Mryia Williams - $300M Funding Solar for All

[00:00:00] Adam: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire.

[00:00:22] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact of the job or community and did something about it.

[00:00:31] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:40] Adam: So whether you're turning in during a visit to the gym or joining us during your daily commute, today, Dominique and I are joined by Mryia Williams. She's the Ohio Program Associate for Solar United Neighbors and the Executive Director of Drive Electric Columbus.

In our last episode, we really dove into both of these organizations at a high level, talking about why co-op can help you find a good solar installer and answer a lot of your questions and use that power of your community to make good decisions. And then the work around Drive Electric of really giving a place for people to come that has no pressure, where you can learn about electric vehicles and everything, whether you own one or you've just heard about it and you want to learn more. So, welcome on the podcast.

[00:01:21] Myria: Well, thanks for having me back, guys.

[00:01:22] Dominique: Yeah. Today we're gonna dive into Mryia's Green Champion story, talking about how Solar United Neighbors has gathered a lot of funding support and we wanna share the news about net metering in Ohio. 

So can you first tell us about what's this funding news with SUN?

[00:01:38] Myria: So we're part of something a national outreach effort to help put solar onto low income homes. The program is called Solar for All and we're one of the like letters of support that's signed onto two different applications here in the State of Ohio. One is through the OAQDA that's the Ohio Air Quality. I always wanna say defense authority, but it's not defense. But the OAQDA is on the first application and they received $156 million that'll be spread out across the state to help put in low income solar installations on rooftops as well as what's called community solar arrays.

So that's whenever like a school or a church or just a neighborhood park might have solar over top of their parking lot or on their facility, and they would share those energy benefits out to the community so that people who don't have their own rooftop can benefit from that as well as people who maybe just don't have the funding available usually to have solar of their own.

[00:02:34] Adam: So, a 156 million dollars? 

[00:02:37] Myria: And that's on the one application.

[00:02:39] Adam: Wow. How many houses does that equate to? Like, what's the size of that impact?

[00:02:43] Myria: It's a lot. I don't remember what we broke it down to 'cause there's those community arrays that are usually around a million a piece to put those in 'cause that's usually a megawatt power or so. As well as the ones that are one individual rooftops, which cost right around 12,000 each depending on, you know, what the size of those are, so. It's a lot of houses and so it'll be a lot of people impacted. It'll be even more people impacted than it is houses because of those community arrays and the ability to share it. And then we're also on the industrial heartland application which was put in by a whole group of organizations led up by GrowthOps out of Cleveland. And that is another $156 million that'll be coming in across 8 states and 31 cities of which you know, we've got several major players here in Ohio.

[00:03:27] Adam: Wow. Wait, so over 300 million?

[00:03:29] Myria: Yeah, and just those two applications, it awarded a little over $7 billion total across the 50 states that they're supporting with it. So it was a national program through the DOE, the Department of Energy, as well as the EPA, your Environmental Protection Agency. So they both put that stuff together. And then they awarded it on Earth Day, this year. Yeah. We've got about a year to everybody gear up, get ready, get the education out there, tell people how to like be able to receive these types of systems and get our plans all together, and be ready to go with it. So we'll have like a little under four years then to install everything. So we're coming at it.

[00:04:09] Adam: Very cool. Now, just a question from a newbie here, is this related to the Inflation Reduction Act at all?

[00:04:15] Myria: Yes. 

Yeah. 

[00:04:16] Adam: How so? 

[00:04:17] Myria: So Solar for All fell directly from the Inflation Reduction Act. So it's just a part of the solar outreach. One of the biggest parts that we see that plays against people being able to go solar is the initial cost of that investment. And then the second part of it is that they can't receive that tax credit back.

You know, you and I both, probably with our incomes and our jobs can get back that tax liability, that 30% federal tax credit that's available on our solar, but somebody who is below the federal poverty line is not going to be able to get that back. If they were to scrape it together and purchase a system, then they're not getting back any of that tax credit on a $12,000 system. That's a $3,600 tax benefit that they're just having to not get. 

And that, that's a huge barrier and so this program was set up with that stuff in mind. It looks at the census tracks, it looks where our highest energy burdens are. For some of us, in my house, even if I didn't have solar on my own house and my energy bills came in, I'm looking at maybe 2 or 3% of my annual income goes back out for like an energy bill, and in some of these houses it's up to 30%.

We have several communities here and the greater Columbus area that sit at 16, 17, 18% all the time. That's a big portion of your paycheck to go out just in energy bills. and so it's going to look at where those communities are and where those people are, and we're going to meet them where they are instead of expecting them to be able to come to us and help them to be able to have those same resources that we have the capability of finding on our own.

[00:05:52] Dominique: Okay. 

So what is this exciting news with net metering?

[00:05:55] Myria: So net metering, we'll break it down starting with what is net metering. So net energy metering is whenever I'm making solar right now on my roof, and since there are no cars plugged into my house and my system is set up to be able to charge those cars as well as run the house.

I'm making way more energy than my house is using. And so right now my house is pouring that energy out to the grid and net metering is whenever a EP in my case, gives me a one-to-one credit back for that energy. So for every 1 kWH of energy I provide to the grid for use somewhere else, then I get one credit back to use later.

So overnight or on a stormy day, I have credits ahead on my energy bill. And so, my bill is offsetting itself even whenever I'm not producing my own energy that I have other credits available. So net metering is not available everywhere and here in Ohio, the PUCO, so your Public Utilities Commission of Ohio decides that the IOUs, your big investor owned utilities, so AEP, AES, Duke, First Energy, they all have to have net metering. 

They all had set rules that they could go by, but then your municipal electric companies and your rural electric cooperatives, it's like the wild west, um, out there. So they get to decide their own rules. Some of them have it, some of them don't. Some of them have a little better than one-to-one credit ratios 'cause they see the benefit of not having to purchase energy from the big energy markets and having it locally produced and not having it coming across those transmission lines. And then other ones are like, we're only gonna give you like this tiny portion of what your credit is worth.

So here in Columbus, the city council last month voted through to have net metering. They did not have it for our public utilities. And so now people who are on Columbus public power um, and use that public utility, have that same benefit available that their neighbors that use a EP did, you know all along, which is really great. 

That's 18,000 more customers that now have access to having credits for their energy. 

[00:08:01] Dominique: That's huge. 

[00:08:02] Myria: Yeah. And we had seen that there were only six houses that had solar within that 18,000 customers, and a big portion of that is because they weren't going to receive credits, what good does it do me? 

If I make extra, I'm not getting any benefit. I don't wanna donate power to the electric company. They obviously have resources of their own, they don't need mine. And so people just weren't putting in solar. And so, we want to encourage that. We want to see more of that. And, you know, Columbus has a great climate action plan in place and they're seeing that by encouraging solar on rooftops, just by giving people what they deserve that credit for what they're giving the power company, that they're going to have a better means to which to meet their climate goals.

[00:08:44] Adam: It seems like such a common sense thing. Why doesn't that exist everywhere?

[00:08:48] Myria: That's a great question I'm going to go with, because monopoly utilities like to Monopoly, you know, they want to own all of the market. They don't want somebody else to own even that tiny portion that only services their own roof that they, you know, they're very profit driven. Let's be completely honest there.

[00:09:05] Adam: So, got it. 

[00:09:06] Dominique: Is just the access to net metering, the issue, like passing it is the big hurdle 'cause you had to explain it. Most people don't know what this is. How do we not only make it an accessible tool, but so something people actually understand how to use and take advantage of?

[00:09:20] Myria: Well, the how to use and how to take advantage of is all about education. In the case of Columbus' City Council that started top down, that we have to talk to the city councils, you know, or we have to talk to the public utilities. We're very fortunate here that our public utilities and our sustainability are within like the same building. They have a lot of overlap with each other, and they both know the importance of the other side of that.

Our sustainability folks are like, "Hey, local energy generation is where it is. Let's not worry about those high power transmission lines coming in from outta state and let's get our energy produced here and made for the people here and made by the people here." And so they seen the importance of that. And then the utilities people are like, "Yeah, we're on board with that. You know, we've got a green energy policy, we've got a plan for this." 

So this passed recently, what is the progress so far? Where is the net metering journey at right now?

 So it's just starting here in Columbus. We've got a co-op open right now through Solar United Neighbors, or SUN as we affectionately call ourselves. And the city of Columbus, along with some other regional partners. So that'll begin the education because, you know, it's not like there's a way that just because policy passes, I'm sure they passed some more things this week. I have no idea what those are. I don't think most people tune in with a very interested ear to every city council meeting, you know, where they might be passing something that does affect you.

And so it's, it's all about getting that news out that, "Hey, this policy changed, the utilities division was going to reach out to each of those six solar homeowners and let them know that now your bill can be impacted, that you can be earning credits back. So if you previously were either storing all of your energy or just dumping it into the ground so that we weren't getting it, you know, maybe make a transition so that you can earn those credits." So if you were letting us have it as a donation, guess what? Now we're going to be paying you for it. 

So they we're gonna let those six homeowners know. And then we've got a low income program sponsored by the city of Columbus. They're paying for solar to go in on 17 homes, um, in the original program. And then they added six more. So 23 total, but 

those six more that they added are going to specifically be within Columbus public 

power's, service territory. So we'll end up with at least 12 homes that will be solarized by the end of the year here in Columbus, and whenever, you know, you drive by and you see solar on your neighbor's house and you start asking questions. So hopefully, you know, as more people see it, then more people ask about it.

[00:11:49] Adam: I love it. And just for comparison, what's the scale of how many customers have gotten solar through the, solar United Neighbors Co-op that you're part of? And do you know nationally on a national level as well? 

[00:12:00] Myria: You know, I should have looked up numbers before I popped on here. Um, so I know that we've had like 500 programs nationwide. So these like co-op kind of programs and each one of those has a number of people through, some of them are small programs whenever we had one, like the Toledo area, it was a little bit smaller. It was under 50 people participated. But you know, here in Columbus we frequently have 250 plus people in and out of programs and anywhere between 15 and 25% of those folks will adopt solar through getting that education which is all free. We don't have any costs involved with our program.

There's no obligation to go solar through the program. It's just all education that we're offering to people. I think that we're up to like a hundred folks have went solar through our programs here in the central Ohio area, if I remember correctly, and like 1500-ish that have been through the education at different points with it, been touched by it. And then there's a whole bunch more that see us out at events 'cause we are out tabling all the time. We are out doing things and that maybe we didn't get them through the full program to get into that count.

[00:13:05] Dominique: And I imagine often those people are representing a house which might house more people, so I think that feels easy to multiply that number by like a three or four.

[00:13:15] Myria: Yeah 'cause I know, like my husband and I's record in, in SUN's computer, it shows one household you know, and there's at least two of us, plus our daughter, well she's got her own place now, but you know, she, she was in and out of there too. And so that's three people that were touched by this one you know, co-op participation in their opinion. 

[00:13:32] Dominique: That's just amazing to think about the impact of the way you're kind of demystifying this idea of solar. 

[00:13:37] Myria: And we've seen nationally, there's all kinds of studies and stuff out there about, once there's a home in the neighborhood that either has an EV in the driveway or solar on the rooftop, that there's other people start doing that. That 'Keeping up with the Joneses' is a real effect, that people are like, well, it's definitely for my neighborhood. There's 'my neighbor has it, I can have it too', you know? Or 'Ooh, they've got this, I wanna ask questions about it.' And so then it just, it starts growing.

[00:14:03] Dominique: When thinking about incentives in the state level, I know we want all states to see solar as an accessible option, but what are the best states right now from an incentive standpoint to go solar?

[00:14:13] Myria: Probably anything along your coast is what we usually see for both EVs and for solar because a lot of times they'll have additional incentives available in those places. All the things that we typically think about your Californias and your Oregons, and then over, New York and stuff. But Colorado also has some really good programming available for things.

[00:14:33] Adam: I have some questions just on Drive Electric, if we can shift gears a little bit. 

[00:14:37] Myria: Yeah. 

[00:14:38] Adam: Because Drive Electric is all about educating people about electric vehicles, and you mentioned this thing at the end of the last podcast around range anxiety and you drive a lot.

[00:14:49] Myria: I drive a lot. 

[00:14:50] Adam: You said you sometimes drive a thousand miles in a week. So you are all over talking to people all throughout Ohio. How does that work with an electric vehicle? 

[00:15:00] Myria: Yeah. So in my case, at 7 years into this, I just get in and drive, unless I'm getting more than three, four, 500 miles from home, I pretty much know exactly what my plan is for charging. So, you know, unless I'm diving into some new path that I haven't been on before. I'm like, next month, whenever I'm going deep into West Virginia, nearly to Maryland through the state, then that's not a path I normally take. So I'll look up charging ahead of time, but otherwise I just get in and drive. 

I take an email break as I call them. So I sit there and email usually while I am waiting on my car to charge. It takes 20 or 30 minutes for me to catch enough fill up to be able to make it to Cleveland and back to Columbus that I just have to have that little, like pick me up for my car. But a lot of people choose to go grab a drink and stuff, but range anxiety is whenever you're newer to it. so we would look on like PlugShare, it's an app. It kind of referred to as like the Google maps of charging. So it's brand agnostic and it's all like entered by people. So you can go on there and rate the chargers, you can tell them, you know, how you found it. They have reliability scores on there and it shows just every one of them. So if you open it up to Columbus, it's like this whole just pins everywhere. There's 1200 plus public charging outlets, you know, here in Columbus. You're just gonna see pins everywhere. But if you scroll out and you're aimed into West Virginia, you know, they get a little bit more spaced out, but you quickly realize that they're no more than a hundred, 150 miles between them and any of your longer range vehicles can make that jump easily. 

And then you're just gonna stop, catch a drink, catch a coffee, try out a new shop/ Wander around and see the dog park if you've got your pet along with you or whatever and hop back in your car that it's gonna be ready usually before I am, is the way I always put it.

[00:16:46] Adam: That was a very selfish question because we've been talking about electric vehicles in our household, and that's one question that keeps coming up. 

[00:16:52] Myria: you're always welcome out to any of our events, you know. I've had four different electric cars through my household alone. We can give you the lowdown on what we've liked and not liked about any of them. You know, I'm not trying to sell or dissuade anybody from any one of those vehicles. So we tend to be pretty brand agnostic whenever you're out at our events and you're gonna get an unbiased review. 

[00:17:13] Adam: 

[00:17:13] Dominique: Are you convinced, Adam?

[00:17:14] Adam: Well I've been in my, you know, the whole journey of like, "Well, yeah, we can get solar for a house and we can get our electric vehicle and all that". 

See? 

[00:17:23] Myria: They pair together. 

[00:17:24] Dominique: Is the best way to stay plugged in on stuff like that and what you're up to and where you're gonna be talking about things is through your website and newsletters and stuff like that?

[00:17:31] Myria: Absolutely. So solarunitedneighbors.org. And then if you're in the Central Ohio area, it's solarunitedneighbors.org/columbus. There's sign up on there that we have newsletters available through this state of Ohio for Solar United Neighbors, for SUN. 

You'll be kept up to date on legislation, on different things that are happening, you know, different gatherings that we're having in different areas. And then if you visit driveelectriccolumbus.com, we also have that there's a newsletter registration page. We send out newsletters usually about twice a month, one that's bigger and we call it, our Plugged-in Newsletter. And it has like a little bit of everything in it. 

And then our other one's the Quick Charge, and it's just like an event reminder type of little blurb or if the State House decides to do something usually silly, we'll go as silly as our choice of word today. But, you know, usually they've got some policy that they're up for that we've gotta get like a quick action alert out and we send those out in those quick charges. So little bite-sized morsels. 

[00:18:31] Adam: I think you're clearly a very amazing advocate when it comes to solar and EVs. I mean, you find a really, I think, energizing way to be able to talk about these things and to share the information people need in an accessible way. Do you have any advice for people who are advocates in their own state or their own community and they want to be a strong advocate for these initiatives? Do you have advice for someone that maybe is having a tough time like communicating with these topics or, you know, getting the buy-in from their community?

[00:19:00] Myria: So knowing your community is part of it. In my case, I think the majority of people that I speak to are usually very entry level, just like me and they want to hear from people like them. They don't want to hear from somebody who's, you know, this industry expert who is going to use all those big spicy words that they're not going to necessarily understand or be able to use.

And they want people that are gonna break it down and make it apply to everyday living. We're not trying to convert the full energy system all at once. We're trying to do it on a house by house, on a person by person basis. And to do that, you have to meet people where they are, and be able to talk to them where they are and on what level they are.

You know, we've got our engineers on both sets of those teams that'll break it down in ways that I'm never going to comprehend. And then we've got, you know, the everyday people that like me that are just like, "It's a car, it runs on a different type of fuel and let me tell you about it." Or "It's a solar panel, it goes on my roof and then I don't think about it but magically my electric bills got lower." It's this unique experience. We're gonna talk to you the way you need to be talked to.

Fantastic. Yeah. I mean, we began this chat talking about how much funding you've gotten, which is just truly incredible. It's a lot of money. And I'm just so happy that you have that huge kind of push behind you to make this expand in such a great way. 

[00:20:19] Dominique: I'm wondering what is the gap you still see where there's need in the area? So like, you have an amazing amount of funding. You're so passionate about solar and electric. There's so many cars and so many homes in this country. What do you really think is the, what it would take to see things change the way that you envision it?

[00:20:36] Myria: Well, that's a great question. It's a very big question too. So for solar, I would say that, you know, we've got this new Solar for All, the low income programs coming in. And then there's the people like myself that can afford it on our own. But there's still going to be a very middle ground group of people. Those middle income folks that they're making it, but barely and having a big expenditure is not something within their, you know, budget. And so getting to solar on their rooftop is going to still be difficult for them that they don't have enough disposable income to start off with having it. And they don't quite qualify for those low income programs and they're really grateful that they don't qualify, but at the same time, it's still going to create that barrier for them. 

So we, we have a group of folks like that, and then we have a group of folks who they've seen those 'Solar is Free!' ads on Facebook and it's turned 'em off. They know that that's false. They know that they're being lied to and they don't wanna explore it any further because now in their opinion, every single person that's talking about solar is about to feed them some line. Um, and so then we're trying to bridge that gap and show them that not all of us are like that. 

For the EVs we have some similar barriers. We're just starting to see the used market really start to grow 'cause that first and second generations of vehicles are starting to leave people's hands where they either had them on leases for their first vehicle, or they, owned it, loved it, and now they're ready to branch up and get something new. And so used vehicles are a big entry for a lot of folks, 

And the longer range vehicles is another part of it because like I mentioned, my first car Nissan Leaf had a hundred miles range. There are people that just would not work for. My husband with an 11 mile commute each day, It was absolutely perfect for him. He could drive nearly the whole week without having to charge it. It's not a bad jumping off point, but those factors, until those vehicles started hitting that kind of range, and until we start seeing them saturate the used market, we have some barriers there with those still so.

[00:22:35] Adam: Where do people find you on the web? 

[00:22:36] Myria: So for Solar United Neighbors, they go to solarunitedneighbors.org. They'll find all of our national resources there. We have members in all 50 states, 

we have a help desk that you can find on solarunitedneighbors.org, where for free, one of our experts will sit with you for 15 or 30 minutes, look over those proposals that you got and help you see what the differences are and which one is maybe a better deal for your house, what applicable things that you want to watch for in those proposals from each of those people. And that doesn't cost you anything, you know. It's just a resource we have available. 

And then for Drive Electric Columbus, or at driveelectriccolumbus.com, there are other groups around the state. So if you're listening from somewhere else in Ohio, you know, just plug in Drive Electric, and then your city on like your favorite browser and somebody is likely to pop up near you. And if you're from out of state, there's groups in, I think all 50 states now for electric vehicle support.

[00:23:32] Adam: Well, today was fantastic. Thank you for chatting with us. We got to hear about this amazing influx of funding that you have with SUN. Talked about what net metering is and how people should be taking advantage of it, and just the power of making the information about solar and EVs accessible to folks so they understand how to take advantage of it, how it applies to them, how to leverage some tools to figure out what suits them the best and make decisions. And I'm just very grateful you're doing this work. So thank you, Mryia.

[00:23:56] Myria: Well, thank you. Glad to share it with everybody.

[00:23:58] Dominique: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:24:11] Adam: If you know a Green champion, that should be our next guest. Email us at thegreenchampions@gmail.com You can find our show notes at thegreenchampions.com and our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll dig into another sustainability success story in our next episode. 

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