Digital Solutions for Securing Community Acceptance of Wind Energy – With Will Eberle of E.ON North America

This article was updated in June 2022 to reflect new developments in the industry.

The Importance of Public Affairs in the Micromobility Industry

Micromobility (MM) risks the fate of other disruptive industries that underinvested in public affairs — and were wiped out by politicians as a result. The gaps in other sectors’ missteps have included: ineffective campaigns at the local level, lack of supportive coalitions, staff without government experience, and not showing officials how supporting micromobility is politically safe and beneficial. Among the approaches micromobility should consider: consistently using social media to flag riders on pending policy decisions that affect them, driving calls to action using segmented data, and engaging riders in taking “microactivism” steps from their phones.

We describe our podcast as “Scaling Clean, the podcast for clean economy CEOs, investors and the people who advise them.” Ken Locklin is the first we’ve had on the show from the last category. And there’s a reason for that: Ken is the cleantech oracle you probably haven’t heard of because he has the enviable combination of foresight and humility.  

Abby Hopper is in her 5th year as the head of the Solar Energy Industries Association, the U.S.’s main solar trade association widely known as “SEIA.” She’s SEIA’s third CEO, taking over the reins right when the avowedly anti-renewables Trump Administration took power in 2016.  

While we were at #CLEANPOWER22 last week, American Clean Power Association (ACP) released their 2021 Market Report. This one is interactive, with some interesting graphics – I encourage you to check it out. 
 
My major takeaway from this report is the imperative role renewable projects play in raising community revenue. "Land lease payments serve as a drought-proof cash crop that provides a stable income for American farmers, ranchers and private landowners. The tax revenue that clean energy projects bring to communities means new income to repair roads, invest in schools and fund essential services."  
 
As we saw in our survey with Embold Research, the benefits of these renewables plants are vastly under communicated to the rural, often conservative counties that host them.  
  
A few other interesting takeaways: 

Cleantechers, some of you might remember that last December, we released interesting numbers from bellwether Huron County, MI.

Groundbreaking polling methods were used to assess community attitudes toward renewables - and what it took to move them in a positive direction.

Since then, Tyler Duvelius, Robin Pressman and I have conducted an iterative road show to socialize the findings.

But when we talked with Tim Montague, we expanded the perspectives presented to include solar developer Jon Carson.

The results were some useful insights for renewable power developers. All of them face tougher community acceptance landscapes, one of the few ways that the costs of renewables are going up.

So far on our podcast, we’ve interviewed cleantech leaders that are in a later stage of their careers. We figured that wisdom comes from a combination of gray hair and track record.  

We’re honored to be named among The Manifest’s most recommended B2B leaders in D.C. For 17 years, we’ve served some of the top clean economy companies who are scaling a more sustainable U.S. economy.  

Here’s to 17 more years.

We're up with our third episode of Scaling Clean, where I spoke with former CEO of Hemlock Semiconductor, Mark Bassett. During his impressive tenure, Mark saw sales surge even in the face of the COVID recession. He’s worked most of his career in heavy, mature industries, including 11 years rising through the ranks of Dow Chemical.