Energy Sovereignty, Security, & Democracy Proposal

The Village of Dowell and City of Carbondale are requesting technical assistance and financial investment to demonstrate the feasibility, affordability, and scalability of “Energy Sovereignty” at the scale of the Village of Dowell (population 364) and the City of Carbondale (population 21,741). This request is made in order to demonstrate a new and replicable rural energy system model that promotes a positive feedback-loop of lasting prosperity, security, and resiliency. This application is submitted as a direct response to the “direct pay” provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, which allows non-tax entities such as the Village of Dowell and City of Carbondale to receive federal solar incentives as cash up front rather than a credit against income. We propose use of existing land, facility, and water assets held by the Village of Dowell and City of Carbondale to install publicly-owned dual-use photovoltaics + long-duration energy storage to meet our communities' annual net electricity needs. This proposal would develop two grid-connected energysheds within our respective communities. Our proposed new energy system model allows our communities to provide every single home and locally owned/operated small business in Dowell and Carbondale with low-to-no-cost renewable energy under a maximum use threshold. This is a life-changing proposition that eliminates the hurdles cited by the Illinois Power Agency (IPA) in our state’s low-income solar programs. In this model, our solar + storage assets provide reasonably priced renewable energy to every non-locally owned operated and large business (i.e. industry, big box stores, healthcare, higher education) and competitively priced renewable energy to non-local entities in order to fund our community subsidy. This structure of ownership and subsidy transfers the burden of energy efficiency improvements and distributed renewable energy installations off of the shoulders of those who cannot afford it. This new energy system model creates a positive feedback loop in which any energy we conserve is energy that we can sell in the wider energy market (MISO) with the environmental attribute (the renewable energy credits) retained. This provides our recovering energy communities with a stable revenue stream and gives our municipal government direct fiscal incentive to conserve energy at a community scale by capitalizing on the energy efficiency resource (i.e. deep energy retrofits, distributed renewables housing programs, codified net zero development principles, strategic energy planning). As our community-scale energy consumption decreases due to increased efficiency, our revenue increases – growing our net renewable energy export through two decarbonized American energysheds. This proposed project and system structure has the capacity to put to bed our communities’ reliance on coal with one capital construction project, while bringing lasting economic prosperity to our communities and the wider region of Southern Illinois. Every step of the creation of this model will be documented and made public as a “roadmap” for sibling rural and recovering energy communities across the Nation.”