Voices of 100%: Small Iowa Town Pushes for Energy Independence — Episode 79 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

This podcast is part of our special, Voices of 100% series — where we’re speaking with local leaders to understand what has motivated these ambitious clean energy commitments and how cities plan to meet their goals. In this episode, our host John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, interviews Chris Ball, who serves as the Community Development Director for the City of Bloomfield, Iowa, to learn more about how this small city is taking action.

This is Local Energy Rules. A podcast sharing powerful stories about local, renewable energy.

Or, um, one of the issues that were really struggling with is, uh, the quality of our housing. We have like many rural places, um, an aging housing stock. It’s had a lot of deferred maintenance. If you look at it from an energy use perspective, our homes are really, really inefficient. So poor quality homes and efficient homes and what can we do? So it’s not just about throwing solar on everything and saying, Hey, now we look green, but how can we actually reduce our footprint? How can we make, uh, help our, our residents have homes that are healthier, more comfortable and more energy efficient. So we’re, you know, it’s, it’s, we’re both looking at it from a space perspective and an overall quality perspective.

The Midwest average as far as we can tell, is about 45 and in Bloomfield, our average is closer to 75 and we’ve got about 25% of our homes that are above that 75. And so we know that there’s huge opportunity for those homes to become more efficient with some pretty basic techniques and air sealing and insulation that could really drive down costs just for those, those folks. You know, when you have that huge gap between, and you know, the 45 for the Midwest average doesn’t even come close to what new for standards are for a new built home. So we, we really see that there’s a huge opportunity to provide some pretty quick impact in the city. Has w you know, decided that that’s an investment worth making it, they’ve committed three, well, I say city, but it’s the municipality. We submitted three quarters of $1 million over the next year to doing upgrades to homes that basically do an on bill financing that would help folks become, you know, put different measures in place.

We’ll do an audit of each house, put it, give them a recommended a recipe for how to improve their property. Um, and, uh, you know, we hope that we’re going to see some movement there were not ready to launch that program now, but hopefully within three to four months will be that’ll be in place and then people are heading into the cooling season. We’re going to be in a place where we can do the audits and help them make some improvements to their property. And one of the cool things that we’re doing, um, we’re, we’re looking at a model that, uh, is pay as you save. It’s been used in other communities around the country but not in Iowa yet. Um, but one of the reasons we’re looking at that model because we’re really trying to figure out how to not just hit, um, on our occupied properties, but how can we hit rental properties? We’ve got about 35% of our properties are rentals. Those are some of our most inefficient properties as well.

And there are, you know, a lot of wrangling about privacy with the states regulators about, you know, how aggregated the data has to be before the city can look at it. So it’s, it’s been quite a struggle, a struggle too other than for, of some very large commercial properties get that data. So I think that’s really interesting. Uh, also super interesting that the city is, you know, kind of putting some money in here. I was actually going to ask you, in addition to some other, you know, I’d like to hear about other things that Bloomfield has been doing as well around this energy goal, but was curious with the 750,000 that’s going to be focused on, on bill financing, did that just like come out of the city’s general fund? You, you were, you were kind of trying to clarify, I think where the money was coming from, was it coming from the utility budget? Where, where’s that money coming from? And then it’s being loaned out, right? So it eventually be paid back.

All right. So for example, we recently put in a sore right here. This applies about 10% of our annual energy usage. Um, of course solar peaks throughout the day time and we’re very residentially driven community in terms of energy peak. So we see our peak demands in the morning, in the winter and in the evening, in the summer. But what if we can figure out how to move that house, homing it, heating and cooling to the point, the better aligns with our energy generation. And if we, if our homes are tight and efficient and well insulated, then there’s that opportunity. There’s still of course the whole framework of how do you work with the homeowner to help them operate their homes so that it aligns with our peak production. But you can’t even get to that conversation if the home isn’t titan insulated. You know that conversation came out, how do we, it’s all about how do we look at w w we had, we had two problems. How do we store energy and how do we improve homes, right? Instead of saying, okay, here’s two problems, how can we look at the opportunity that’s being presented to us and saying instead of looking at it just as problems, what’s the solution? So if we can improve homes, improve quality of life, and make it better aligned to when we’re producing energy, then I don’t know. It just seems to make sense.

Do you know any folks we should interview about 100% renewable energy commitments in their community? If so, send us an email at Voicesof100@ilsr.org. That’s voices – of – 1 – 0 – 0 – at ilsr.org. Stay tuned for the rest of this episode after a short message from our Energy Democracy Initiative Director, John Farrell.

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Thanks again for listening, now, back to the program.

We’ve come up with some ideas that we think or are kind of unique, but we haven’t launched the program yet. Um, we’re trying to figure out a way that we can partner with the community action agency and maybe perhaps, uh, use that organization as a way to access folks that have energy needs. Are, you know, are struggling to get their energy bills and that, and if there’s a way that we could, we’re trying to figure out if there’s a way that we put in a small solar ray that would be dedicated to folks that have energy needs for, you know, or trying to figure out how to fill in that gap. It frankly would be cheaper for us at this point to, instead of putting in a small solar array to give energy credits the folks. But what we, we think that the interest on the solar would give us an opportunity to say, okay, if you’re gonna, if you’re going to get access to this energy, we want to have a broader conversation that says, what kind of changes can you make in your home that makes it more efficient?

What kind of changes can you make in your day to day lifestyle that would make, make it easier for you? So, uh, we, we aren’t there yet, but I’m hoping that within the next couple months that we’ll have an outline of how that program could work. And so here’s where it, how you would access the solar energy here. Here’s the, here’s the commitment we’re looking for you for from you to access that energy. Like I said, we’re not, we’re not there yet. It’s still in development. One of the other things we’ve been trying to do is just streamline our solar policies. You know, to make it a little more clear, I guess that doesn’t directly affect, um, low to moderate income. But if you can just lower the barrier to accessing, putting in solar than it just lowers the cost for everybody.

So we think we can actually reduce revenues but increase margins through that type of investment. I mean that’s what our initial numbers show. So, but none of that would even be possible if we didn’t have the utility in the first place. Right. So I really feel for communities that, you know, there are several small towns around us that years ago gave up their utilities and um, I think that hurt them in the long run. Uh, they don’t have the flexibility to be able to have local control. You don’t have the ability to move their resources to where they have needs. So it’s been critical for us to have the local utility in place in order to make these two to even tackle these types of initiatives in the long run.

But to me the biggest concern is that when we move towards electrification here is that for an electric BTU versus a natural gas BTU is about five times the cost. And so we have to be aware of that as we’re working with consumers and saying, okay, when you’re making changes, it’s not just about being, you can’t lie. It would be very difficult for all of these, all of our folks who move straight towards electricity. I guess what I’m trying to say. Uh, we’re very fortunate that I think we’re very fortunate to have that natural gas utility. Um, obviously, uh, it’s not green. So there’s that challenge. Um, we are looking at options to say how could we supplement that the fossil fuel gas with um, uh, renewable gas. That’s a ways down the road, but it is something that we’re at least aware of and trying to figure out how do we factor that into the picture. I was just going to say we’re, one of the things that when you look at the cost of solar or wind over the last decade, it’s amazing how fast the prices dropped compared to fossil fuel electricity, right? But that it’s just not been true in the natural gas side of things yet. So it’s just one of those market factors we keep bumping up against.

And just connecting with that network for me has been inspirational. Uh, it’s amazing how willing people are to share their experiences, share their knowledge and help. Um, so it’s sometimes can be discouraging when you’re in your little microcosm, so make sure you step out and, and get to know folks and, and, and uh, connected outside the community as well. You know, there’s all kinds of technical things that I think you need to look at a contract structures for you to please are a big deal. And so understanding what opportunities you’re, you’re still a contract lets you take on something you need to be aware of. Um, at the same time when you’re looking at renegotiating contracts, um, don’t do the same old way and make sure you involve other people and get different perspectives. Finally, I’d say is that I’ve been involved with this group of utilities.

Some of them are pretty good size. It’s not what for three years for research center. And the first annual meeting that I went to, it was amazing how negative all of both early my perspective at that time, my take on it was that any of those utilities really negative towards renewable energy this year, it started how far we’ve come in just two years. And that these utilities maybe not gleefully embracing renewable energy, but they understood, hey, it’s here. It’s not going away. That market forces are going to keep it here for a long time. So how do we ready our systems? How do we better understand it and recognize and recognize that that will be the energy towards in the future? So, uh, I, I guess my point is things change fast, be aware of those changes, keep looped in and, and be ready to adapt quickly.

To hear from others working to invest in local, clean energy and taking on concentrated power to transform the energy system — such as another Iowa community’s fight to municipalize its electric utility — tune into the more than 75 past episodes of this Local Energy Rules podcast, including those produced as part of our Voices of 100% series.

You can find even more stories and ideas by exploring ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map, which is available at I-L-S-R-dot-org. While you’re on our website, you can also sign up for one of our newsletters and connect with us on social media. We hope you can join us — in two weeks — for a special Independence Day episode of our Voices of 100% and Local Energy Rules podcast to learn about an ongoing campaign to push the city of Philadelphia and surrounding communities in southeastern Pennsylvania, to commit and transition to 100 percent renewable energy.

Until next time, keep your energy local, and thanks for listening.