live by. And ending with really focused on people's lived experience, which is a perfect segue into our next speaker, Andrea Durbin from the city of Portland, Oregon, which has really been a leader in that space. Andrea, over to you.

Andrea Durbin:
Thank-you, Johanna. Hello, everyone. I'm going to share my screen, as well. ... Great, all right. I really appreciate being here today. My name is Andrea Durbin. I'm the director of long-term planning and sustainability in Portland, Oregon. And Portland, Oregon has been a climate leader for decades, and what I want to share today is a bit of straight talk about where we're at and where we're headed. We were the first city in the country to develop a climate action plan and have been addressing climate change for the past almost three years. And even still, we've only managed to drop emissions by 19 percent from our 1990 baseline, the green area shown in this chart. There's still significant achievement when -- this is still significant when you consider that population grew at this time by 39 percent and our economy grew by 36 percent. But the reality is our climate progress has flatlined for a while and we're not on track to meet our carbon reduction goals. We recognize that we need to radically change our approach and quicken the pace of actions, go bigger and bolder to achieve greater reductions, and we need to do it in a way that prioritizes delivering benefits for black, indigenous, and people of color.

Last June our city council passed a climate emergency declaration, joining many, many other cities, many of these cities. But this declaration put us on a better path to act on climate. It adopted stronger emission targets, putting us at a net zero by 2050 or sooner, directed us to adopt new programs and policies to reduce emissions in buildings and transportation sectors, the majority of Portland's emissions sources, and importantly, directed us to deliver both carbon emission reductions and community benefits to ensure that bipod communities and other vulnerable populations most impacted by climate change benefit from energy savings, safe access to transportation, and clean energy jobs that are recreating. And of course, we're all focusing on recovery from COVID. Portland mayor and city council passed a COVID-19 recovery resolution that centers and prioritizes racial equity and climate action in our recovery efforts, so that as we recover Portland will use this moment to transition to a clean energy economy.

The first change that we're developing is our own decarbonization model for Portland that takes into account federal and state and local policies that are in place now or anticipated, and help us focus on the key policy levers that will really move the dial on emission reductions. It will help us determine how political compromises impact our longer-term plans and make us make better informed political trade-off decisions. One of our lessons and reflections is that there are some ideas that may be popular as climate solutions but don't actually deliver the emission reductions that are required, but they still require a lot of staff work and political capital. So we're really going to use this tool to help us assess those situations. And what you can see here from the blue wedges, that represents the buildings and energy sector changes we need to make. Orange wedges are our transportation sector and green is sequestration. Some of the takeaways for us and the work that we're teeing up is if we ramp up our work, we will put ourselves on our path to meet our 2030 goals. And that work looks like decarbonizing the electricity grid by 2030, and we will be working with our utilities to get us there, decarbonizing existing buildings and homes and building from our benchmarking programs, updating our city's renewable fuel standard to transition away from fossil diesel, and advancing transportation electrification. What I want to point out here is that if we do every single thing in the traditional decarbonization toolkit that we all know, we will still not put ourselves on a path to meet our net zero by 2050 or sooner without some technological advancements or new strategies that we need to develop.

On the building and energy side, our policy efforts to decarbonize the building sector are following the lead of communities of color and focusing on establishing minimum energy-efficiency standards for rental housing, while protecting renters from rent increases and displacement. We're also addressing performance of commercial buildings. As noted in our decarbonization pathways analysis, greening the electric grid is probably the single biggest carbon reduction strategy we have between now and 2030. And because Portland is served by industrial-owned utilities, this requires long-term collaboration and partnership with them as well as consistent engagement at the state level in legislative and regulatory proceedings. We also strongly believe that we need to walk our own talk within city government, so we're working on several initiatives there, including incorporating a shadow price on carbon into city operational decision-making, advancing a green fleet initiative, building out the EV infrastructure, and increasing the city subscriptions to community solar programs to support non-utility renewable energy and reduce bureau operating costs.

The other big change we're making is how we're doing our work and being explicit that we need to deliver community benefits as well as carbon reductions. We recognize that climate change doesn't impact us all in the same way. Black, indigenous, communities of color, low-income people, are being hit first and worst by the impacts of the climate crisis. And today's youth will be facing the consequences of today's decisions for the rest of their lives. The shift we are making is how we are doing our work, to work collaboratively with these communities, follow their leadership and deliver clear community benefits and open up opportunities for these communities to benefit directly. One example of transformative impacts of working with community is this. In 2018 communities of color led and passed a local ballot measure in Portland that will fund community-led clean energy projects and job creation that benefit bipod communities. The ballot measure directed the City of Portland to administer these funds. This ballot measure will generate between 40 to 60 million dollars annually and will play a key tool for us in our transition to a clean energy economy and helping bipod communities and low-income residents benefit from these actions, including energy-efficient buildings. We're also setting a new table with community organizations to co-create and prioritize climate actions that deliver and prioritize community benefits for bipod communities. This climate justice initiative will identify actions that the city, county, and community organizations can each lead on, recognizing that we all have an important role to play in solving the climate crisis. We expect that this table will generate new climate solutions that most of us have not yet thought about, solutions that are both people and centered.

I'll wrap up with this final point. [audio lost] has been a climate leader for decades, and we recognize that we've got we've got comfortable and we need to really shake up thing how we're approaching this work. we look forward to sharing more about how this new approach and hopefully three years from now here you'll hear a very different story from us. and I hope that uh [audio lost]

Johanna Partin:
... so for so long local governments have really been focused on kind of a consultation model with community, as opposed to a co-creation model. So really excited to hear about the work that you're leading there. And also I'm sure folks' ears pricked up when you mentioned a shadow price on carbon. So very interested in hearing more about that perhaps during the Q and A session. So on to our next panelist. Erick Shambarger from Milwaukee, over to you.

Erick Shambarger:
Thanks, Johanna. so I'm Erick Shambarger. I lead the City of Milwaukee's Environmental Collaboration Office, also known as ECO, and our goal is to make Milwaukee a world-class ECO city on America's fresh coast, which is Lake Michigan. So you might not think of Milwaukee as a coastal city, but we certainly do. And so you know, with climate change, it affects us through flooding and things of that nature. So you know, we have to be leaders on this, and we are doing that. I'd like to thank the Department of Energy for hosting this event and giving voice to local leaders on this. Your leadership and frankly financial resources have been essential for cities like Milwaukee to get programs in place and really get moving on these items. Energy policy hasn't always been the forefront of what local government does, but I think because of your leadership and the investments through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it really has become more of an issue. We've had a lot of success with the EECBG program, for example. We've had a PACE program since 2013 that's retrofitted over 18 million dollars worth of commercial building projects. Successful home energy retrofit program called ME2. And we've been making solar much more friendly and through various solar programs that the Department of Energy has. In 2016 we expanded our Better Buildings Challenge beyond municipal buildings to commercial buildings, with support of the BTO office, to create a comprehensive package for commercial building owners to do energy efficiency and bring in workforce pipelines to that. So a lot of our work has been focused on energy efficiency in city buildings. We have the 20 percent goal that the Better Buildings Challenge has. We have 20 percent energy efficiency in city buildings. We have a 25 percent by 2025 renewable energy goal. And then more recently with the city and county of Milwaukee have teamed up to form a task force on climate and economic equity with a goal of not only reducing community greenhouse gas emissions 45 percent by 2030 but also creating family supporting jobs in our most impoverished neighborhoods and really bringing that equity focus to bear on our climate work.

So you know, we have big ambitious goals here in Milwaukee. However, in Wisconsin we have a lot of challenges. I'm sure they're similar to what Brian from Knoxville was facing. The state sets the energy code and it's a non-aggressive code, just put it charitably. We have a highly regulated investor-owned utilities that until very recently have been heavily invested in coal infrastructure. And of course we have limited financial resources. So we have to do what we can do through collaboration, but also try to find those levers that you can pull. And I think that's what we need to do. And really the question has become, how do we get beyond doing isolated energy-efficiency projects to getting to scale? I mean, these goals that we've established are enormous. They're good goals because the planet depends on it, as does our future economic prosperity. But we have to be more strategic as we go forward in terms of how do we use that limited influence of sustainability offices to bring systemic change. And so some things that we're doing on that front is, again, I mentioned the city-county task force on climate and economic equity. And it's exciting to see citizens rising up and demanding more. I mean, I think they appreciate what we've done over the last decade, but everyone knows that we need to do more and to address the systemic inequities in our community and to create not just a handful of green jobs but thousands of families supporting green jobs. So that's that's a real big challenge.

And we need to build consensus on how to do that. I think Brian touched on this, that energy is ingrained in every facet of society, and so the changes required will touch on every facet of society. So we have to bring many stakeholders to bear and build support. Also, the mayor has outlined an all-of-the-above solar strategy. So we're supporting both distributed rooftop solar in financing of that, as well as trying to work with our utility to get utility scale solar. So third-party financing in Wisconsin has been a gray area, where it hasn't been clear if you can do it. I know that's been a key to places like California having rapid expansion of solar. And our utility refused to interconnect some of our solar projects. So we're litigating that on the one hand and saying, you know, going to the public service commission and to try to open up that market. But at the same time we realize that rooftop solar doesn't get it done and so we need utility scale solutions. Mayor Barrett and other local elective leaders have made formal requests to our utility to create new renewable energy options for large customers, and they to their credit responded. We're now building the largest solar project in Milwaukee's history. It's a 2.25 megawatt solar project located on a city landfill near our airport. And so that's really exciting. And we hope that's just the start. We're in discussions to build another 10 to 15 megawatts through other programs that they've developed.

So we're working through the friendly approach but we also know that we need to work through the regulatory approach. And so we've been very active in advocating for change at the state's public service commission, which regulates the utilities, and getting involved in rate cases and dockets on electrification and other issues, to bring the voice of local government to bear on statewide decisions that are really necessary for us to meet our goals. The other thing, I think, that's interesting that we've done is partnered with other communities throughout Wisconsin. There are other cities like Madison, Racine, Green Bay that also have climate goals and are also trying to figure it out. How do you hit these big climate goals when there's barriers to local action? And so we've partnered up and we're creating a coalition of local governments in Wisconsin, modeled on other successful efforts around the country like Colorado's Community for Climate Action, to be organized and advocate at the public service commission, at state agencies, for a variety of issues that can help us meet our climate goals. So again, I guess the takeaway that I would leave you with is we just have to be strategic in finding those levers and pulling them to affect broad scale change and bring along the public and do it in an equitable, inclusive way. Thank-you.

Johanna Partin:
Thank-you so much, Erick, and thank-you for highlighting the role of cities in really advocating for and in some case litigating -- so a more a more aggressive approach when necessary -- at the state level, the utility, and the regulatory level so that we can get to scale and move away from the incremental approach and really allow cities to start to have a greater influence a collective influence over some of the emission sources that they don't directly control and really need other key decision makers to be moving more aggressively. So thank-you for that. And our last speaker, Edward Yim from Washington, D.C., over to you.

Edward Yim:
OK, good morning and good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here, and it's always exciting to be surrounded by these inspiring examples. And thank-you for the invitation to sort of talk about the efforts in our city. And I'll share like about four or five slides. So in District of Columbia, you know, we have like many other cities in the U.S. now thankfully we have committed and pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 with an interim target of reducing our greenhouse gas footprint by 50 percent from 2006 levels. And we have developed sort of technical roadmaps to guide our actions to achieve those two targets. Our overall decarbonization approach really adopts the three pillars of deep decarbonization framework that all of you are familiar with. What we feel is often left out in that discussion is clean infrastructure. By that I mean the grid modernization and integrated system planning of electricity and natural gas.

Currently what's going on for us is that we have a law imposing building energy performance standards for all buildings that are larger than 10,000 square feet. In terms of the on the energy supply side, we have a pilot program in which our public service commission has ordered our electric utility to provide a portion of the default supply through the use of long-term PPAs for renewable energy. So that's ongoing now. And in terms of transportation, really, there's a lot of activities and all-hands-on-deck situation to really electrify our buses. Once those things are off our desk -- oh, by the way [audio lost] to maximize [audio lost]

 

... recognition of our natural gas because really moving away from the use of fossil fuels in the District of Columbia is a key priority. One approach is really to develop a way to identify and go after all of the benefits of electrification, with the premise that electrification will really incorporate the er as much as possible. So that approach is really location-based in essence, meaning it involves a lot of maps. I won't go through all of these maps, so I don't want to scare you about that. But generally, so what we're going to do is we're going to really identify where all the buildings are that's using natural gas, and then we'll really identify the potential to use on-site solar to offset the energy usage in those buildings. So that's the second map, and where you see blue and green are the areas that really show a great potential where on-site solar can provide meaningful generation for those buildings. Then we'll also identify the hosting capacity for solar in those neighborhoods, to see what the grid impact will be. And the fourth map really shows -- this is an outdated map but we need to up -- this is a map showing where we have significant methane leaks in our pipes. And this picture is coming from a 2014 academic study that we need to update now and we're in the process of trying to get that update. We also want to know the income level of our neighborhoods. So the green area shows really high-income neighborhoods and yellow and beige show our low-income neighborhoods.

 

So once we overlay all of these maps, I think it'll really show where we have a lot of use of natural gas in our buildings, that also show a high natural gas displacement and energy resilience potential by using heat pumps and on-site solar and battery. Where there's also a good potential to avoid expensive pipe replacement or repair costs, and where we have an opportunity to improve our air quality and improve our safety risks from the methane leaks. And once we really have these DER heavy buildings, once we essentially convert fossil fuel building stocks to DER buildings, then they are really ready to become a part of the potential virtual power plant at a neighborhood scale, where we can really reduce reliance on you know fossil fuel peaker plants in our region and further reduce the grid emissions.

So that approach really will then help us identify areas that are essentially ready for electrification from a benefits perspective. It'll help us prioritize low-income areas and it'll help us sequence the implementation of electrification at a neighborhood level. Some additional issues that we have to think about is obviously the grid impact from electrification, and then we have to examine how we can mitigate those impacts through the use of non-wire solutions and demand side management. And we currently have a study that we're doing just on the grid impact of electrification so that we can develop a roadmap out of that. So once we have all of this analysis and essentially data, once we are armed with this information, then we can really approach our residents and businesses and begin a dialogue with them so that we can really figure out how best to implement the electrification of our city. I'll end my comments there, and I'm happy to talk happy to discuss any of these issues further during Q and A.

Johanna Partin:
Edward, thank-you so much, and a great example of what cities need to do in terms of kind of taking data-based approaches to being able to model and map where some of the hardest hit areas are in the city and really prioritize programs around addressing those underserved neighborhoods first. And really exciting to see D.C.'s focus on electrification of buildings and moving away from fossil gas, otherwise known as natural gas. So I'm definitely looking to D.C.'s example to lead the way there. So that's it for our kind of presentation component. We've got a million questions in the chat. And I am going to take the moderator's prerogative to ask one question first and then I think because we have so many questions we'll move straight into Q and A from the audience. But a question for all of the panelists to get us going, and I encourage the panelists to turn their your videos on. The question really is, and we've heard this come up in a number of the questions in your comments as well, you know, when we're talking about getting to a 20 or a 30 or maybe even a 40 percent greenhouse gas reduction target, you can get there by making incremental changes to existing programs and policies. And unfortunately while as a former city official I know that this stuff is really hard, but when we look back we realized that was the low-hanging fruit and now we've got the really tough work to do. And so when you're talking about getting to what we need to get to, which is an 80 to 100 percent greenhouse gas reduction, you're talking about lasting transformative systems, change level work, not incremental work. And a number of you mentioned this. So my question for you is, if you were granted one wish -- the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance calls these game-changers. We've been spending time thinking about, what are the key policies that cities really need to implement that will have lasting transformative change? And in fact in early 2021 CNCA is going to be launching what we're calling a game-changer fund for any cities in the world that want to adopt some of these policies, so stay tuned for that. But if you were granted one wish, what would be the biggest game-changer in helping you meet your goals? And especially thinking about a new federal administration, especially, what would be a game-changer at the national level? And what could do and BTO do that would really be game-changing? So perhaps we'll go in reverse order and Edward, I'll ask you to respond first.

Edward Yim:
Johanna, actually, if I may just kind of punt and go later, let me just really chew on that a little bit. That's a lot for me to just think about right away.

Johanna Partin:
No problem, OK. Erick, how are you feeling about going first?

Erick Shambarger:
Sure, I know, that's fine. I mean, I to me, I think BTO -- and we had a game-changing technology with lighting called LEDs that dramatically did change the game in buildings and were a technology that were able to cut energy use and make what now looks like a low-hanging fruit. But I'm really looking for what that model is for the rest of the building controls, you know, the HVAC, and there's a question in here about cold climate cities. I don't know what that next-generation technology is to get buildings cost effectively, to deal with their thermal loads and all of the rest of HVAC. So that's what I'm looking for, is a game-changing technology beyond lights that we can deploy in our buildings.

Johanna Partin:
Great; thank-you. Andrea, are you willing to go next?

Andrea Durbin:
Sure, absolutely. I would say game-changer at the national level would be a federal price on carbon that represents the full social cost of carbon. I think that is what we need to really start to internalize the cost and consequences of carbon in our economy and incentivize and up the kind of changes that we're looking in technology technological chains that we need.

Johanna Partin:
Thanks. Brian?

Brian Blackmon:
OK, so pie in the sky, carbon-free electricity around the clock is the ideal, right? That's where you want to go. But on a pragmatic level, where I can think about DOE coming in is, let's accelerate on-site and storage and utility-scale storage to make some of these more temporary carbon-free technologies, one, more cost-effective. I mean, it's been shown through DOE's hard work that research can drive those costs way down. So let's let's ramp that up.

Johanna Partin:
Great. Patricia?

Patricia Gomez:
Yes, well, that, I think that the first thing, which is the resources, time and staff. And this is kind of like the pie in the sky idea. I'm sure we all face those issues. But more specifically in the side of policy, I think we, particularly in Florida, we are hurt regarding our policy for distributed energy. I think if it comes from the feds, they would a more I guess a similar policy for the entire United States, where we can really explore our options and use the technology that we have, it could really help us. Because we sometimes have our arms trapped in this policies, which doesn't allow us the flexibility to really implement to the capacity that we can have.

Johanna Partin:
Thanks, Patricia. Mark?

Mark Chambers:
Well, you know, I think we can't keep trying to solve this problem the same way, right? And if we look for a market-based solution to this, even if it's one that is built on the back of technological advancement, we're not gonna have enough time. We're out of time to be able to do that. So the one thing that we need in addition to a federal partner, it is money. There needs to be a significant infusion of capital, as well as an aggressive plan for cities, for states, to be able to implement. And yes, there are key places where it's going to be best focused. You know, if we do focus on storage, if we do focus on some of those clean energy transition components, that is the catalyst for a lot of other pieces to take place. But we need to change the currency of the conversation. And the new currency has to be clean electrons and has to be something that is is very clear, is very elegantly stated by the federal government, and it has to be something that equips everyone with a clear mandate and charge going forward. We have the next 10 years to do as much as possible, and we can't wait for it to just be driven by an advancement that may or may not be coming.

Johanna Partin:
Thanks, Mark. Edward, you feeling ready?

Edward Yim:
Yeah, yeah, thank-you for the time. So on one hand, I think what would be really helpful in terms of the building technology is really a plug-and-play system for solar and battery and appliances that has a really a streamlined a system where, again, solar and battery can essentially just be plugged in for appliances without really necessarily relying on the grid. I think that can really make a big difference. But I really echo Mark and Andrea that it's really the reallocation of the money that we already spent. We don't have to create new money. In D.C., I mean, I think we spend about 1.5 billion dollars importing and consuming a fossil fuel every year. If we were able to just divert or redirect even like 10 to 15 percent of that, could be absolutely transformational. And I guess we just haven't figured out how to do that. And we've established the green bank, and we're trying -- I think it's capitalized up to 50 million dollars in the last three years, but we really need that to be about 10 times more than what it is.

Johanna Partin:
Thank-you. So we have a lot of questions. I think --

David Nemtzow:
Johanna, can I butt in for a second? It's David Nemtzow, the director of BTO. I just want to thank you for asking that last question and for the panel's answer. And I just want to say, we're working on it, and as you might have heard me say yesterday, we don't work as much at BTO with local governments as we should be. So I want to acknowledge that. We'll do a better job. Need your help with that. I also did notice everybody nodding when I think it was you, Mark, who mentioned money. So that's -- we all get that and that's fair. But I just want to say that if you could stay in touch through Harry or me, we're finding our own way here at DOE and figuring out how we can be helpful to you all in a way that's fair to not only leading local governments like yours but the whole mix of local governments. So again, thanks, Johanna, for bringing that to the fore.

Johanna Partin:
A welcome invitation, I'm sure, on behalf of all cities listening in. So with that, we'll move to --

David Nemtzow:
Cities and cities.

Johanna Partin:
Cities and counties, thank-you.

David Nemtzow:
Right, there's counties like Wayne County or Miami-Dade or L.A. County that are urban and then there's suburban counties. So there's that whole mix of, right, the different politics and different capabilities of different local governments. But we're, yeah, just wanna -- whatever you got we'll try to help.

Johanna Partin:
Great, and especially important right now, especially as cities have really taken a huge budget cut, you know, due to COVID and the economic crisis. I know a number of cities have seen something like an 80 to 90 percent of transit revenue and parking revenue losses. So right now funding to cities and counties to undertake this work is really critical. So thank-you for that invitation. We'll look forward to those grant RFPs coming out shortly. So over to questions from the audience. There are a lot of questions. A number of participants asked a question that I think was voiced well by Monica Newcomb, and she asks and a number of people ask, you know, how is your city reaching out to people and residents to really bring them along on this journey that you have outlined? How do you approach this conversation, the conversation of kind of health, climate, bill savings, etc.? Some of you mentioned that, Portland especially you mentioned that, but wondering if you can all address this question, how are you bringing your residents along in this journey? And what messages are really resonating with people? So feel free to jump in if you've got a a response.

Mark Chambers:
I'm happy to jump in first there. So I do think that it is critically important for us to be again thinking differently about how we engage and demystify a lot of this work for a lot of stakeholders, stakeholders that are typical and ones that are atypical. I think we're going to have to grow the tent for who is involved in this, if we are actually changing every sector of our economy in order to be able to bend towards these climate solutions. What we've been doing fairly aggressively is taking advantage of the disadvantage of being remote. And the fact is that we'll be remote for a while. And given that, we've found that there is actually an opportunity to be able to find better windows that are more convenient to people instead of having everyone come and meet at city hall at some inconvenient time. You can actually drill in on a great time to meet stakeholders that normally are not part of your outreach. And basically so we've been holding these listening tours for smaller groups, for those that probably wouldn't get our attention otherwise. And it's been eye-opening for us to be able to understand what are their concerns, how can we address them, then how can we now start to package and think about our external communications and our marketing of a lot of the work that we're doing in a way that meets them where they are, as opposed to kind of like the wide range that we've been doing in the past? I think it's better for us and I think it's ultimately making us better policymakers, and ultimately I think it's a very good addition for how we are opening ourselves up and thinking differently about stakeholder engagement.

Patricia Gomez:
And this is Patricia. I would like to go next. And I wanted to echo that. And the two things that we have done is make it personal. So having a person, a name, a face to contact with questions, with problems, with issues, have helped a lot in our site. And partnering with those non-for-profit organizations and others that are in the streets, walking along with them. They brought up their issues, and providing them with that access to participate and collaborate with us at all times. We use their regular channels, newsletters, trainings, websites, but I think partners partnering with those government with actions that are the boots on the ground are very helpful. And again making a staff available so that when somebody asks a question there is a point person that can answer them.

Andrea Durbin:
Yeah, maybe just building off of Patricia and Mark's comments, I think that we are really working collaboratively with community-based organizations because we recognize that it's the community-based organizations that have the trust, the relationships, and are serving their communities. And so we -- a way to have direct conversations is working in partnership with them. And also recognizing that as we're seeking input from communities, that as partners we need to resource them. We need to compensate them. We need to recognize that what they're bringing is of value and we need to value it. That has been a a point of tension in city government for us, and I think we're really moving towards recognizing that as we become more community-centered we need to value input from community partners when they're serving on committees, advising the city, just like we would a consultant.

Brian Blackmon:
And I would just jump in. I think a lot of great points have been made. I would -- one thing that I want to get out there is I think a lot of times the decision-making process of government, if we're really wanting to discuss distributed power systems, the way that we typically approach things historically has not been one that puts things in small enough bites so that you can get really good representation, have a good conversation with people. We set timeframes, you know, X target by Y year, and then we're kind of discounting the fact that you've got to educate an entire portion of your constituency if you really want them to have an educated opinion and say in how you approach things. And I think my key takeaway and the thing that we try to think about is how small of a bite can we make it? How small of a participation can we introduce people to the topic and get them involved in a meaningful way and then hopefully bring them back over time and they're telling their friends and create a wider network in that way?

Erick Shambarger:
I'll just jump in. I think we need to recognize that there might be a planning process around climate that requires engagement, but oftentimes there are many other layers of decision-making that happens in government that can be more impactful about what's going to happen out there. So one example is the city budget process. You know, do people know what's going on and how funds are being allocated and how to go to a public hearing on a general budget question to push for for various policies? And can you not only get people engaged when you're doing the planning but then when rubber hits the road and getting an ordinance passed? Or a specific project that needs backing? You have to do both. We have to get people to understand the importance of climate action at a high level, but then bring their energy and resources to bear when we're ready to go on a big proposal to start to address climate change.

Johanna Partin:
Edward, did you want to jump in there?

Edward Yim:
Yeah, I mean, our experience has been that it just takes a lot of effort and it's really about relationship building [audio lost] with our community, community members. and the key there is that when we approach them you know before we talk to them um [audio lost] attention. So I just feel that really doing the engagement the right way really does take time, because we first have to listen to whatever is really on their mind and what's really important to them. So many times when we have gone out to try to do outreach on and educate them on our climate plans and energy plans, they will often want to actually just talk about food issues and getting more buses in their neighborhoods. They don't really care that that's not what I do. As far as they're concerned, I'm just another government official. And so we have to just kind of acknowledge what's really front of their mind, because otherwise, you know, we won't be able -- it won't be a dialogue; it'll just be one-way communication. But that really does mean that the engagement timeframe that we have, that we usually allot ourselves, may not be enough. Like you know, I'll go out and do this public engagement and public education in the next six months, three months -- I always feel that that's really often too short. It really has to be a long-term relationship, coalition-building process with our community members. And without that, there really isn't meaningful engagement.

Johanna Partin:
That's right and especially now as people are really still suffering tremendously from the impacts of COVID and the economic crisis, you know. That's top of mind for folks right now, maybe not how do I reduce greenhouse gas emissions in my city. So you raise a really critical point and the validity of the points that were raised that these are relationships, these are long-term relationships, and people are really struggling. And if they're thinking about affordability of housing, for example, they see you climate leaders as government officials, not necessarily the building performance person, right? So really important points that were raised. Brian, a question came in for you from Rebecca Cirillo: What are your strategies to stretch your small budget to get the most bang for your buck now and going forward?

Brian Blackmon:
Yeah, so just a couple of thoughts there, is, one getting our finance folks to progress to true lifecycle analysis and not just -- we have a tendency to kind of skew on simple ROIs when we want to make our budget pitches. So progressing the conversation there and educating folks about ways that we could potentially save here down the road. Another thing that I think is kind of critical is we have a tendency to not want to just like put ourselves out to fail if we think that we've got an idea that's half-baked. And I think one of the things that I try to have no ego, but you know, sometimes you just got to put a half-baked idea out there and sometimes it fails and sometimes it gets funded. And I think being opportunistic with those sorts of pursuits and being nimble enough to be able to put those into action sometimes pays dividends and sometimes you just don't get funded. But the majority of the world doesn't know about the ones that doesn't get funded. That's just something that you have to sulk over a beer with later.

Johanna Partin:
Thanks, Brian. A number of questions also came in about kind of monitoring systems. And so wondering -- I'll read off Alan Fetterman's question, which is is indicative: Can anyone talk about a citywide energy monitoring system if you have one, or if one is planned to be implemented?

Erick Shambarger:
I put a plug-in for EPA's Portfolio Manager because it's free. I don't know if that's what they're going for, but with a small office and a small budget that's what we use.

Edward Yim:
In D.C. we've been thinking about using sort of a virtual energy audit tool. We've not really been able to deploy that, but that's a tool that we're very interested in.

Mark Chambers:
Just on the New York side, we have a handful of different ways to kind of capture some of the data. We have a local law that basically has a tenth of the portion of buildings having to report out their energy audit data annually. So every 10 years we have a full kind of picture. We've also in October we rolled out energy grades for buildings. So not quite real time, and I'm not sure exactly what the question was getting at. But buildings, large buildings in New York City, now have to post their kind of energy grade on the front door. It's basically like a nutrition label for buildings. And just gives a larger push towards the kind of the general understanding of building performance. It's not as specific as you might find if you dive deep into some of the building's actual kind of performance indicators, but it is really helpful for again someone who is not fully read in to be able to know that an A is better than a B, which is better than the C. And that gives them enough information to be able to ask the next question, which I think is the important part of this, changing the lexicon of everyone so we're really starting to ask better questions and push for answers.

Edward Yim:
By the way, I forgot -- before my benchmarking colleagues kill me, yeah, so I mean, another one is obviously our buildings are subject to benchmarking law for all buildings that have been 50,000 square feet or larger. But in our recent legislation has now expanded that footprint to all buildings that are larger than 10,000 square feet.

Johanna Partin:
And I'm wondering -- we're getting better as cities and counties on some of the more technical monitoring systems and being able to use some of the models that you mentioned to monitor reductions in energy use and increase in renewable energy and reductions in greenhouse gases, etc. And you all have been talking a lot, especially I think, Patricia and Andrea, about really putting people at the center and focusing more on whether or not people have access to green space or access to public transit or safe biking and walking options. How are your two cities and counties starting to think about what kinds of monitoring systems are in place to really get at that, whether or not people are more at the center of your programs?

Andrea Durbin:
Yeah, good question. It's actually one of the scopes of work that we're going to be covering with the new table that we're setting with community. Our climate justice initiative is to create together a set of metrics that will be very people-centered, how are we measuring -- we're measuring our carbon reductions and able to report that by sector, but that isn't really telling the story about how the benefits of that are being distributed across our community. And so we will be working with community partners to develop a handful of people-centered climate metrics that will help hone in the benefits that we want to deliver, from jobs to access to transportation to increasing tree canopy around the city. Still to be defined, but ways that people can themselves better connect to the climate work that we're doing and see the benefits, the direct benefits, that they can enjoy.

Patricia Gomez:
Yeah, and this is Patricia. I think building upon what Andrea said, definitely our community has a lot of disparity and we know that. In our community many people don't even have a car, so when we think about electric vehicles how are we addressing the needs of those that do not have a car? So we have been thinking a lot on how we can approach this and how we can have this one-on-one conversation with the community to really see what their priorities are and how we can address those through our frameworks, existing frameworks. How we can go to the next extra step and provide the tools and the things that they need. With the benchmarking we have been looking a lot about our public housing, those people who have paid their energy and water bill. What can we do to address their needs and how we can expand our offering so that we can really reach out to our entire population. So I agree that collaboration with community-based organizations is very important and trying to support them, as well. And how we can support them. We in Miami-Dade County, we have grants for community-based organizations. So how we can align those grants with these priorities, these community priorities. But it's a work in progress. We are not there yet. So working on all those things.

Johanna Partin:
Thank-you. Question from Jason Lefleur How can local governments in cold climates plan to address winter peak electrical draws on the grid and resulting increases in the marginal CO2 emissions, particularly with electrification initiatives? Are any of you looking at renewable power to gas demonstrations for a greener electrical grid?

Mark Chambers:
I'll jump in. So yea, but I think that for those of us with colder climates -- I think it was 30 something degrees outside right now here -- it is definitely going to be a challenge when we look at electrification, particularly as you said, because of what are the options but also in terms of being able to look at the differentials in peaks. As we start to electrify, we start to get same if not larger winter peaks than we would see in the summertime. That reduces the ability for the kind of maintenance and operational upkeep that would typically happen in a lot of the grid-related systems. It changes the entire paradigm of what is possible, given systems that if you have a city like ours are extremely antiquated as they are. So we are definitely looking at what are going to be the limits by on which we're going to run into problems with electrification, particularly in terms of us being able to get into the offshore wind market, which, of course, intermittent power supply but both seasonal as well as during the day. But that's the path ahead, right? So I don't think it's something that is sorted out yet. I think the scale which we need to be able to incorporate it is absolutely all hands on deck to be able to think that through. And part of it means that it's also incredibly expensive to do that. So who is going to bear that cost, and who is going to be able to afford to make those transitions in a way in which we can then start to figure out what are some of the alternate options to make sure that it can actually like actually physically and technologically be done? So a lot of road ahead but we're we're definitely considering it.

Erick Shambarger:
I think it sounds like an excellent BTO research project.

Edward Yim:
Yeah, we're not -- I mean, D.C. is projected to be more like Knoxville, Tennessee, in the next 20 years in terms of weather. So apparently a summer peak city. We expect to remain a summer peak city with electrification. I think one of the uncertainty is really true transportation electrification. We don't know what that will do to the grid. So we're doing -- again we have a U.S. DOE-funded study that will try to help.

Johanna Partin:
Thank-you. OK, a number of questions came in, and I'll read one of them about smaller buildings, older buildings. We talked a lot about kind of starting with where the majority of the emissions are, which is coming from larger buildings. But what operations, logisticals, or prospective planning have you been doing to achieve improvements in older and low-income urban and suburban areas with a big focus on smaller older buildings?

Erick Shambarger:
So I'll start. We have a a retrofit program called ME2, and I didn't talk about this in my remarks, but I think there's a big intersection between financing and energy. So most of this stuff that we're talking about pays for itself in the long term. And so the way we deal with stuff that has a long-term payback is through financing. And so we've got a number of programs in place to help people take a loan essentially to do retrofits in their housing. I will say that we're having to look at those now that there's a growing focus on equity, because when you have a financing program it's great if people can pay, can redirect their energy budget into a loan, but if people can't even pay their energy bills because they have high energy burdens and really problematic housing that's in bad shape, the loans don't always work. And so the reality is that's an area that we're going to have to really re-examine in light of the focus on equity that's out there. But we do have PACE financing. And I think one of the challenges with PACE financing is getting that financial resource, which is very effective on large projects, and getting the PACE lenders to be willing to lend on smaller multifamily buildings and things of that nature.

Andrea Durbin:
I'll just add that this is actually work that we're currently underway in Portland. We've been working on a project, Zero Cities project, that USDN has supported us for. And really working with community here. When we started this project we weren't sure if community organizations and community activists wanted to work on energy retrofits and making our buildings more efficient. And as we got into this work, we really heard that it's really important to them; they see the opportunities to reduce their bill costs and generate more home income for their family, and make their homes more comfortable. And so we are currently underway really looking at leading our work on multifamily buildings, rental housing, and making sure that the performance standards that we put in place don't displace residents and they don't increase in results and increase in rental prices. So it's going to require a different approach than I think just what we would have done I think normally, which is to put in a requirement that ratchets up over time. So that work is underway, and the goal is to have that developed over the next couple of years and really start where I think a lot of cities have struggled on, how do you deal with multifamily housing. So more to come. But part of what we're really looking at is taking that community-centered approach and we'll center the solutions around how do we address the needs of those families.

Edward Yim:
In D.C. we have run one pilot program for what is called a whole home decarbonization pilot, just to figure out what it takes to really decarbonize a single detached family home. And so that we can just really get a better sense of the cost associated with that, and what a fully stood-up incentive program for that type of approach might look like for single detached family homes.

Erick Shambarger:
And I am inspired by Brian to throw a half-baked idea out there. But one thing that we're looking at here is can we -- we have a real problem with affordability of housing in addition to the energy issue, right? And like there are certain parts of the city where you can't even build a new house because you can't get financing because the property values aren't high enough to even build a new house. So how do we make net-zero housing when you can't even build a standard house? So one of the things that I think is interesting is, can we do something like panelized construction of housing? Can we get net-zero housing to be built at scale and assembled on-site to address both the affordability question and the trying to move towards net zero energy?

Johanna Partin:
Great; thanks, everyone. A question from a "Suburbanite in Bethesda County": Is there a role here for councils of government, COGs, or other metrowide actions, or is that not worth the effort or transaction or politics and better to stick to individual cities, counties, etc.? Erick, you talked about an effort that you all were involved in to get a number of cities around your state, but wondering what is the connection here with your metropolitan areas, and what's the role there? Or is it not worth the politics?

Erick Shambarger:
Well, it's tricky. I think we probably have the same politics in many places where you have a progressive central city and less-progressive suburbs. But I think this city-county approach that we're taking on our climate plan could really open up some pathways here to new collaboration. So there's the City of Milwaukee and then there's inner-ring suburbs and outer-ring suburbs. Some of those outer-ring suburbs do have politics that are similar to ours. And so I think we're going to try to lead by example, show what's doable, that this isn't scary stuff, that it's within all our interest, build support within some of those communities, and then deal with some of the outliers later. But I think it's gonna be our approach to try to lead by example. But then also I think there's a lot of cities that, smaller cities that don't have dedicated offices to work on these kinds of things. Maybe they have citizens that want to have a climate goal or an elected official but they don't have enough budget for a sustainability office. So it's incumbent on the larger cities to get game plans nailed down and figure out a pathway that the smaller cities can adopt.

Patricia Gomez:
Yeah, I think -- this is Patricia -- I think we have been pushing the envelope on that area. As I mentioned, our Resilient 305 strategy was done in partnership with two cities in Miami-Dade County. And so I think we are really focusing on those collaboration and partnerships and providing resources to the cities and opening our programs to them. So kind of like working together so we can have an opt-in option, so that our programs are already from the get-go considering the needs of the cities in Miami-Dade County. We are 35 municipalities and we want to work with all of them, so one of our staff members in our office is that point person, and she works very closely with every single city. So I think it's important in a way. Cities sometimes have a more streamlined pathway of approval of policies and programs compared to the county. So sometimes maybe the city is in a better position to start the implementation of the policies and the passing of the programs, as opposed to the county. And offering that opportunity to them is important so that we can support it and work in collaboration. But then let them be the first if that's the case; we don't always have to be the first ones.

Brian Blackmon:
I think insofar as collaboration between governments on a regional, state, and even more localized scale, you're seeing an increase in that over the last five years, especially. Pretty much all of us are part of a peer network, obviously, a nationwide peer network. And then I would say just looking at the panel, I think all of us are a part of also regional peer networks, and some of those are even further broken down at a state level. So we've got a number of representation, and that conversation is getting more and more sophisticated and localized as people get together and really start seeing progress as they engage, whether that's state energy offices or the larger utilities and these sorts of discussions and find ways for collaboration and idea exchange.

Johanna Partin:
Mark, did you want to jump in?

Mark Chambers:
Yeah, I'll just add, I think it's as important contextually as that, a lot of those connections, those networks, have as you said advanced a lot in the last five years. And part of that is because we've had to. But there's been a really significant amount of coordination out of necessity from cities to other cities, cities to their peer neighbors, because there has not been enough engagement on the federal side. And that is something that really we have to look at in context. It's not ideal. It's great because we've done some different -- some incredible things. And so I do think that the regional support is really important, especially when it comes to advancing individuals to take part in that. So people running for office and being a part of those decision-making components. But keep in mind that all of us would I think collectively prefer to be able to operate in unison with a larger federal umbrella of acting on these policies with some guiding principles, and again financial support, in order to be able to do these at scale. That's what's called for right now. Like we don't want to hobble together these support groups any longer. We want large-scale kind of martial actions so that we can really make the changes that we need to do in a way that is truly meeting the moment that's required.

Johanna Partin:
And that's a good place to bring us into our last question. There are about 35 additional questions, which maybe DOE can help us, BTO can help us get answers to following this webinar. But David Nemtzow asked a question, which is related, which is where does it stand on your city's priority list to really be working to advance model codes at either ASHRAE or ICC on the building code side? Most cities don't control their building codes, and that's a critical piece, and Mark, you mentioned that. But where does this stand on your priority list, and is this an area of high priority that you'd really like to see DOE, the federal government, BTO support cities and counties on? And I guess two minutes remaining, so if you could --

Mark Chambers:
Yeah, very, very quickly, I would say yes, we've done a lot of work to embed a lot of the progressive policy work into our building code and our energy codes, and then kind of ramping down every opportunity you have. So I'd say every time your code cycle comes up, it is important to try to ratchet down further to operate to normalize a lot of the progressive building standards that are necessary. And help with for other localized governments to be able to do that more effectively and have standards to apply would be very useful.

Brian Blackmon:
I agree -- sorry Erick -- I agree with Mark; ditto to Mark. And then also, most of the people that are on this call are advancing to the newest code suite that's available, and the horizon for the 2021, which is a lot of promise with pathway for net zero, assuming all that stands. I know there's some discussion right now about repealing parts of that code. But adopting those is essential. But DOE, BTO should be collaborating with state energy offices to raise that on the state levels for that need to hire action. You know, one-off suburban areas are not a sustainable solution for seeing that reduction across the table.

Edward Yim:
Yeah, net-zero energy code is key for our next target. It was supposed to be coming out in 2023, but it's been delayed a little bit. But the next cycle we really want to publish a net-zero energy code for all new buildings.

Johanna Partin:
Unfortunately we have to leave it there. I know that we had lots more to say about this topic and many others. But please join me in thanking our our six panelists today. And also big thanks to you, DOE and BTO, for organizing this and for inviting this conversation. So Harry, back over to you.

Harry Bergmann:
Great; thank-you and thank-you to all of our panelists for the conversation. This was riveting, and as Johanna mentioned, there are so many questions in the chat that we haven't been able to get to, and I think we're going to try and figure out how to dig into all of that content. But again, fantastic discussion, great job by all, and thank-you all for attending and joining for the conversation today. And I think Jeremiah, I will turn it back over to you to keep us moving through the afternoon.