I want to dive in a little bit here because this comes up a lot in conversations about a hundred percent renewable. So I think it’s no accident.ĭarren I wanted to ask, Mayor Miro mentioned that we’ve got these technical challenges in some ways, and that there was great technical expertise from the electric department. I think with a city owned utility, the directness of, of setting a goal that, you, is at some level political, easier to achieve than probably would have been likely in, some kind of corporate setting where you have to balance that kind of goal maybe more explicitly or in, in different ways against a shareholder profits and whatnot. The other element of it was excellent technical expertise at the Burlington electric department. It was sustained throughout that decade period of time. And in 2014 a decade later, I had the really privileged honor of being the mayor as we completed that journey and purchased a hydroelectric facility that got us over the final, that milestone, that threshold, that political will was essential. The city was only buying approximately 25% renewables at that time. It was a decision back in 2004, first for the city to stop purchasing nuclear energy and to replace it with a goal of getting to one hundred percent renewables. And I say that because you know, I’ve come to think there were really two essential ingredients to reaching the goal. I think it’s not an accident that it was a city with the publicly owned utility that got there first. Well, I think it was maybe possible to do with a different structure, but probably would have been much less likely.
I guess one thing I’m really curious about, because we have so many cities across the country, different sizes, different States, how important was it to reaching that goal that Burlington is served by a city owned utility? And Miro, I was hoping maybe you could take a stab at this. You know, as I mentioned in the introduction, we’ve been interviewing dozens of cities about them making commitments and now pursuing efforts to get to 100% renewable electricity and we’re really excited to talk to folks with the city that already accomplished this goal five years ago.
It’s all part of Local Energy Rules, a biweekly podcast sharing powerful stories about local renewable energy.
Miro weinberger series#
I’m John Farrell, director of the energy democracy initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and this is our special Voices of 100 series focused on local leaders and their pursuit of 100% renewable energy. In this episode I’m joined by Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger and general manager of the city’s electric department, Darren Springer to explain how the city reached this lofty goal back in 2014 and to talk about the city’s recently launched roadmap to expand the achievement to all sectors of the local economy, from transportation to heating buildings. cities committed to one hundred percent renewable energy have achieved this goal, but Burlington, Vermont is one of them. Just setting the goal and getting it out there that that’s a shared goal, as the mayor talks about with political will, is a really powerful tool. We can get where we need to go and save money for communities. Essentially the Burlington net zero energy city roadmap says we can get to a decarbonized society.
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