The new Massachusetts Green Communities Program (GCP), the source of Harvard’s recent Green Communities consulting grant, will fund community renewable energy and energy conservation projects at $10 million a year—but the money won’t come from taxes.
Rather, it will come from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the first mandatory, market-based effort to reduce global warming caused by the emission of greenhouse gases. RGGI is an agreement among the New England states, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York to set limits on the amount of CO2 power plants can emit and to charge the plants for those emissions. The RGGI goal is to reduce the annual emissions allowance for these plants each year; by 2018 the total power sector emissions will be cut 10 percent from 2009 levels.
As part of the RGGI program, electric power companies in the participating states can buy, sell, and trade CO2 emissions allowances as they work collectively to meet this goal. Proceeds from the auctions are targeted to encourage renewable energy, energy efficiency, and clean energy technologies. With that in mind, the Massachusetts legislature passed the Green Communities Act of 2008, which established the GCP as a way to funnel some of the money to cities and towns for clean energy and energy conservation projects.
According to the state Department of Energy Resources, the goals of the Green Communities Program are “to enable cities and towns to maximize opportunities to save energy in schools, city halls, firehouses, and other public buildings; to generate some of their energy needs from wind, solar, and forest trimmings; and to make other decisions that reduce their environmental impact and carbon footprint, and ultimately, to put the commonwealth at the hub of the 21st century clean energy economy.”
One hundred-fifty of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts are taking steps to qualify for the GCP grants and loans. These municipalities have to demonstrate they are serious about using renewable energy and reducing nonrenewable energy use. Before it can receive GCP funds, Harvard must earn a state Green Communities designation by meeting five criteria: establish a baseline of municipal energy use and a plan to reduce it by 20 percent within five years; purchase fuel-efficient vehicles when appropriate (fire, police, and department of public works equipment is mostly exempt); adopt strong energy-efficient building codes; adopt zoning changes for renewable energy use, generation, or manufacturing; and adopt an expedited permitting process for energy facilities.
Harvard’s first step, developing a comprehensive municipal energy baseline, is almost complete. David Fay, a member of the Energy Advisory Committee, has compiled three years of energy use data for the town municipal buildings, which he will present to the Board of Selectmen on Nov. 17.
