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As an employee-owned company and Certified B Corp, our commitment to our mission goes beyond selling and installing solar technology. We can’t achieve the just and equitable future we know is possible without forward-thinking policy and a comprehensive plan for climate action. That’s why we have a Public Policy team working hard across our region to achieve our mission.
Who is the Public Policy team?
Technically ReVision’s Public Policy team has two employee-owners on it – Lindsay Bourgoine and Nat Haslett. But in reality, Lindsay and Nat are continually working with employee-owners across ReVision. For example, the legal team advises on law implementation and regulatory dockets, the development team provides input on siting and permitting rules and procurements, and the EV and Battery Storage teams help identify the policy changes needed to unlock new markets.
“We bring in the experts to key policy decisions,” says Lindsay. “Everyone at ReVision is a technical expert on their issues, and it’s our job to bring them into the right conversations where decisions are being made.”
ReVision also works closely with partners at the state level to increase our impact. Groups like the Solar Energy Business Association of New England, Clean Energy New Hampshire, and the Maine Renewable Energy Association are all trade organizations working on the ground to create important local change. ReVision works with many mission-aligned partner nonprofits as well.
Where does the public policy team work?
From Boston to Concord to Augusta, our Public Policy team is an active part of the conversation happening around our energy transition. They meet with elected state senators and state representatives across all three states to advocate for policies that will address climate change. They also engage in rulemaking processes with state agencies like the Public Utilities Commission, Department of Energy, or the Department of Environmental Services.
A few recent highlights from our 3 states:
Massachusetts:
Earlier this year there was a big docket at the Department of Public Utilities focused on interconnection. We need to build the grid of the future to ensure the capacity for much more solar energy, so the team worked with clean energy partners to advocate at the DPU, who ultimately ruled that utilities must do comprehensive, long-term planning for interconnection. This positions MA as a national leader in interconnection planning and we’re excited to watch this develop.
Maine:
Last year in Maine there was an extremely concerning proposal around the Net Energy Billing program which would have retroactive gutted net metering. This would have been unprecedented and damaging to our thousands of customers taking part in net metering—getting fairly compensated for the power they produce. Thanks to our incredible Public Policy team, we were able to defeat the damaging parts of this proposal and instead reach a compromise on forward-looking reform.
New Hampshire:
The team worked hard this year to get a bill passed and signed into law, SB 391, which will create uniform rules statewide for interconnection. This will reduce interconnection delays, enabling customers’ solar systems to get up and running faster as interconnection delays are damaging to building more solar at the speed we need.
What does the Public Policy team do?
The team focuses primarily on a few issues:
Siting, Permitting, and Code Policy
As the clean energy transition accelerates, siting and permitting issues are becoming more of a challenge, and at times can be used to put up barriers in our energy transition. Permit costs have significantly increased over the past few years, directly impacting the work we are able to do. How can we reduce permitting costs and timelines while still responsibly and safely building solar throughout our communities? The team is working closely with state officials to answer this important question.
Interconnection and Grid Modernization
Similarly, we need to reduce the time it takes to achieve grid interconnection, which is proving to be another major barrier in our energy transition. To ensure we’re building a grid that will work for us in the future and enable timely, cost-effective, and predictable interconnection rules we need to work together now – as government officials, developers, utilities, and consumers – to put the right measures into place.
Compensation and Incentives
When a power plant produces energy, it sells that energy to utilities to provide to their customers. The entity producing energy is compensated for the energy they put onto the grid. Solar energy production should be no different— and we’ve had to put creative policies in place here as solar is a distributed resource and is interconnecting all across the grid, unlike that single power plant. Solar also needs to be compensated financially for the value it provides. What this compensation regime looks like is a major conversation across the country, and our Public Policy team is engaging in on a local level.
Workforce Development
To achieve our climate goals, we need more electricians and skilled technicians. Policy surrounding licensure, apprenticeship ratios, and educational requirements all impact how quickly we can scale our national workforce. Our Public Policy team works closely with regulators and partners to ensure access to technical programs grows quickly and equitably.
Social Justice
Our mission is building a just and equitable electric future, so part of the Public Policy’s work involves tracking issues that align with our advocacy priorities – from tribal sovereignty and LGBTQ+ issues to racial and gender justice. Working closely with our JEDI+Belonging Advocacy group, the team mobilizes employee-owners and shows up for a variety of social justice issues.
Why are there barriers to good energy policy?
Over the last decade there has been a transition in how climate denial shows up in public policy conversations. We used to live in a world where many people denied climate change, then they denied that it was human caused. Now, it’s undeniably happening – the effects are being experienced daily around the country – but opponents are attacking the solutions.
“A rapid transition to a clean energy economy is the best thing we can to do reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the most catastrophic effects of climate crisis,” says Lindsay, “but people are fighting us on the technology, whether that’s offshore wind, solar, or other forms of renewable energy.”
Another huge barrier is NIMBYism (“Not In My Back Yard” when residents oppose changes happening in their town or state). A recent study found that local opposition is the biggest impediment to addressing the climate crisis.
“We recognize that these barriers are major systemic issues. We can’t fight them with a single policy, and the ReVision Energy Public Policy team is not going to singlehandledly solve problems like misinformation or NIMBYism,” says Lindsay. “But, we can and we will continue to elevate the stories of real people, like our Solar Champions, whose lives are being directly impacted. It’s people’s stories that change minds, not the nitty gritty policy fights.”
How can Solar Champions help drive effective change and good policy?
Stay tuned! We are aiming to involve our communities on policy issues more frequently in 2025. We’ll be sending emails, posting on social media, and mobilizing our ReVision Energy Solar Champions Facebook group.
“At the end of the day, policy makers and decision makers want to hear from real people being affected by these policies. Solar Champions, with their stories about why they went solar or installed heat pumps, really carry weight,” Lindsay explains.
Our Public Policy team is working hard on these issues but we will need your help, too. Stay tuned for how you can advocate for our just and equitable clean energy transition, too!
