Student Report: Community Energy in an Ever-Changing Landscape

On October 31, 2019, the Dartmouth Energy Collaborative (DEC) hosted a lunchtime panel of speakers that included Hanover, NH's town manager and co-chairs of the Sustainable Hanover committee. Having just come back from lobbying in D.C. with the Sierra Club, Town Manager Julia Griffin talked about what Hanover was doing to create a greener town and country in terms of energy.  

According to Griffin, momentum for clean energy has increased at an exciting rate. 1 in 5 Americans have signed on to transitioning their county or city to 100% clean energy. Hanover made this committment two years ago. Energy consumption in Hanover has also decreased steadily since 2013, mostly because of the College's efforts to decrease energy consumption on campus, and solar energy usage has grown. This growth is partially because of green energy rebates. 

The Irving Institute has worked with Sustainable Hanover by providing seed grant funding for the Community Energy Dashboard, a project led by April Salas (executive director of the Revers Center for Energy at Tuck). The funding enable project team members to do a deep dive into energy usage data from the town's utitilities provider. While this information about energy consumption is key for the town to make economically informed decisions about, for example, purchasing municipal electricity on wholesale markets or purchasing green power as a way to gain leverage in the market or for individuals to gain credit, it is not currently simple or easy to access the data. 

Throughout the talk, Griffin spoke about the stakeholders in these conversations, specifically those who also oppose using more renewable energy. She identified a few challenges: lack of GOP support in NH, lack of the state governor's support, lack of utility support, and lack of federal support. Griffin, as well as Salas, was very open about the current energy climate of New Hampshire and presented a lot of ways to get involved as community members, not excluding students at the College who are also stakeholders in Hanover who can make an impact.
 

Jennifer Chen '23 is a 2019-20 Irving Institute communications intern.