June 20, 2017
By Ellen C. Banks, Niagara Group
The climate crisis requires us to act on many levels--international, national, state, local and personal. A new structure for acting locally is the Clean Energy Community Program of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). In Amherst, a Buffalo suburb that is the largest town, by population, in upstate New York, Sierra Club members are working with elected and appointed officials in a bipartisan project to adopt Clean Energy Community standards.
The program is structured in a way that appeals to local governments. There are ten High Impact Actions of varying degrees of complexity and cost. After completing four of these, our town will be eligible to apply for a $250,000 grant with no matching requirement, to assist in adopting the additional actions. (These grants vary by the size of the municipality.) NYSERDA provides 50 hours or more of technical assistance to adopt the actions, which addresses the excuse we have heard in the past that the town would like to support renewable energy but does not have the staff time to work on it.
After only a few weeks of planning, Amherst is close to completing the first four actions: First, acquiring an electric car that will replace one of the fleet of large SUVs used by town employees and installing two charging stations for town and public use. Second, our Solarize Amherst campaign will have several events this spring to promote installation of household and small business solar panels. Selected installers will offer a discounted group rate and the town will waive the electrical permit for rooftop solar, with the goal of 10 solar contracts within a month. Third, relevant town employees will receive energy code enforcement training, and Fourth, a unified solar permitting process will simplify the solar installation process.
Some of the remaining steps are more challenging but we are hopeful that the town will build on the momentum: LED street lighting, Benchmarking energy conservation standards for public and private buildings, Upgrading equipment efficiency in municipal buildings, Adopting community choice aggregation and Property-Assessed Clean Energy, and Attaining Climate Smart Community certification. The latter is a Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) program that Amherst had pledged to adopt some time ago, but had stalled on implementing. The advantage of Clean Energy Community designation is the structure of small steps leading to larger ones, and the technical support and good chance of a grant, which has motivated our town officials.
We are hopeful that our large, relatively affluent town (the site of the University at Buffalo main campus) will make energy efficiency and renewable energy a part of its identity and will influence other towns and cities in Western New York to follow.