All right. Good evening everybody So I'll call to order this meeting of the Bloomington Commission on
sustainability and resilience at 5 30 p.m. And we'll start with the roll call Tara Dunderdale here Justin
Vassel. I'm here Rebecca pain here Christopher miles Here Zach Omerman here Dave Rallo Here Quentin Gilly
Alex York here Maria Arstad Sheng hua shu Not here Diana ogre dusky here and Ross Carlson And not here
and do we have any commissioners in the zoom Okay, okay Well, we have a quorum. So we'll go ahead and
get started and
Good evening. Good evening everybody. Welcome. Thanks for being here with us for this special meeting
of our commission So we're going to do things a little bit differently than we do most of the time tonight
We're going to be hearing from a team of students at the IU O'Neill school they spent this past semester
working with our Commission as a client on a capstone research project and their charge was to assess
the feasibility of a sustainable energy utility here in Bloomington
Tonight's presentation is something we've been looking forward to all semester But just a quick word
on why this project matters to us as a commission So our commission exists to promote and advance sustainable
policies and practices across environmental social and economic dimensions Energy touches on every one
of those dimensions Electricity generation in particular is one of the biggest factors in whether the
city can meet the goals laid out in our climate action plan So it's not an abstract question for us
The students analysis will be foundational for the recommendations that we will then hopefully go on
to develop for city leaders here in Bloomington. So just a quick note on format. We have an hour for
the presentation and some Q&A hopefully. So we'll need to adjourn by 630. The findings for commissioners
here the findings will come back with us and it'll be on a future agenda. So we'll have an opportunity
to discuss this in more detail amongst ourselves at a future meeting. So tonight's really going to be
focused around questions and answers for the students.
So with that I'll hand it over to Commissioner Alex York who served as our point of contact on this
project For a few remarks and to introduce our guests Thank You Justin Um, yeah, this is something that
I have been very curious about the results on I first thought of it listening to the volts podcast which
for any energy nerds out there who don't listen to this I recommend but I heard the podcast I think
last year in August and then
talking to people, I was given the idea, it's like, what if SPIA could do a capstone on this? And I
immediately reached out to a number of professors that I had during my days at SPIA, at O'Neill School,
SPIA for me forever. And a special thank you to two of them here, Professor Nikos and John. Nikos, I
know this was your first capstone, so thank you for trying that out to experience this.
A lot of professors don't like doing that. And John, for coming out of retirement, I think that without
your engagement and participation, this wouldn't have happened. I know that we have a time limit, and
I'm excited to get going. But a quick extra thank you also to Justin, who helped me with some of the
early ideas on this and believing in me and telling me that it was a good idea to try it. And thank
you to Jolie, one of our staff liaisons, for helping with some of the logistics that points through
the project.
And big thank you to the students for the hard work. And now, on to them. All right. Thank you for that
introduction. So yeah, like you said, we're a graduate capstone class. My name is Bronwyn Meldrum. I'm
the project manager, and I'm joined presenting today by Suso Badrai, Evie Sellers, and Miles Powell.
And we were tasked in January with analyzing the feasibility of that sustainable energy utility, which
is a community owned model of providing electricity found on energy generation and conservation and
the use of renewables. So we've provided a copy of that full report to you. And also we have provided
digital copies as well. And there's an accompanying appendix that has valuable information tools and
methodology to supplement the report.
And each of you also has a copy of the executive summary, which is a shortened version of the report
that has the most vital information but is lacking some of the details. So definitely still worth looking
through that report. But the presentation will follow the format of the executive summary, so you can
follow along if you'd like. So we were asked to examine the feasibility of implementing a sustainable
energy utility. Here it is. All righty. Perfect. OK.
in Bloomington inspired by the one being piloted in Ann Arbor and similar initiatives in D.C. and Delaware.
So early in our research we determined that
That sort of framework is not going to be feasible in Bloomington due to the regulatory frameworks in
Indiana So without permission from Duke Energy, we couldn't do that sort of Ann Arbor style But that
led us to questions two and three which focus on what else could we do instead to still meet climate
action goals? So alternative sets of actions called scenarios were developed and analyzed that could
still allow Bloomington to move towards those
carbon emissions goals and these scenarios range from low complexity and low additional Investment to
more complex and requiring increased capacity and collaboration To see how these scenarios compare we
selected the criteria of the five pillars of electric utility service Which are outlined by the Indiana
utility regulatory commission. These are reliability affordability resiliency stability and environmental
sustainability and we'll explain those in more detail later and
The project began with extensive background research, which Miles will be giving a brief overview of,
and then moved into three key analyses, evaluating the scenario pillar alignment, risk, and stakeholder
impact analysis. So each will be discussed in turn and then integrated to evaluate overall scenario
outcomes. And we'll have time for questions at the end, like Alex mentioned. So I'm going to turn the
time over to Miles.
We'll begin first with a little bit of background and first specifically with the city of Bloomington
itself the climate action plan the city has has specific targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Getting the citywide emissions below 2018 levels by 2030 and reducing achieving carbon neutrality by
2050 and this was kind of the impetus for this project
the energy and built environment sector accounts for the largest amount of citywide emissions and Because
of that the city has a variety of existing programs to attempt to address that BG hip seal Bloomington
energy works and the sustainable neighborhood grants program But progress has been fairly limited on
that front because energy is provided and generated by Duke energy Electricity is provided by Duke energy
The city has very little control over what and how Duke chooses to produce that energy and in fact Duke's
most recent Integrated resource plan actually shows that they are not Intending to switch to renewable
energy fast enough for the city to meet its sustainability goals So that leads us to a sustainable energy
utility the idea is to provide a hundred percent renewable energy to the customers and
No more coal and natural gas all solar panels wind geothermal well possible There are examples as we
mentioned in Ann Arbor, Michigan Washington DC and the state of Delaware and Ann Arbor is kind of our
primary point of comparison as it's a similar Flag city with the flagship University of the state The
idea would be to create a municipally owned and operated electricity utility and this the sustainable
energy and the municipally owned aspect of it is
Provide different incentives than the traditional investor-owned utilities like Duke IOUs are more concerned
about profit and Certainly their public image in the regulatory structure But their primary goal is
to produce profits for shareholders a sustainable energy utility certainly has to deal with a public
image in the regulatory landscape, but Is not going to be concerned about profits. They're gonna be
concerned about producing renewable energy exclusively This leads us to the five pillars
Previously mentioned these are codified into Indiana code utilities are regulated at the state level
and It's a very big deal nationally that Indiana has these And they provide guidance to the Indiana
utility regulatory commission for the decisions in approving or denying certain utility Aspects so first
is reliability, which is the ability to meet user demand at all times affordability
is the ability to minimize the cost to the consumer and reduce energy burden. Energy burden is the percent
of household monthly income that is spent on energy. And above 6% is considered a high energy burden
being energy insecure. Resiliency is the ability to adapt to varying conditions and recover quickly
in the case of an outage. Stability is the ability to maintain standard voltage flows, AKA avoid an
outage to begin with. And environmental sustainability, which
Certainly is going to be the most important one for a sustainable energy utility is both about the impacts
of regulation on the cost For end users as well as meeting the demand for sustainable energy among customers
So as we mentioned we can't exactly do and are in our burst style sustainable energy utility in Bloomington
there are certainly financial and technical challenges, but the primary limiting factor is
the utility code in Indiana. Indiana utility code gives a single entity the sole right to furnish retail
electric service in its territory, which is fairly limiting. In Ann Arbor, the Michigan code allows
them to compete with the IOU. They created their sustainable energy utility in parallel to the existing
structure, and so customers can choose to sign up for the municipal energy
Knowing that it is green energy While also still having their previous utility provider There are however
other options that we found in the legal research There was a section of code that allows explicitly
for the creation of a municipal electric utility but it does require that the municipality buy out all
of the infrastructure of the incumbent IOU and
Which we determined was prohibitively expensive for the city to actually implement Instead there were
two other sections that we did pursue more One that allows behind the meter generation meaning you can
generate energy for yourself this includes a municipal entity generating energy and sharing it across
multiple buildings for municipal purposes and a statute that allows for alternative regulatory plans
this one has a lot of potential essentially a
utility company can approach the IURC with a alternative plan to what is currently in place and as long
as that plan actually Improves some aspect of the five pillars. It generally gets approved There's not
usually a lot of pushback from the IURC as long as it meets one of those pillars This means that the
city would be able to do just about anything they could get Duke to agree with this does involve though
negotiations with the party that has different interests than the city and
And those last two in particular inform a lot of our scenarios.
All right, hi everybody. So because we determined that the establishment of an SEU is unfortunately
not feasible in the current legal and regulatory landscape, we developed and analyzed four alternative
scenarios through which the city could make progress towards their climate action plan goals and support
the ongoing deployment of renewable energy for both its own municipal operations as well as the benefit
of the larger Bloomington community. So these four scenarios, which I will go into in more detail in
just a moment,
are business as usual, enhanced programming, a municipal microgrid, and community solar. Hello,
there we go. All right, so scenario one, business as usual, is business as usual. It assumes the continuation
of current programs such as BGHIP and SEAL at a consistent rate, and it serves as the baseline and comparison
standard for the other scenarios and our analysis of their impact.
Scenario 2 would involve expanding current city programming, but would not create dramatic change to
the way the energy is generated and delivered in Bloomington. Under the scenario, we analyzed the potential
impact of 50%, 100%, and 200% increase in projects funded under existing programs, such as SEAL and
BGHIP. We also considered some new program and policy offerings, such as a peak demand response model.
scenario 3 our municipal microgrid is established under that idea that miles spoke to that state law
allows municipalities with the approval of the legislative body to furnish power to the municipality
for municipal purposes so long as it doesn't disrupt sales relating to an existing contract and
With this scenario using ArcGIS, our team identified 10 viable municipal microgrid nodes, which can
be seen in the map on this slide, by applying a 1,000 foot campus scale buffer radius around existing
facilities and solar sites. This specific 1,000 foot distance was chosen as a strict technical limit
to prevent severe voltage drop issues across the distribution lines while ensuring that multiple buildings
could efficiently share power.
And finally, our scenario four is the community solar model modeled after the pending Doug Otto United
Way project in Columbus, Indiana. This scenario involves the city of Bloomington financing building
and managing a community solar grid with cooperation from Duke Energy.
The electricity produced from this array would be split 50-50 with Duke. So 50% would be sold to the
grid, after which the proceeds would be deposited into a municipally owned escrow account and
be redistributed to local consumers as bill credits.
The other 50 percent would be retained for municipal use. This scenario would target low and moderate
income households who face disproportionate energy burden for energy credits and is broken into community
solar array sizes of one one point two and two megawatts for the purpose of our analysis and comparison.
Hello, everyone. So, before I jump into the result, I want to highlight how we build this analysis.
So, to start with, our analysis is morally inclined with both quantitative and qualitative measurements.
So, we started with using the capacity and determining the capacity factors through the Android app tools for
of Bloomington in terms of solar energy. And then for the three of the five pillars, reliability, stability,
and resilience pillars, we developed an Excel-based model called B-SIT, which stands for Bloomington
Energy Impact Scenario Assessment. So it generally evaluates the peak load reductions, outage survival,
and hour-to-hour grid stability. So in terms of affordability pillars,
we try to look upon the energy burden, particularly for the low income household and the low to moderate
income household, and calculate the levelized cost of electricity.
look for the net present value for each of the proposed scenarios. Similarly, for the environmental
sustainability pillars, we used several of the tools like EPA Cobra, EPA eGrid in order to evaluate
the emission factors for the city of Bloomington. So in terms of the data where the numbers could not
present so well, we did the
qualitative analysis, like to get the data, like to get the information on historical language impacts
and ecological system. So to continue with, firstly, I would like to briefly explain how our analysis
table works on by using one of the examples. Those
So this is for the Scenarios 3. So on this, across the columns, it represents a scaling pathway scenarios
on the basis of different scale and system size. Similarly, the each roads correspond to the five pillars,
Indiana's pillars, reliability, affordability, resilience, stability, and environmental resilience.
I will start, I'm gonna start, I'll briefly go through the every of the scenarios. So some of the scenarios
signs in some certain aspects and sort falls out in some.
certain way. So to start with our baseline scenarios. So this is basically, it assumes the Bloomington
continues its current programs at the current pace with the rollover out over the projected times. So
at the initial conditions, the performance is certainly limited across the pillars. So in overall, these
scenarios has the lowest risk and also the lowest impact.
So moving on, on the second scenario we have enhanced programming where we scale the existing program
like busy heaps sales by 50, 100 and 200 percentage. So to start with in terms of reliability,
In terms of reliability, peak load reduction is quite reduced around 100 kilowatts, which is relatively
small to the system demands. Similarly, in terms of resilience, it do have an outer survival time of
around 36 hours, but they are mostly disintegrated to the individual household, so it doesn't
contributes for the community resilience. So we recorded as a low impact over here. So talking about
the stability too, since it's like disconnected from the grid itself, so it doesn't have impacts on
the stability and also with the increments of the programs, there is a certainly gap between the solar
generation and grid resilience.
So for affordability, these programs continue to provide a strong benefit for the participants, reducing
the energy burden from the range of 14% to 32% of that group to 0% to 8%. But even at the full expansion,
the program only reaches to 30 households per year, so it is very small compared to the total eligible
population on that group.
So basically, in terms of environmental sustainability, the carbon emission rate is quite minimal, which
doesn't impact mostly with the city's climate action goal. And it's the same case for the monetary health
impacts through the COBRA analysis.
Going down to the another scenario, Scenarios 3, the municipal microgrid. So these scenarios increases
the municipal solar capacity and connect the facilities through a shared micro system with the battery
storage and power setting for the municipal facilities during the time of a peak hour demand to supply
the energy during a peak hour demand. So here we can see a good
number of progress in terms of reliability like the peak load is reduced almost like a 40% when we have
a coverage of 200% of current to the baseline scenarios and also
In terms of resilience, it increases from like 0.3 hours, which is the current baseline, to nearly 30
hours at the highest capacity. That shows that the system ability for sustaining during the critical
loads and powering up during the backup period.
However, in terms of stability, it shows the different pattern. Like I said before, it initially improved
the stability with the hourly variability, but then worsened at the highest capacity because the volatile
load behavior from the solar synchronized battery discharge and the sharp transitions between the solar
generations and the grid resilience.
So like for this municipal microgrid, it's kind of a high upfront investment. But when we try to assist
through the affordability models, we could find a good result over there.
of affordability, like the scenarios requires around 4.5 million for a baseline, up to 26.9 million
in terms of a high capacity. But when we try to assess it with the annual savings, it could generate
up to 1.5 million per year and then achieve a net positive present value by the 50% coverage only.
So over here, too, at the highest capacity, do show some of the good reduction in carbon emissions,
like it would contribute around 10 percent of the city's, reduce the 10 percent of the city's goal targets
on emissions. And same with the monetary value. It can save around 55,000 in annual monetary health
service, saving through the analysis we did through the COBRA analysis.
So the fourth, so in overall, it has the highest performance, but it too comes with the higher initial
cost. So we find this solution as one of the optimal solutions in terms of three of the other scenarios.
Finally, the scenario four. Scenario four is the community solar.
So it focuses on improving the affordability and access rather than the system control itself. So in
this scenario, the solar energy is generated and exported directly to the grid. So the local reliability,
resilience, and stability are not significantly affected. However, this scenario shows strong benefits
in terms of affordability, like we can see at
2 megawatt scale, it reduces the energy burden for the low-income household from about 21 percent to
6 percent, while it also, like, we try to assist it with a household of around 350 households, where
we can find that it can generate $1,000 annual bill credits. It's at 2,000 kilowatts of monthly energy
consumption.
So environmentally, this scenario has a minimal impact since it does come with land use impact. So the
environmental impact emission is quite not significant in this scenario. So in overall, this scenario
is mostly beneficial for low income household, but need the coordinated approach with the utility company
for the grid synchronization. Thank you.
technical difficulties. Yes, thank you. Yes. All right, so now that we're back. So we undertook a risk
analysis and a stakeholder analysis in addition to
Identify other potential areas of impact for each scenario So the risk analysis was undertaken to identify
the main barriers that could limit the feasibility of each scenario The risks were identified by the
capstone team based on the information We gathered during our background phase and then were analyzed
by the scenario leads and our risk analysis lead Let's see All right
So this summary figure models the risk analysis results, which perhaps unsurprisingly suggests that
the more ambitious the scenario, the riskier it is, technically, financially, legally, and environmentally.
To understand this figure and break it down a bit, the top right red zone in each quadrant indicates
the highest risk, and the bottom left blue zone in each indicates the lowest risk in terms of their
combined magnitude of impact and likelihood of occurrence, which are the two axes for each figure.
The black dots are labeled with each of the identified risks for each scenario, the codes for which
are defined both in the full report and in the appendix. As an example of what these risks entail, RF4
represents local budget constraints, which is a very important risk for every scenario, which is why
it applies to all of them. As we can see in this figure, some risks apply across multiple scenarios,
and it's important to consider that compounded impact.
Based on this analysis alone, the business as usual scenario is unsurprisingly the safest. It's very
low risk to keep doing what you're already doing. But we note that it offers limited progress
to Bloomington's goals. So the enhanced programming scenario is the most balanced in terms of the potential
risks compared to the potential benefits it provides.
All right, we also conducted a stakeholder analysis since many relevant stakeholders exist across the
public, private, and nonprofit sectors who could serve as allies or obstacles within our identified
scenario options. So this is quite a figure, and I promise I will break it down. So the stakeholder
key shows the full list of stakeholders compiled by our stakeholder analysis team, and it was basically
everyone we could think of who might have a vested interest in this.
All of these stakeholders were analyzed individually to determine their levels of interest and influence
in each scenario, which are the two axes on each quadrant in the figure. These analyses are accompanied
by written descriptions in the full report that provide the evidence and reasoning behind the positions
and levels that we assign to each stakeholder.
That analysis was then mapped on this pretty figure to determine the key stakeholders, those with the
highest influence and highest interest, whether that be in support or opposition. So to go one by one,
the key stakeholders in the business as usual scenario in that beautiful blue number one up there are
the city of Bloomington and Electrify Indiana.
The city supports its own current programs and policies and it is city bodies both legislative
and administrative that formulate and implement them. So it's no surprise that they ended up pretty
high up on this list. Electrify Indiana was isolated with stronger influence and interest than its fellow
nonprofits due to its current status as a partner of the city's Department of Economic and Sustainable
Development through their partnership in the Bloomington Energy Works program.
To move on to the enhanced programming scenario, which is our lovely green over there, are again the
Citi Electrify Indiana and SIREN. Stakeholders who may be of greater importance, depending on the specifics
of this programming, include Centerpoint Energy and the Indiana Energy Association or the IEA. The Citi
and Electrify Indiana largely hold the same positions and reasoning as they do in business as usual.
to break down a little bit more why Centerpoint and the IEA were isolated in this scenario. They may
stand in opposition to the enhanced programming depending on the specific programming that is pursued.
So Centerpoint provides natural gas, which is used for HVAC heating and cooling and not electricity.
However, if adoption of heat pump HVAC technology is further incentivized in enhanced programming,
They may stand in opposition due to the potential threat posed to their services. To continue moving
down this path, the key stakeholders in the municipal microgrid scenario, our red one down in the bottom
left to me, I think left to everyone, I digress, are the city, Duke Energy, the IEA, and the Indiana
Utility Regulatory Commission, or the IURC, who I will be referring to by the acronym so I don't mess
it up again.
Bloomington's municipal government, who is strongly in support of energy and climate action, as you
can see in what we're already doing, woohoo, would have the single largest influence over this project,
given that it involves the connection of municipal buildings. Duke could try and challenge this project
either legally or through lobbying with the General Assembly, and as the legally recognized sole provider
of electricity service in Bloomington, they would have a right to do so.
The IEA as a trade association of which Duke is a part would be expected to support Duke's positions
and the IURC would be involved in any potential legal challenges, though they are mandated to be a neutral
party in their application of state law. All right, I promise you're almost done hearing my voice. Finally,
the key stakeholders in the community solar scenario, our final pink, are Duke, the city of Bloomington,
and the IURC.
Duke and the city are the stakeholders of the utmost importance for the scenario, as they are the two
parties who would need to negotiate an agreement under which Duke would allow construction of community
solar under the aforementioned negotiated management and financial plan. This plan would then need to
be presented before the IURC, who hold the final say on whether to approve or deny the project. There we go.
So bringing it all together there are complexities and limitations inherent in all of the analyses.
So they are further discussed in the report and they should be taken into account when interpreting
the results and when making decisions. But the business as usual served primarily as a baseline for
comparison and as we discussed
performs fairly poorly across the pillars. It has the lowest risk but also the lowest reward and is
not aggressive enough to make meaningful progress towards Bloomington's sustainable sustainability and
city climate action goals. That being said these programs have positive impacts. So we're focusing on
an expansion and certainly not on removing any beneficial programs.
So analysis suggested the enhanced programming pathway would yield some greenhouse gas emissions emissions
reductions But only modest improvements in electric service focusing only on expanding existing programs
has drawbacks because Funding is uncertain and this approach does not provide benefits from aggregated
renewable generation or storage only increasing separated solar generation or electrics and electricity
Sorry efficiency Programming so as such enhanced programming would serve best as a complement to other
initiatives while the city should also consider Ways to expand resident and business facing programs
to new areas like peak demand response For the municipal microgrid scenario at the highest capacity
it results in substantial progress towards city climate goals in renewable energy expansion and emissions
reduction and
It requires a large initial investment. But if implemented incrementally, this cost can be spread out
over time while still obtaining benefits until economies of scale improve return on investment.
Unfortunately, since this scenario focuses only on city owned buildings, it falls short of distributing
the benefits directly to Bloomington residents. While future financial savings could potentially be
redistributed throughout the local economy using programming expansions, it is crucial to recognize
the inherent trade offs in this scenario.
For number four community solar it has a greater direct impact on house income low-income households
But it does have a significant obstacle for this scenario to be an option Duke must agree to be a partner
While this is a challenge the precedent set in Columbus has made it much more of a possibility the city
should start to develop a relationship with Duke to warm them up to the idea of a partnership and begin
engaging with community nonprofits to find a third party that could facilitate a community solar array
Glaringly our recommendations are optimistic about city funding and staff capacity, which we know are
strained These recommendations should be taken as a set of options that can be ready for when federal
funding opens up or when other grant opportunities Arise as well as making efforts to implement them
as possible in the present so because of these constraints incremental implementation is suggested for
all actions and
To take what steps are possible at the time and still make progress towards full scenario project goals.
That being said, recommendations are organized into short-term and long-term processes depending on
whether Bloomington could begin implementation soon or whether they require more external planning or
collaboration that would require more time. Within these timeframes, recommendations are rank ordered
based on highest to lowest potential impact.
So for our short-term recommendations, these are possible. They could be started within three years
First we recommend expansion of the municipal solar and battery capacity to prepare for future implementation
of a microgrid and reduce city emissions in the meantime The second and third are also in preparation
of a microgrid and involve further evaluating the feasibility of a municipal microgrid through refined
cost and benefit estimates and
Paired with bar certified legal review because while our research team team did a very thorough job
We don't have the training or certification to ensure legality for you So our fourth recommendation
is to expand support for residents solar and energy efficiency initiatives through increased resource
allocation to BG hip seal and other relevant energy programming and
Number five, Bloomington should seek additional grants and external funding from governments, nonprofits,
philanthropic organizations, and community institutions like Indiana University to increase financial
capacity for energy related programs. Our sixth recommendation is to evaluate the potential impacts
of a city administered peak demand response program to reduce grid strain and high wholesale prices,
which could curry favor with Duke Energy.
Since they are the ones paying those higher wholesale prices during times of peak demand Along that
vein the last two short-term Recommendations comprise developing positive interactions with Duke and
finding a trusted community partner to facilitate community solar which can ease the way for a longer
term action So along that sense our first long-term recommendation is to partner with Duke on community solar and
And then to so to develop a proposal to do so and then actually implement it. It would be high-impact
and a long-term action plan for Bloomington to work towards Duke may reject attempts at partnership
and the iurc will likely side with the utility in the case of a dispute the iurc tends to side with
the utility in anything so if Bloomington or if Duke wants to go along with it
The IORC should approve it. But if they fight back, the IORC will likely side with them on that as well.
So in this case, it may be necessary to develop a plan for formal legal action to challenge the current
monopoly utility regulations in conjunction with other Indiana entities like municipalities, industry
consumers, and nonprofits like the Citizens Action Coalition, which recently filed a complaint against the IORC.
So our second long-term recommendation is to develop a municipal microgrid distribution infrastructure,
and that would involve piloting a microgrid framework in one of the identified nodes, connecting only
a handful of buildings at a time to sort of trial a microgrid. This would significantly decrease upfront
capital required, minimize risk, and allow Bloomington to learn from any potential growing pains before
implementing it citywide.
If the city does see net benefits with this initiative microgrids could then be expanded to other identified
nodes. This phased implementation allows for significant flexibility in the timeline limiting the severity
of financial uncertainty. Savings from this program could then be put towards other actions such as
increasing funding for energy programming or just towards increasing and expanding the microgrid further.
As these processes take shape, Bloomington can develop best practices that can be used as an inspiration
or template for other cities or energy users with large facilities like IU, Nova Nordic, Nordisk,
or Cook, much like how the inspiration for a local SEU came from Ann Arbor and how the community solar
installation in Columbus has potentially opened a pathway for the same in Bloomington. Success here
could open, could serve to create impacts much larger than could be advanced or achieved by one city alone.
So we have some ongoing recommendations as well. We recommend that Bloomington follow future Indiana
General Counsel legislative sessions to be aware of changes that are proposed or passed and that the
city advocate for policies that allow community solar installations and other sustainable energy development
independent of the incumbent utilities discretion. All of the scenarios and recommended actions also
require some level of external support. So the city should continue to be working to engage
with stakeholders to increase support, mitigate risks, and create opportunities for future collaboration.
This includes public campaigns for residents to raise awareness about programs, communication with Duke
to soften them for partnership, and outreach to community nonprofits and philanthropic organizations
for funding or collaborative opportunities. So we appreciate your time and attention and would like
to acknowledge those who have helped us create this report.
We'd like first to thank you, the commission, for providing this project. It's been an excellent opportunity
to dive into sustainable energy and to develop new skills and analytical techniques. We'd also like
to thank our advisors, Professors John Rupp and Nico Seragiannis, as well as the many consultants who
provided insights, direction, and advice throughout the project's development. So finally, we turn our
remaining time over to you for questions. Thank you.
Well, thank you very much for that wonderful presentation. And I just want to say this is a really impressive
body of work, and this is going to be very useful for us. It gives us a lot to think about,
a lot to digest, and we're looking forward to diving into it.
So congratulations on a well a job well done and and thank you for all the effort that you've put into
it and Those things also extend to everyone else who is involved who you acknowledged the faculty who
supported it our star staff here on the commission and with the city So now with that I will open it
up to the rest of the commissioners for questions. Is there anyone who would like to begin? Commissioner
Dunderdale Yeah, I just want to echo this isn't a phenomenal amount of work and I have been I've
given these kinds of presentations, both as a student and professional, and this is one of the best
ones I've seen. It's incredible work. And I'm going to actually ask an education-related question. This
is the first time our commission has done this. I think that any of our commissions in the city have
done this. And I would love to hear about this experience as a student. This is not a trick question.
I want to know, would you recommend that students sign up for another capstone like this if our commission
or any other commission
decides to propose another project. Yeah. And it's OK to say no. It's really not a trick question.
I mean personally I'm sure everyone has different opinions but it was nice to be working on a project
that we would present to a local you know a local commission that could actually take it and
make recommendations for real changes in our community that we could see. So that aspect of it was I
think beneficial for me and helped motivate me to do good work because I cared about the results.
Yeah, and I'll add that there are multiple students in this group who work for the city as fellows So
it was nice to connect what we're doing in the office to this project It was nice to have people who
are like, oh, I know that one. I know that one or I know who to talk to So I think Opening up to more
Commission led capstones is certainly not a bad idea if other offices want to get in on this action
I think it's a great idea for some
Experiential learning it was a challenge, but we certainly learned a lot both from the aspect of skills
development and teamwork and Certainly in the area of subject matter expertise because I had never heard
the acronym se you in my life And now I know so much All right any other questions from commissioners
and throw your hand up so I can see it if you do I
Yeah, Alex, go ahead. Yeah, on the community solar project with Duke, the 50-50 split, I was just wondering
why a 50-50 split with Duke and if other arrangements were also considered. So a lot of the details
about the community solar project were just based on what they did in Columbus.
Certainly some differences in that a lot of the details there were based on an EPA grant program that
no longer exists So a lot of those specifically but the understanding of the people involved in In that
project is that for that grant program 50% of the energy had to specifically 50% of the revenues had
to help low-income households and
So there was some of that generation that goes to the United Way Center in Columbus and then the money
that gets The profits from selling the energy back to Duke is then distributed into bill credits for
a few hundred low-income households in Columbus So that was really the reason for the 50-50 split is
just that is the example that we had that's what they did and to meet the requirements of the program
that they were getting funding from
Yeah, Zach. You mentioned during the community solar component that the environmental benefits were
negligible or minimal because of land use impacts. I'm curious, did you quantify how many acres for
each percentage, how many acres would be impacted? I'm just curious about that.
Would there be any impact on a tree canopy? For example, I am going to call our lovely live Myers to
the stand as the lead on the environmental Sustainability pillar and provide you so many wonderful details
in that department. Awesome. Thank you I anticipated some questions about the ecological impacts
And I was not able to find any data on acreage, so I went off of literature review, so scientific articles,
and then taking what I learned from those articles and making assumptions. So what you read within the
appendix as well as the project are just assumptions and recommendations based off of the scientific
literature, which is cited. So I could not find any quantifiable data.
You're a very important person. Did you ever fall out? I thought it was done. I'm so sorry. If you're
the sustainability person, I'd like to ask you a few questions while you're up there. So first of all,
I just wanted to say I am also impressed by the robustness and the professional depth of this study.
I appreciate that you did work on, it's probably not the correct term, but electrical engineering questions,
among other things. I'm impressed. I had a few different questions.
Some of them are about definition, just for clarity. So I couldn't find anywhere that environmental
impact or sustainability were explicitly defined or outlined in these materials. Can you do that for
me? Or is there a place where you have done so that I'm not finding
My thought, and I was not a member of the legal team, so I might have to call somebody else to the stand,
pun somewhat intended, is that the pillars are codified in Indiana state law with environmental
sustainability being one of them. So there might be a statutory definition provided. I don't know if
that's accurate. So that definition lives in Indiana state law, and that's what you used as your metric.
OK, I appreciate that.
Maybe a similar question that you may or may not be in a position to answer. In your stakeholder key,
it's very thorough. I'm impressed by that. I noticed that things like other species, flora, fauna, non-human
actors, and people, so non-institutional players, are not identified there. Was there a reason for that?
I hate to take it to another person, but I was not a part of the stakeholder analysis. It's me again.
So that is a wonderful point, and I'm going to be honest with you, it was not something that I thought
of and is something that I would definitely incorporate into a future version of that analysis. I knew
that Liv was incorporating some aspects of ecological analysis and ecological impact into her work,
so I wasn't entirely sure how much would be covered there.
That is a wonderful point. And yeah, in a future version of this or in future recommendations that would
be created based on this, I think that should absolutely be incorporated.
Adding onto that a little bit, in terms of the ecological impacts, the main concerns that I was looking
at were habitat fragmentation, as well as just land use and land cover change over time, especially
with deployment of solar arrays. So not specifically what species are being displaced, because we don't
have, I know we have an idea and suggestions of places, but I think moving forward, doing a deeper ecological
dive and maybe a conservation index of what species
will be impacted in each deployment area should be considered. Thank you. I have a question
about conclusions, but I can wait, because these were themed, and I can pass it on. Sounds good. Are
there any other questions from commissioners? Yeah. Alex? Yeah. I was wondering, going back to the community
solar land use. I'm in the hot seat tonight, yes.
It occurred to me the idea of modeling that there's land use degradation when you go to solar. Was it
at all considered to do something like agrifoltaics, where you're still utilizing the land in some other
way, or putting the solar on already disturbed land, brownfields or existing buildings? And what are
the environmental impacts then when we're not using pristine land that's being disturbed?
So in terms of other land use, we considered brownfields. And once again, I'm going to call on Vinny,
because he did a lot of research on brownfields. And he'd have a lot more information, because in my
ecological impact write-up, we had different quantifiable measures that we were looking at. And Vinny's
had more concern about brownfields. Yeah, sure. Thanks.
For the Brownfields aspect of it, a lot of the research that went into it was what is available. And
so looking on the Indiana Brownfields program list, what currently exists in the state, in Bloomington
in particular, is quite competitive with other projects, both private and public. There wasn't a whole
lot of information
Regarding the actual characteristics of the site in particular the sizes of them is that would play
a most important role in how much energy would actually end up be generated The largest sites on the
list was somewhere around 70 acres however, this one was just recently purchased by a biopharmaceutical
company for large-scale manufacturing plant
So in the case of brownfields as a whole We kind of look to avoid that in the analysis Primarily due
to the lack of information on the both the availability and from what it looked like other purchasers
of the land already for ongoing projects Yeah
I'm just wondering how in-depth you looked at Ann Arbor's specific program and the reason why I ask
is my understanding is and this is just a cursory I don't understand it in depth that I was I was I'm
wondering My understanding is their legal constraints are fairly similar to what we have in Indiana
while the political constraints are different
They're obviously at the bluer state than here's they have different political constraints the legal
framework my understanding at least is it's fairly similar to Indiana yet They found a way to work around
it To create an se you I'm wondering How different what is what makes us different here? the the primary
difference in Michigan is a the foot act which has been interpreted by state courts to allow for competition and
So it is set up similarly in the basic like code But this specific legislation has been interpreted
by the state Supreme Court to allow for a parallel utility Which is what Ann Arbor actually did? Just
a brief follow-up if I may My understanding though of the Ann Arbor program that is is that it's more
complementary and less and direct competition With their version of Duke. I think it's called deep something
DTE. Yeah is that correct or
But yeah by competition, I mean in the economic sense of the word that there can be another utility
operating in the same space So it is in a way complementary. They're not replacing the existing IOU.
They're just working in parallel Yeah, Quentin
We did not know Yeah, that was we did consider it but we decided that was outside of the scope of our
project which was more based on research and feasibility analysis So we we left that up to the city
and the Commission to actually contact you can start those relationships And I'm sure this will be I
this may be covered in the full report but I
in considering environmental impact are you does your analysis include the the sort of outsourced impacts
of solar so the rare earth mining that's happening somewhere else the cost to the emissions related
to getting it here and then the cost of repair and replace of the infrastructure over time
So within the report, our scope was just based on greenhouse gas emissions as well as regional pollutants
or criteria pollutants within the area. And the data that we used from that was the EPA eGrid 2023 data.
So I collected the data for Indiana specifically for power plant emissions. So a whole bunch of criteria
pollutants and created a range and then average based off of that.
So within the report I have to mention that there are limitations to some of the numbers that you will
read because they are based on Monroe County and not Bloomington specifically. So outside sources weren't
considered. It was just 20 23 power plant data for regional criteria pollutants. All right. We were
getting pretty close to time. Are there any last minute quick questions. Alex.
Last one going back to CEU legality. I'm not arguing that it's not I'm not arguing that it is legal
but we talked about community solar not being currently permitted. But if you have the utilities agreement
you can do pretty much anything. Would it be your understanding that if Duke were amenable to it that
the city could do an SEU.
Because I know that in Ann Arbor's case that DTE did not fight it and that they have been a partner
So if the city could secure that partnership, do you think that? the se you could potentially move forward
Yes, our understanding is that? Basically any option that you can get Duke to agree with would be legally
feasible The question is what you can get them to agree to and that's why we pursued other options We
did not think that was
Especially realistic, but it's certainly something that could be worth pursuing All right, I lied about
that being the last question we have one more quick one from Christopher Very quickly. Um, so I appreciate
that Immediately after starting this you pretty much identified that you're hamstrung by straight state
law in terms of what you're doing That can't be a fun discovery to instantly make but along the lines
of sort of possibilities and constraints going forward it sounds like the conclusions are local
municipalities are
significantly constrained in what they can do. Would you therefore say that your conclusion from this
research is that state or federal level legislative change or other forms of more fundamentally structural,
political, ecological transformation are necessary to achieve meaningful sustainability transitions?
Yes. Yes, I would.
In the stakeholder analysis, in the full thing, I discuss the congressional representatives for both
in the Senate, Indiana as a whole, in the House, the Bloomington general area, as well as the state
legislative representatives. And it was clear, looking into their voting records, that there were things
in there that could have made a project like this a lot easier, a lot more feasible. There's been bills
introduced in the state legislature
to allow community solar, I believe, for the last two or three years, it's all in there. But it's been
shot down every time. And a lot of that has to do with lobbying and outside influence and things that
I will not get into at the moment. But yes, and on the other end, too, at the federal level, not only
is federal policy a huge, huge, huge player, but federal funding is a huge player.
The only, well, not the only, but a large part of why the project in Columbus could go anywhere was
because there was EPA funding. We know very well that that does not exist anymore for the time being.
But in a future where these things are not obstacles in the state house, are not obstacles at the federal
level, I think they're
A bright future ahead. I'm choosing to believe there's a bright future ahead anyway. But yes, I think
the state and federal policy play a huge role in what the municipalities can do. We learned that real
quick. And as much as I would love to recommend all the bills that I think should be passed to make
this happen, it's out of the scope and potentially unrealistic for a while. But all that to say, yes.
Accomplished a lot within the time that you had to put this work together and it really is an incredible
piece of work that we deeply appreciate So thank you very much again for all the hard work that you've
put into it and for everybody who was who played a role in that As a quick note before y'all leave anyone
who spoke at the podium today If you could just see our secretary Tara before you leave just so she
can get down your name for the record And other than that I will just note that our next regular business
meeting of this Commission will be on
Tuesday May 12th at 6 30 p.m. In the McCloskey room down the hall I'm sorry 6 p.m. And We are at the
end of the scheduled time. So with that we are adjourned at 6 30 Thank you