Loading...The Environmental Stewardship Committee has made comments on the Community Solar Challenge Request for Input (RFI). The Challenge offers community teams to develop and implement plans to increase the provision and use of solar energy for people of low and moderate incomes and people in rural areas.
Here are our comments to questions posed in the RFI document:
Public Comments re: SunShot Initiative; Community Solar Challenge
We are a small rural church in a community that has had difficulties with public utilities such as water and sewer. Because of that we fear that we will not have the community support, at least at first, that would allow us to draw on the efforts of the more general public. Nevertheless, we are very committed to converting our churches (there are two, both in rural areas) and the two housing projects we have built to solar energy. We feel, therefore, that participation in your challenge will stimulate interest and spur action to this end. Our comments:
Question #1: We feel that the most important resources DOE could provide us are technical assistance, both with designing and implementing the solar project itself, and with helping with understanding and marketing the economic benefits of the completed project. Assistance with finding financing in addition to possible cash awards would be helpful. We are starting at ground zero here in terms of any of the participants' expertise, and so would need technical assistance in these areas. Because of this, we think that the tight timelines may be a barrier to entry for us and other similarly-situated teams, which appear to be the target population.
Question # 2: Our vote would be for The Community Solar Challenge, as it is direct, explains the target idea and population, and indicates its competitive nature.
Question #3: See the introduction to our comments, above. We would raise the question whether a greater number of smaller prizes might help to increase participation by small teams such as our own.
Question #4: It seems unlikely, considering where we are starting and our small reach, that we would be participating in the growth round phase, unless we are asked to join a larger statewide team. It is hard to know what ideas and opportunities may arise in the course of the project, however.
Question #5: As noted above, we think we would be heavily reliant on technical assistance in the areas of project technical development, financing and marketing. We are putting out feelers among the bankers and business people in our community and have had some neutral to positive feedback. Community economic development is a big issue here and we believe that we can show how this project will impact positively on that issue.
Question #6: The eligibility limits would not be a barrier to our team, as we are 100% community-serving and low-income at this time. The size of the project, in terms of kW limits, is also appropriate for us.
Question #7: We think that we are precisely the type of organization that DOE is targeting, but we were lucky to have chanced upon the challenge notification because our rector received an email announcement. We have a newly-formed Environmental Stewardship Committee that has been considering solarization as a way to decrease the church's environmental impact, so we were ripe for the idea. Perhaps contact with various denominational headquarters could help spread the word. It seems that participation by financial institutions and utilities will increase as the long-term financial rewards become clearer.
Question #9a: We are not familiar enough with basic solar project issues to understand what the DOE intends as to innovation. Achieving success with currently-available technology will be a stretch for our team.
Question #12: We are concerned that the tight deadline will make it difficult for us to come up to speed, develop a project, round up installers, study an appropriate site, and complete the project in 12 months. October certainly seems too soon to have a plan in place. We would need more direction as to what is needed for the October submission and completeness of the plan. We also question the need for the video submission; a 3-minute video is difficult to produce, unless we receive clearer guidelines on the content and standards of the video (e.g., is it a professional quality video?).
Thank you for your consideration of our comments. You can contact me at the address, phone number and email above.
Kay S. Cramer
Chair, Environmental Stewardship Committee
Episcopal Church of the Nativity & St. Stephen
