for our taping of commissioners corner and i have with me sean sellers and andy to can dot from ready for one hundred and if you're wondering what ready for one hundred it is i'm going to let them explain it sont well thank you for having us merry and we appreciate the opportunity to be here ready for one hundred is a group based in sarasota a community group and it is affiliated with a campaign that's being led by the sierra club what ready for one hundred aims to achieve is one hundred percent renewable energy for communities across the u s and the way the campaign is attempting to achieve this is by getting municipalities cities counties as well as states to commit to one hundred percent targets so the individuals involved in the ready for one hundred effort here in sarasota as well as in manatee county come from a variety of backgrounds and are really in this as a way to mitigate the i mean effects of climate change so this is one hundred percent renewable energy sources for powering the cities and the states is that we're looking at doing correct and in two thousand and seventeen the city of service otoh was signed up for the ready for a one hundred commitment forty five so it's a big lift it's going to be hard to achieve but we believe it is definitely achievable and so what we're working on now is collaborating with the community and also members of the city to figure out how to best do that and is this a nationwide movement or is it just this is local it is no it's well it's both it's locally rooted in each community where it's  active but it is active across the united states and to date over one hundred cities in the u s have made these commitments and they range from very small cities to very large cities such as atlanta so it spans both cities size as well as geography and there also are nearly ten states that have made some form of this commitment now the timelines on when they aim to achieve one hundred percent very believe it's a total of nine states as well as the district of columbia we're doing this are we just talking about solar energy or what kind of energy sources would there be besides solar well in florida it's going to be primarily solar nationwide it's primarily solar and wind but because of the prevalence of great sun that we have here in florida it's more likely to be solar than when the when we wind resources are very prevalent and an excellent source of electric power in the middle part of the country not so much in this part of the country well i know as as you said the city of sarasota made this commitment working on some kind of an agreement with florida power and light to possibly fight yet to possibly power the city functions at approximately eighty five percent of all of our municipal needs within maybe the next year or two if everything goes ok with this agreement what are you finding in terms of other cities as to thoughts on it you'll be interested in hearing from mandy as well is that it really depends on a few things one where in the country is it because it's and you just pointed out that affects the renewable resources that that city has access to so that's part of it too what is the utility context that a particular city operates in so utilities busy there's three primary models in the united states one is municipal owned utilities so that any example here in florida would be the city of orlando they own their utility which has both positive you know there's there's pluses and minuses to that approach they can move quickly but there's also they're on the hook for the stranded assets such as you know the coal or natural gas  is is with an investor owned utility so we have florida power in my mind so that means that there's there's certain things the city can do and move quickly on and there's other things that as you pointed out have to be done in partnership with florida power and light and that's a place where the city we believe has influence but we also understand that florida power and light is going to make their own decisions in the final analysis and so that's really i think as far as the sitting meeting it's one hundred percent goals it's going to be through figuring out what is  a win win solution that can emerge from that relationship and f p and l currently has an application with the utilities commission for a solar to what they're calling solar together green tariffs which will be what the city would be participating in if that's approved and that centrally will provide through a contractual arrangement  renewable energy to the city the reality is that the electrons the city gets through the power lines will be the same as everyone else's but they'll be signing up for a certain amount of solar and then for power and light will be building that that capacity and i think that's what we're waiting on is for them to get the approval for that before we can do that how do we then curry or get private businesses and private building to do the same thing you know it's easy for the city you know we can vote and say here's what we want you to do but you know you've got a private a building owner over here and he's not interested in doing that because maybe he doesn't believe in climate change or would be expensive what are the mechanisms for encouraging that to put in their own rooftop solar systems there is through the end of this year you can get a thirty percent federal tax credit on any kind of solar insolation that it's going to be ramping down over the next several years but will still be there if a business has the capital over the life of that solar system they're going to save a lot of money on their on their on their energy bills so there really is a great incentive already for businesses to do that it's so it's there's also an incentive for home owners to do it as if they were rooftop is solar appropriate which means it's not completely cut shaded that said that's just one approach that's that's that's using renewable energy to power system the best  kilowatt of of electricity is the one that never has to be produced and you don't have to produce it if you have highly efficient buildings and other operations so one of the things that we're trying to focus on as an organization is encouraging energy efficiency in buildings you know and just to back up their bit one when the resolution was approved by the city commission in june of two thousand and seventeen the next step we took was to partner with the city sustainability department and they facilitated a series of meetings over the course of the subsequent year community meetings in which we came together to strategize and brainstorm what we're going to be the most effective methods for meeting these goals and a lot of different things came out in those conversations but one of the approaches that really bubbled up to the top was the idea of building codes and there's a couple of components to that so picking up where andy left off we build buildings in a new construction twenty one thousand the state of florida is pretty energy efficient it's certainly a much you know it's light years above where it was two hundred and three thousand and forty years ago but there is still a lot of meat on the bone if you will in terms of efficiencies that could be obtained through tighter building codes when we started digging around we were really excited to find out that there is a builder here in sarasota county that has actually won national acclaim for its approach and that is the south sarasota habitat for humanity affiliate they are building to what's called a zero energy ready standard that is created by the u s department of energy and it takes energy efficiency in residential construction and just kind of takes it to the next level so that if you then can install rooftop solar on that home the home and be what's called net zero which means it produces as much energy as it consumes and so it creates no an additional demand on the grid you know on balance over the course of a year so this is a this is a really promising model busy and when we started to get into it of course you know the big concern was a lot of this stuff is well what about cost and those concerns are real and there's an affordable housing crisis in sarasota and across you know communities across the country the last thing we want to do is be a part of promoting policies that are going to exacerbate that crisis so we were really relieved to learn that habitat for humanity  actually found this to be a pretty cost effective approach and while there are slightly increased upfront costs on construction those are recruit on a very on a on a quick time frame and so that expresses itself to the homeowner or the renter you know if it's a rental unit in the in the form of lower monthly electricity bills and that's a big advantage to have that security of knowing that you're going to have a low bill and it may be as low as bills and one reason this is particularly important to think about is that the union of concerned scientists just released a report last week that was about it was about killer heat and there they're looking at the heat waves that are projected for the future of the united states and scenario of climate change such as what we're facing and they found that in sarasota and this area we're going to be facing under our current emissions trajectory nearly three months of extreme heat days which are days with a heat index of more than one hundred and five dollars we're currently getting a few of those days a year so imagine three months of those and you really begin to understand the importance of this energy efficient construction both as a strategy for adapting to climate change but also for helping to mitigate it for reducing emissions to get it into the atmosphere to cool buildings what has to be done in terms of building it differently to to reach this energy like what you know like what methods are different than the normal construction well the idea is to get the energy efficiency of the core home to a very high level so that then you can apply solar and very very energy efficient home would use fifty percent less energy than a not a normal so not a fish not as efficient whole and then that last fifty percent you could get with solar power generation but how do you how do you get to that if that was the film well go right so there are a number of different strategies that builders use fundamentally one of the things they have to do is they have to make what they call the below the building really focus on your insulation that strategy used here a lot is the under roof for spray foam insulation and then you use  very energy efficient equipment so use what's called a high sea or air conditioner very which would be very efficient you'd also use energy star appliances which energy star appliances are the most efficient on the marketplace so those are just a number of different ways that you get from say an index of one hundred to index of fifty or fifty five and then you can apply solar to get the rest of the way and i think what's important just to tease out from that is that none of this really requires radical innovations in how we build it simply requires you know identifying that top standard and then and then implementing it across the board so good news about that is there are they are builders that are that are deploying some of these techniques here and there and what we really need to do is scale that and just require that for proper business all i mean and and that's all really good buy most of sarasota is already built out and so how do we deal with that because you don't have a lot of people that to even put solar panels on there would be cost prohibitive for to make improvements to their home to make it more energy efficient what can we do in terms of that or is this you know what florida power is doing is what they're building going to be able to then people will be able to get their energy that way they can either opt in or have to you know when they're buying the power from florida power and is that going to be cheaper i think there are a number of approaches that can be taken if the recommendation i would give to homeowners and businesses right now is  on their own initiative without any other coach changes or any incentive changes is f p and l does offer a free energy audit to businesses and homeowners i would encourage everyone to take the take advantage of that you're going to get some ideas on how you can improve the efficiency of your home for example if you're still using conventional light bulbs you should be switching them out to l will put out the equivalent light of a sixty watt incandescent bulb and it's not just the fact that your dues in less wattage but you're heating the room less because one of the problems with incandescent bulbs is they generate a tremendous amount of heat and so you're having the air conditioned extra because you're heating the room with your light bulbs so if i go into ladies you actually get double benefit ok that's good to know that's good to know i didn't i did not know that i mean i knew it was a good thing to go to the l e d but i didn't really think it was that big a deal you know there's a very big technological break there and that's also why be fifteen percent of the the broader question that you posed you know i think it's a really it's a really good question what do we do the cities built out you know we're not we're not putting in greenfield developments like in lakewood ranch where you can say ok we're going to require this now and everything going for but we built that way but there are still a lot of things we can do st the fact of the matter is there is as anyone can attest to development going on in the city of out there so you know so certainly you know certainly all construction going forward really should be to this higher standard and that's going to require policy beater ship from the city developers will respond to the rules of the road as they are set forth the market is very good at adapting to changes and policy when it's predictable  when they're sure that they'll be a long term commitment there so going forward those code changes make all the sense in the world in terms of existing building stock a couple of thoughts so one i personally would say that the priority should be on you know incentivizing or requiring or subsidizing in some form the retrofits for the largest energy consumers in other words take a look see who are the biggest electricity customers in the city and then focus on i mean that washington d c has taken that approach they've said ok look there's a lot of existing building stock over the and fifteen years we want to get all of that up to this standard but we're going to start by requiring those changes at the very biggest customers and so you could consider a phased in approach that really focuses on that that has the advantage of having the most electric you know the most efficiency savings up front but you're also going to be generally dealing with more capitalized enterprises the larger enterprises that can absorb some of these these costs the nd piece i think broadly speaking to t grapple with as a community are the equity implications of this and so one of the ideas that we've put forth is the creation of an energy equity fund in which the city would capitalize a fund and there could be private contributions to this as well and it would really focus on targeted efficiency upgrades for low and moderate income residences and that could include apartment buildings and so there are ways to do this these models are being built out in other places and there's a lot that  that sarasota could learn from how this is working in other communities what's missing at this point is the commitment how to rock side to see that there are openings to have some of these conversations and you can you can immediately think about what the benefits of some of this could be you know one of the problems with apartment buildings right now is that you have a split incentive problem right tenets don't understandably don't want to and often can't pay to make upgrades for a unit there and team landlords don't really have an economic reason to make those upgrades because they're not going to be the ones getting the savings recouping the savings so that's a place where a policy solution is probably needed you know and we see you know we're excited to see some openings to have these conversations in the community and again we think that city leadership will be required at the policy level on this one of the things that concerns me is you know w we're looking at one hundred percent renewable energy by two thousand and forty five you know twenty five years from now everything i keep hearing says busy we've got twelve years to do something about climate change or we're you know we're over the edge and there's no there's no turning it back if they're even even if were maybe already past that point so how is this to how is this going to help with this long time frame and you know i want to say sure i think the obviously all of this is is is forecasting into the future but the best numbers that i've seen  out of the intergovernmental panel on climate change say that we have to be at about a forty five percent reduction by two thousand and thirty and close to one hundred percent reduction by and forty five or th so when you hear of the ten years or twelve years ready what what we're really talking about is we have to be on a very aggressive path because to get from a point where we're actually still increasing our greenhouse gas emissions to a point or we're forty five percent below where we're at that's going to be it's a big lift but it but when you hear that ten years it doesn't mean we have to be it at zero assuming it means we again this is all forecast so we don't know exactly how quickly the damage is going to be done but based on that study that's sort of the key numbers that i personally focus in on advocacy work when people are asking about that because i'm sure the other thing that comes up is you know nobody if nobody else is doing it and we're the only ones doing it really is that effective and you know yeah i think that's a little bit of a bit of a red herring actually because it's we're not the only one still there is a lot of good work going on all over the world the fact information out today that china may hit peak and missions way before their commitment that they made to for the paris accords which means that they can start working balance words sooner so  as a country we're not the only ones but we do have to show a lot of leadership i agree with you i think that's one of the key things and and the concerning thing obviously is that so many there are so many policy leaders who say well you know climate change really isn't happening even though you have all these scientists that it is that we really do have to take it seriously i mean anchorage alaska just had ninety degree temperatures and it's melting their permafrost up there i mean that's one of the what you're hinting at is one of the reasons why local action is so important there is currently federal inaction on this it's and what action there is at the federal level is not at a rate that will it's not an acceptable rate so localities cities can help step into that breach and that's really one of the strategic underpinnings of the ready for one hundred dollars effort is that look if you have across the country cities stepping into the breach it makes a difference you know utilities have to respond state state regulators state policymakers have to respond i mean it really does have you know ripple effects beyond because it's easy to feel like look we're just in sarasota it's small it's not even that but we're not even tampa we're not miami it's just little sarasota but what happens here does matter in matters for st of all for the people who have who are nd people look to sarasota in the state of florida it is a community that has a reputation as being a leader on sustainability issues and so in so these these scenarios about the future i mean it's not you know abstract discussion in our household at least i mean it feels very very real well we've only got about a minute left  so what occurs to me is that with all of these really really high temperatures that are occurring and fires and you know i guess weather disruptions that that would probably start causing an outcry and a lot of communities to say you know why we need to start doing something are you i think that's right i think people realize that the climate crisis is here and they want very specific tangible actions to be taken and so for our money improving our building stock here in the community is one of those actions there are many actions that can be taken we need to deal with the transportation sector there you know we need to invest in green spaces a lot that can be done but the building code stuff is really just a commonsense solution that the costs are manageable and the savings over the long run are undeniable and very compelling