Back in 2012, when D.C. launched its first program to bring solar to its low-income neighborhoods — concentrated in three of its eight wards — most of the rooftop solar, more than 800 installations, were in the upscale Ward 3.

Today, almost 10 years later, one of those low-income wards, Ward 7, has more solar than Ward 3, said Ted Trabue, managing director of the D.C. Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU), which manages the current iteration of the district’s low-income solar program, now called Solar for All. About 1,000 low-income, single-family homes have rooftop installations, and by year-end, 6,000 low-income residents will be receiving credits on their utility bills from community solar projects, Trabue told the audience at Tuesday’s inaugural D.C. Clean Energy Summit.

The nation’s capital made headlines in 2018 when it set an ambitious renewable energy target: 100% clean power by 2032. The half-day summit, which was both in-person and virtual, provided an overview of the programs, projects, businesses and jobs that the mandate has helped to create so far, as well as the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

DCSEU was established in 2011 specifically to promote energy efficiency and clean power in the district, with 20% of its funds going to projects that benefit low-income residents, a figure recently raised to 30%. An early program it is now looking to expand helps low-income residents replace old fossil fuel-fired heating systems and other appliances with new, more efficient electric ones, Trabue said. To support the district’s new building energy performance standards, the utility also offers a range of training courses for local developers and contractors to expand their skills in green building, energy efficiency and solar.

On the commercial front, New Columbia Solar, a local installer, has grown from the handful of employees who started the company in 2016 to about 100 today, CEO Mike Healy said. The company has developed 25 MW of solar projects in the district, including several Solar for All projects, he said.

Getting D.C., and the U.S., to 100% clean energy will mean accelerating solar deployment and going to “the built environment,” such as roofs and parking structures, Healy said. The district doesn’t “have enough transmission capacity to be able to take power into the [urban] pockets,” he said. “What New Columbia has really tried to focus on is, how do we do that? How do we capture that power that essentially needs to be built in the population center to be able to actually power our city here with solar?”

Volt Energy, a minority-owned solar developer, has expanded its business with a focus on “making sure that young people, and particularly young people of color, are thinking about clean energy as a career path,” co-founder and CEO Gilbert Campbell said. One of the company’s early projects was a 227-kW installation at a D.C. charter school, coupled with a STEM awareness program for students.

Volt is also developing a project with Howard University — Campbell’s alma mater — that he said, will be one of the largest at a historically black college or university. Though not in D.C., a new spinoff, Volt Energy Utility, inked an “environmental justice power purchase” agreement with Microsoft in July to develop 250 MW of solar, with part of the revenue from the project going to fund renewable energy projects in inner city and other disadvantaged communities, Campbell said.

The SREC Paradox

Looking ahead, what was less clear at the summit was exactly how D.C. will get to 100% clean energy in the coming decade. The district’s mandate requires its retail electricity suppliers to increase the amount of clean power they provide by 6.25% a year through 2032, starting from 20% in 2020. The mandate also has a solar carveout, calling for at least 5% of the district’s power to come from solar projects built in the city by 2032, rising to 10% in 2041.

The catch is that the economics of D.C.’s solar market, and the Solar for All program itself, are rooted in a very competitive market for solar renewable energy credits (SRECs), which the majority of the district’s 47 retail electricity providers buy to satisfy their annual clean energy requirements. The current price for D.C.’s SRECs, as listed on the SRECTrade website, is $392, and according to a recent report from the D.C. Public Service Commission, most of the retail suppliers in 2020 bought and submitted close to 2 million SRECs to avoid paying further compliance fees.

Further, PEPCO, the district’s major power supplier, still produces close to 60% of its power from coal and natural gas versus 6% for renewables, with nuclear at about 34%, according to its most recent report on its generation mix. Speaking on a panel on electrification and equity, Calvin Butler, CEO of Exelon Utilities (NASDAQ:EXC), PEPCO’s parent company, focused primarily on the utility’s commitment to electrifying its own fleets and to programs aimed at improving energy efficiency and lowering electric bills for low-income customers.

Exelon and its six utilities have “committed that we will electrify our transportation fleet by 32% in 2025, and 50% by 2030,” Butler said. “But we have to partner with government, commercial and other partners to make sure electrification happens on a broad scale. That means ensuring individual consumers in Washington, D.C., will have access to electric transportation options, including but not limited to public transportation, taxis and ride sharing, as well as charging infrastructure.”

In an email responding to questions from RTO Insider, Ben Armstrong, PEPCO’s director of operations communications, said that the utility’s current energy mix “reflects the overall electricity mix of the region’s power system.”

PEPCO purchases power through a “multiphase competitive bidding process,” Armstrong said. “By 2032, 100% of the power included in these bids must come from renewable sources. Renewable energy credits and solar renewable energy credits will be an important part of meeting these requirements, along with advancing local solar.”

Tommy Wells, director of the D.C. Department of Energy & Environment, acknowledged that the district’s current reliance on RECs would make it possible to get to a 100% carbon-neutral system “tomorrow,” without actually putting new renewable energy projects on the grid.

But Wells believes that D.C.’s REC market is bringing “some additionality to the grid by creating a market or financial incentives for creating more renewables. … We are getting solar deployed in the city because you can make so much money off of it,” he said. “It’s not one-for-one creating additionality of renewables to the grid, but it’s working.”

Regulators Discuss the ‘Boss’ of Energy Goals

In the first panel of the conference on Tuesday, “Who’s the Boss? Navigating the Federal and Regional Context to Meet State Clean Energy Goals,” state regulators and officials were asked what is the driving the transition to clean energy.

PJM CEO Manu Asthana answered that the so-called “bosses” are consumers “voting with their wallets,” state policymakers, FERC in its attempt to be “forward looking” with its rules and NERC as the arbiter to maintain reliability.

“This is a really exciting time for our industry,” Asthana said. “I believe RTOs can be an important tool to help achieve policy objectives.”

New York Public Service Commissioner Diane Burman said the process needs to be about “getting under the hood” on how to achieve renewable goals efficiently and an “uncompromising need” to focus on safety, reliability and resilience.

“States need to be cognizant of the risks of making abrupt decisions that could result in catastrophes like California and Texas have experienced,” Burman said.

Jason Stanek, chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission, said that what’s driving policy is “every individual, every utility executive, every voter in this country.” He said he deals with individuals who see the cost of investing in updating and upgrading the transmission as being too expensive an endeavor to tackle. Stanek said his regular response is, “What is the alternative?”

“Transmission policy is in desperate need of reform, and it has been for some time,” Stanek said. “I think it’s fair to say that business as usual, whether it be with respect to transmission planning, cost allocation or generator queue reform, is long overdue.”