Podcasts from and about the ILSR staff and directors.
New Hampshire, home to some of the highest utility costs in the nation, could be fertile ground for community energy projects that promote lower-cost, renewable generation — especially after investors in one shared solar array pioneered a strategy to promote greater local ownership. Regulatory and legal roadblocks forced solar advocates in Keene to develop a comprehensive … Read More
This week in Building Local Power, we are focusing on what makes and breaks markets – market power, monopoly, and antitrust. As we discuss with noted antitrust Silicon Valley lawyer Gary Reback, markets require intelligent intervention to prevent power from becoming too consolidated. Let’s be blunt – if you are happy with the Internet access choices … Read More
Welcome to episode seventeen of the Building Local Power podcast. In this episode, Andrew Gillum, Mayor of Tallahassee, Florida and founder of the advocacy group, Campaign to Defend Local Solutions joins Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Network’s initiative and Nick Stumo-Langer, ILSR’s Communications Manager for the latest episode of the Building Local Power podcast. The trio go … Read More
In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Hannah Trostle and Karlee Weinmann, Research Associates for the Community Broadband Networks and Energy Democracy initiatives, respectively. The three discuss the cooperative model of ownership and how this model can enable investment in gigabit Internet connections for their member-owners, but also how they are subject to a low participation rates in their elections.… Read More
In this episode, John Farrell, the director of ILSR’s Energy Democracy initiative, interviews Christopher Mitchell (our usual podcast host) and Lisa Gonzalez of our Community Broadband Networks initiative. The three discuss the power of municipal broadband networks, how the power held in cities is integral to these projects, and the barriers put in place by cable monopolies to prevent these networks.… Read More
In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews a roundtable of ILSR staff members. Participants are: Olivia LaVecchia of the Community-Scaled Economies initiative, Karlee Weinmann of the Energy Democracy initiative, and Nick Stumo-Langer, ILSR’s Communication Manager.… Read More
“We just need to become the Ben and Jerry’s of the utility world!” So said Mary Powell (pictured left), CEO and president of Green Mountain Power, as she announced in 2014 that her electric utility had just earned B Corp certification, making it one of more than 1,700 companies in the world committed to rigorous standards … Read More
Incentives designed to make rooftop solar feasible for a wider range of consumers are under attack nationwide, threatening new solar development as well as the consumers that already have rooftop panels. The staunchest opponents? Utilities who say, despite a growing body of research to the contrary, that rooftop solar hurts other ratepayers and their bottom lines. … Read More
A surge of interest in residential solar arrays threatens traditional utilities’ outdated business model of selling more and more electricity, prompting them to adopt a controversial fee that hurts efficiency and diminishes long-range cost savings — even for themselves. Mandatory fixed fees on utility bills force consumers to pay up no matter how much, or how … Read More
