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SOLAR ENERGY
In the years to come, renewable energy will emerge as a pivotal avenue of innovation in the United States—and the world. That’s already the case here in Chicago. More and more homes, businesses, and energy utilities are turning their attention to the vast potential of solar power—and looking ahead to a future in which this technology will become increasingly important. Crain’s Content Studio asked three energy experts to weigh in on the area’s efforts to help solar energy thrive, and their hopes for a sun-powered tomorrow.
How are energy trends changing, and what role does solar play in powering Chicago businesses and homes? What role do you think it will play in the future? Scott Vogt: We have seen a significant increase in the amount of solar in our service territory due to the passage of the Future Energy Jobs Act in 2016, and we will continue to see it grow with the implementation of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) over the next several years. Solar is a very useful resource to provide power to homes and to provide excess power back to the grid when it is not consumed during daylight hours. Over the next several years, solar and storage will likely start to displace fossil-fueled peaking generation, which comes online to meet high demand for electricity during the day when businesses and industrial facilities are operating. Elbert Walters III: Energy trends have been changing over the last decade as we look at ways to reduce our carbon footprint and claim a greener future. Renewable energy trends like solar, electric vehicles, battery storage, and wind power are all growing industries that will help lead new, sustainable energy
time utility-scale wind capacity doubles in size, the levelized cost of electricity will decline by 15 percent. By 2035, solar could cost as little as $22 per megawatt-hour on average, down from $34 in 2020. It is also close to what the Energy Department is targeting for solar in 2030: $20 per MWh, under a goal declared last year. What are some current solar and/or renewable energy projects in the Chicagoland area? Scott Vogt: Residential and commercial rooftop projects are popular throughout our service territory. The number of residential and business customers who have installed solar systems has grown from 700 at the end of 2016 to almost 30,000 at the end of June 2022. Most of these systems are installed on the rooftops of homes and businesses and either provide power directly to the customer at the time of generation or back to the grid if the host customer is generating more power than they need. Over 70 Community Solar projects have also come online over this same timeframe, which allows customers who do not have roofs suitable to host solar to buy subscriptions from these large solar arrays. The total
ANNA DIRKSWAGER
Midwest Climate and Energy Director The Nature Conservancy anna.dirkswager@tnc.org 312-580-2100
status, the building must produce as much energy as it uses over the course of a year. It had to be completely sealed on the outside, so it doesn’t use too much heat in the
SCOTT VOGT
Vice President of Strategy & Energy Policy ComEd scott.vogt@comed.com 815-705-4139
winter or too much air conditioning in the summer. This building represents the possibilities that exist with renewable energies.
ELBERT WALTERS III
Executive Director Powering Chicago ewalters@poweringchicago.com 312-989-0724
Anna Dirkswager: Much of the solar boom is occurring in rural Illinois, but we’ve seen homes and businesses take advantage of their rooftops and parking lots to install
At least 120,000 square miles are available for renewable energy in central U.S. without impacting natural areas.
“WE’VE ACHIEVED RECORD LEVELS OF RELIABILITY IN RECENT YEARS AND SUSTAINING THAT PERFORMANCE WILL BECOME EVER MORE IMPORTANT AS WE BRING MORE RENEWABLE ENERGY ONTO THE SYSTEM.” — SCOTT VOGT trends. Solar energy components will have a large role in the future as they can be used for several different applications, from powering a building to providing electricity for electric vehicles. Anna Dirkswager: In addition to the benefits of creating localized jobs and delivering reliable electricity, the cost of renewables continues to fall dramatically as technology becomes cheaper and more readily available. According to reports from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, every
installed capacity of distributed generation solar systems has grown from around 7 megawatts at the end of 2016 to almost 500 today. Elbert Walters III: Here’s one example: Completed in 2020 by Powering Chicago union electricians and contractors, the Countryside Municipal Complex became the state’s first net-zero government building. Sitting at 34,500-sq-ft and three stories, it houses all civic operations and the city’s police department. To achieve net-zero
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SOLAR ENERGY
In the years to come, renewable energy will emerge as a pivotal avenue of innovation in the United States—and the world. That’s already the case here in Chicago. solar panels. This helps take pressure off developing greenspace or valuable farmland. For example, the Illinois Solar for All program recently installed a large carport/rooftop solar installation for the Chicago Urban League in the Southside community. The 162 kW solar arrays on the Terrasmart carport not only produces power, but also provides cooling shade for visitors. Chicago must pursue more of those types of win-win solar projects. What’s being done to meet the growing demand for solar and renewable energies? Scott Vogt: We offer several sources of consumer education. Customers can use ComEd’s solar calculator to evaluate the solar potential of their roof, estimate the number solar panels required, and calculate potential savings, rebates, and more. Secondly, we’re investing in the grid to be sure there’s adequate capacity to absorb new solar energy. Because renewable power is intermittent, we’re making investments to ensure the grid can securely accommodate that. We’ve achieved record levels of reliability in recent years and sustaining that performance will become ever
more important as we bring more renewable energy onto the system and as the grid becomes more important to eliminating carbon in other sectors. (Like transportation, where Illinois has a goal of putting at least 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030.) We’re also investing to help solar developers, making the application process more seamless through automation. And we’re providing a hosting capacity map, which shows areas of ComEd’s territory with greater capacity to interconnect solar projects. It also shows how much generation can be added to an area before additional upgrades are necessary. Finally, we’re adding the equipment necessary to ensure that every solar project will seamlessly integrate into the grid. Elbert Walters III: Powering Chicago union electrical apprentices of IBEW Local 134 have been training on a first-of-its-kind renewable energy training facility at the IBEW/NECA Technical Institute in Alsip, Illinois since 2015. Here, union electricians undergo a five-year apprenticeship with classroom and on-the-job training to achieve the level of experience needed to handle the most complex
renewable energy jobs. Over 8,000 hours of electrical training is required to complete the program and apprentices learn about wind and solar power, battery storage and electric vehicle charger installations, and more. With this training, the unionized electrical industry is ready to handle the growing demand for solar and renewable energies. Anna Dirkswager: On July 25, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator approved a $10.3 billion transmission expansion that will allow for dozens of gigawatts of clean energy to be built and connected from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. This investment
Scott Vogt: In northern Illinois, we don’t need as much renewable energy as other regions do to affect
Scott Vogt: Key considerations include size of the project, land requirements, and project location. Large projects tend to be in rural areas where more land is available and generally at lower prices. But when a large renewable project locates in a rural area, the cost to interconnect it may be higher, since the electrical infrastructure may need to be upgraded as it wasn’t designed for this new technology. Per Illinois law, those costs to upgrade are borne by the project itself and will always create challenges when everyone wants a project to be as efficient
— ELBERT WALTERS III
is a critical and long-awaited step to reducing carbon emissions by making thousands of megawatts of renewables accessible to customers across the country. Additionally,
There’s only one utility company that provides resilient, clean and affordable power to some of the biggest companies and industries in the Midwest and more than 9 million people across northern Illinois—ComEd. Let us help lead your business into the future with programs to assist with electric vehicle integration, solar interconnection and access to the latest in clean energy technologies. By delivering unmatched industry reliability fueled by critical investments in grid modernization, we’re here to support your business’s growth.
www.ComEd.com | EconDev@ComEd.com
How much renewable energy do we need to affect climate change?
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“THE UNIONIZED ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY IS READY TO HANDLE THE GROWING DEMAND FOR SOLAR AND RENEWABLE ENERGIES.”
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corporate renewable energy buyers are shaping markets and demonstrating leadership on the global stage through their ambitious renewable energy and sustainability commitments and their ability to shape how renewable energy is procured. These relatively new market entrants play a pivotal role in how the clean energy transition hits the ground.
climate change. We have enough clean energy available through the combination of nuclear, wind, and solar to meet 95% of the demand for energy when customers in northern Illinois consume it, and 100% is achievable. Solar is a plentiful resource during daylight hours, but in the summer, customers use a lot of energy at night to power air conditioners. We need energy storage solutions or other clean energy resources that can be produced on demand to meet customers’ varying energy needs throughout the summer. Elbert Walters III: It’s hard to know exactly how much, but any renewable energy source is a step in the right direction. Whether it’s a solar installation, electric vehicle chargers, or other renewable energy systems, these taken together can help reduce the effects of climate change. Anna Dirkswager: As recent studies from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have indicated, we can reach 90 percent zero-carbon electricity by 2035, but we must plan ahead to avoid land-use conflict. In any scenario, utility-scale on-shore wind and solar are an essential part of the solution. The most optimistic scenarios conclude that we will need to build a total of 1,100 GW of new wind and solar generation by 2035. This equates to about 70 GW of new capacity a year. Thanks to great leaps in technology innovation, this buildout is feasible. What considerations are important when thinking
as possible. ComEd has created a hosting capacity map that developers can utilize that will help them locate areas in our service territory where the existing electrical infrastructure may be more cost effective for them to locate their project. Elbert Walters III: Large-scale renewable deployments can have a large impact on reducing our carbon footprint. To ensure these types of projects are sustainable, it’s important to ensure there are backup power sources available if needed. These could include battery storage components to provide energy overnight or on rainy days, or the ability to tap into a microgrid to use traditional power sources if needed. Other options include backup generators that can power facilities in an emergency until the main power source is restored by working in conjunction with other systems as a fail-safe option. Anna Dirkswager: Substantial expansion of onshore wind and solar generation will require massive areas of land, and early planning is needed to avoid conflict. Princeton University’s Net-Zero America report estimates that in the United States, the renewable energy resources needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 could require a footprint of 228,000 square miles—larger than Wyoming and Colorado combined. Failure to address these conflicts will slow the transition to renewable energy and have significant consequences for the protection of land and water. By including nature in energy planning, smart siting tools like Site Renewables Right
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(nature.org/SiteRenewablesRight), and buying, we can advance a zerocarbon future as rapidly as possible while limiting impacts to natural and agricultural lands. What effect will the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that was passed in Illinois last year have on the solar market? Elbert Walters III: It will help to accelerate it. Thanks to the state’s commitment to 100% clean energy by 2050—with 40% clean energy by 2030—Illinois is set to see solar and other renewable energy components become even more mainstream. With the implementation of the IBEW/NECA Technical Institute’s Renewable Energy Training Field, Powering Chicago members will remain the highest-skilled workforce to complete these projects. Scott Vogt: CEJA will significantly increase the amount of solar in Illinois due to the 270% increase in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) budget and other modifications related to renewable energy. ComEd estimates that we will go from almost 500 MW of solar generation on the system today to 2,700 MWs by 2030, including rooftop and community solar systems. We’ve had 10,000 interconnection applications each year for the past three years and we’ll likely exceed 16,000 this year, and this doesn’t include the utility scale projects which we expect to grow significantly as well. Anna Dirkswager: The enactment of this act encourages the solar market to hit the ground running in Illinois. Through CEJA’s Coal-to-Solar Energy Storage initiative, for example, incentives are offered to companies that install
RECs certify ownership of electricity generated from renewable energy resources, and they are retired on behalf of all customers when they are fed back into the grid—meaning everyone in Illinois benefits. CEJA creates other equitable energy solutions, including increased support for the state’s Solar for All program, which provides incentives that make solar more affordable for income-eligible homeowners and renters. Solar for All will receive $50 million a year to invest in solar facilities in communities in need, enabling income eligible customers to participate in rooftop or community solar. Under our GiveA-Ray program, ComEd has three community solar projects that lowto moderate- income households can participate in for free and realize savings of up to $1,000 annually on their electricity bills for a three-year term. Elbert Walters III: The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act provides grant programs and consumer protections for residents of Illinois so they can install safe and affordable renewable energy components that otherwise may be out of reach. With a network of licensed contractors and a skilled union workforce, Powering Chicago covers every corner of Chicago and Cook County to ensure that those who are interested in installing solar or other renewable energy systems can do so safely and with access to the state’s new available grants.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS ANNA DIRKSWAGER is the Midwest Climate and Energy Director for The Nature Conservancy, one of the most wide-reaching environmental non-profit organizations in the world. Anna works across the Midwest to provide decision makers and business and community leaders with science-based information to inform energy and climate policies that lead to the rapid and equitable transition to renewable energy. She holds a MS from the University of Minnesota in Natural Resource Science Management and a BA in Environmental Biology from Saint Mary’s University.
SCOTT VOGT is the Vice President of Strategy and Energy Policy for ComEd. Vogt joined ComEd in 1998 and has served in a variety of positions there, including Director of Exelon Corporate Planning, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, Vice President of Energy Acquisition, and Vice President of Regulatory Projects. Vogt was also a key contributor to both the Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act and Future Energy Jobs Act.
ELBERT WALTERS III is the executive director of Powering Chicago, an electrical industry labormanagement partnership between IBEW Local 134 and the Electrical Contractors’ Association of City of Chicago that invests in consistently better construction, careers and communities within the metro Chicago region. A former business representative for IBEW Local 134 and a longtime member of the union, Walters leads Powering Chicago’s 100+ philanthropic and community impact initiatives each year and plays a key role in its daily operations.
customers to learn about federal and state solar energy incentives, which can reduce the cost of a $21,000 rooftop solar installation to about $6,300. For commercial
and industrial customers, ComEd offers a Distributed Generation (DG) Rebate of $250 per kilowatt of installed solar energy, which helps offset the out-of-pocket costs
of installing a qualified renewable energy generating system. In the past four years, ComEd has provided DG rebates totaling $91.5 million.
Anna Dirkswager: Programs like Illinois’ Solar for All ensures that renewables are deployed in historically underserved communities and that the immediate benefits renewables can provide, such as lower utility bills, improved financial security, and better air quality, are delivered
“ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE ELECTRICITY SHOULD BE UNIVERSAL, AND EQUITY MUST BE CENTERED IN THE TOOLS WE USE TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE.” —ANNA DIRKSWAGER energy storage facilities at the sites of former coal plants. This supports a clean and reliable electrical grid, but also provides economic benefits to local communities. Another key component of the market is smart siting of renewables, since up to 75% of the nation’s new large renewable energy projects will occur in the central U.S. How can we ensure that the benefits of solar energy are shared equitably with communities that have the greatest need? Scott Vogt: ComEd buys renewable energy credits (RECs) from solar facilities across the state.
to these communities. Access to affordable electricity should be universal, and equity must be centered in the tools we use to address climate change. How can businesses and residents learn if solar energy is right for them? What would you say to businesses and residents who think solar energy is too expensive? Scott Vogt: Residential and business customers can visit comed. com/smartenergy, where they’ll find easy-to-use solar resources and can connect with our Green Power Connection team. We encourage
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