“Governor Snyder is taking the long view and starting to put the building blocks in place for the conversation that we need to have around infrastructure, whether that be roads and bridges or water and sewer systems or our energy infrastructure,” says Dan Scripps. “It’s really all one piece, and I commend the governor for taking a comprehensive view on all of this.”
Scripps is senior adviser to the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council and president of the Institute for Energy Innovation. Scripps joins Kirk Heinze on Greening of the Great Lakes to discuss two recent reports that speak directly to Michigan’s energy future. One calls for the development of a comprehensive integrated infrastructure plan. And the other chronicles the success of an initiative to ramp up the installation of rooftop photovoltaic solar systems.
“The governor pulled together 21 experts in the beginning of 2016 to go out and develop a series of solutions and ideas around how we modernize Michigan’s infrastructure. I think this will be in large part one of the big pieces of his agenda for his final two years in office, and I think these are the right issues to focus on,” adds Scripps.
Solarize Michigan is a local effort to bring down the costs of at-home solar energy by using bulk buying, competitive bidding and community education.
“It’s a great time to go solar,” says Scripps. “Solar was a luxury item even five years ago, and today it’s cost competitive. With financing you can install solar on your home and get an immediate payback because the savings over the course of the loan are less than what you’re paying for your electric bill.”
Scripps and his colleagues have coined a new phrase, solar contagion.
“If your neighbor installs solar, you’re much more likely to install solar. And you get to a tipping point where you’ve got enough people with solar that you’re likely to know someone who has installed solar on their roof. And all of a sudden you start seeing solar take off in those communities.
“It’s a neighbor to neighbor familiarity that it’s not just something you’re reading about but you’re driving past it every day. You’ve got somebody who goes to your church or who you work with who you can talk to about it and find out there personal experience.”
Greening of the Great Lakes airs inside MSU Today Sunday afternoons at 4:00 on AM 870.