Will Governor Youngkin’s energy plan look like what the law requires?

What happens when state law requires an anti-clean energy governor to come up with a plan for a carbon-free energy economy? We are about to find out.

Virginia gives a new governor until October 1 of his first year in office to write a plan “identify actions over a 10-year period in accordance with the Commonwealth Clean Energy Policy objective set out in § 45.2-1706.1 achieve, by 2045 at the latest, a net-zero carbon energy economy for all sectors, including electricity, transport, construction, agriculture and industry.

Yet Glenn Youngkin is hardly a likely source of action to tackle the climate crisis. During the campaign, he pretended he didn’t know causing climate change. He condemned the Virginia Clean Economy Act, the law providing for our transition to 100% clean electricity. He hired as a senior adviser Andrew Wheeler, the guy President Trump assigned to the US Environmental Protection Agency to undermine environmental laws. He continues to try to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, either legally or (as it appears now) illegally.

So if he doesn’t like Virginia’s current legal framework for energy transition, does he have any better ideas?

Sound August 19 Press release on the subject suggests not. He quotes him as saying, “Our priority is to have a comprehensive energy plan for Virginia that considers all energy sources, provides transparent, data-driven cost information to Virginians, and is an ‘all-in’ approach. what precedes “.

The press release goes on to state, “The goals of the energy plan will focus on reducing the cost of living, creating jobs and moving people to Virginia. Affordability, reliability, capacity, competition, environmental stewardship, choice and innovation are the seven guiding principles that will guide Governor Youngkin’s “all of the above” approach. »

Those are all nice words, but not mentioning carbon reduction is a glaring omission. Worse still, “all of the above” is usually coded language to support fossil fuels, as Youngkin suggests. statement during the campaign that “we must preserve our clean natural gas”. (“Clean natural gas” comes so easily out of conservative language that it almost sounds like a truth instead of a oxymoron.)

If the energy plan fails to meet the statutory directive, Youngkin’s loyalty to the gas industry will likely be the reason. It is a problem. The Commonwealth Clean Energy Policy makes it clear that the role of the energy plan is to guide the transition to a net zero economy in which fossil fuels have little or no place. But as the RGGI fight shows, Youngkin isn’t the kind of guy who lets a law rule him.

Still, the governor has good people at the Virginia Department of Energy work on the plan, and even though they started very late, they got a lot of feedback from the public and stakeholder groups. The ideas are there if the governor chooses to be forward thinking.

And indeed, Youngkin’s “seven guiding principles” — affordability, reliability, capacity, competition, environmental stewardship, choice, and innovation — could as easily support a strategy focused on renewables as one that clings to combustibles. fossils.

Affordability? Utility bills are skyrocketing due to our overreliance on fossil fuels; the remedy is to add more wind and solar energy at stable prices. Reliability? You’ll remember the Texas power outages in the winter of 2021 when natural gas wells have frozen but the solar worked as expected. Capacity, competition, environmental stewardship, choice and innovation? These principles not only support increased investment in renewable energy, but also the rest of the agenda set for the plan in the Commonwealth Clean Energy Policy.

With the Federal Inflation Reduction Act, renewable energy even more affordable for utilities and residents, a good energy plan would require earlier fossil fuel retirements, an enhanced renewable portfolio standard, rooftop solar power on all new schools and other public buildings, and opportunities for Affordable community solar power in each utility territory. The federal incentives will also support a focus on building solar and wind facilities in low-income areas and in areas of southwestern Virginia where coal employment has declined steadily for more than two decades. .

Indeed, there will now be so many clean energy incentives that the Virginia Department of Energy could do a great public service by developing a one-stop-shop website for residents, businesses and local governments to understand what incentives exist, who is eligible, how to access them, and how to find reputable companies to work with.

Can Southwest Virginia Become a Lab for Renewable Energy?

Virginia should also help residents save energy and money by closing loopholes in our residential building code that make Virginia homes less efficient and less well insulated than the national standard. The code updates should also help buyers by requiring new homes to be wired to accommodate solar and electric vehicles, and either be fully electric or easily converted to fully electric when the homeowner wants to make the switch.

The latter is particularly important because methane is being phased out as a heat source in buildings. Technological innovation has made electric heat pumps, stoves and water heaters more efficient and safer than their gas counterparts. Now they will also be cheaper due to the federal discounts will be available next year.

As a result, consumers will increasingly abandon their gas utilities and builders will not hook up new homes to gas lines. Under the Energy Plan’s 10-year planning framework, gas utilities serving residential and commercial customers will enter the first stage of a death spiral. Rather than fight the inevitable, Virginia must help gas utilities develop realistic plans to wind down operations in a way that doesn’t leave local governments and taxpayers… especially those who can afford it the least — pay for crumbling infrastructure and clean up the mess of the gas industry.

This leaves a role for methane only in certain industrial processes, where technological innovation will eventually render – but has not yet rendered – the gas obsolete. Yet this customer base is too small to support existing gas transmission infrastructure, let alone new pipelines like the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Again, Virginia should not allow its residents to end up with the bag when those assets are tied up and the owners go bankrupt.

Just as technology will make natural gas obsolete in buildings, so will gasoline for vehicles. This Spring Youngkin bipartisan legislation signed that forces state agencies to buy electric cars instead of gas-powered ones unless a lifetime cost of ownership calculation shows they’re more expensive. Proponents of the bill expect electric vehicles to be the big winners, as their operating costs are up to 44% lower.

What is true for state agencies will also be true for residents, especially as federal rebates make new and used electric vehicles more affordable. Virginia must ensure the widespread availability of electric vehicle charging, especially for residents of multifamily dwellings and areas with only on-street parking.

But cars shouldn’t be anyone’s only transportation choice, or their first choice. The energy plan should prioritize walking, bicycling, electric scooters and public transportation as ways to help residents save money and energy and make Virginia communities more attractive. The electrification of bus fleets across the Commonwealth will also result in cleaner air, especially in cities. Technology can help plan routes to give more residents the opportunity to take a bus, both within communities and between cities.

Youngkin says he wants to bring more people and more jobs to Virginia, and he understands the need to improve vocational training programs better match trainees to employers’ needs. All the more reason to align the energy plan with our ongoing energy transition. Careers in the offshore solar and wind industries are among the fastest growing in the country, and the Cut Inflation Act requires clean energy developers to meet salary and apprenticeship criteria. in force to benefit from the maximum tax credits. As a result, clean energy jobs will provide upward mobility for young people, returning citizens and those changing careers.

Virginia attracted manufacturers and supply chain companies when it committed to building its first offshore wind farm, and Hampton Roads’ role as a manufacturing hub will grow further if we increase our ambitions. for the future development of offshore wind power. New federal incentives for domestic manufacturing of clean energy components give manufacturers a reason to expand into states that want it. For example, Arizona-based First Solar has already announced plans to expand its solar module plant in Ohio and invest $1 billion in a new factory in the Southeast.

Battling the tide of clean energy will bring Virginia nothing but dirty air and a bad reputation. Addressing the energy transition would help Youngkin achieve his goals of creating good jobs, reducing energy costs and attracting people to Virginia.