Madison residents concerned about MG&E’s green energy future

Madison residents discuss MG&E’s Community Energy Report and the company’s sustainability and green energy initiatives at a RePower Madison meeting on Monday, February 22. (Mitch Brey)

Is Madison Gas and Electric living up to their slogan: “Your community energy company”?

That was one of the questions behind local green energy group RePower Madison’s open forum at Goodman Community Center at the end of February. Prompted by the release of MG&E’s report on their community conversations, 30 Madison residents gathered at Goodman Community Center to discuss the company’s current and future policies.

MG&E recently collaborated with Justice and Sustainability Associates to put together a four-phase plan to help MG&E better understand what their customers want from them in the future. The community conversations were phase two of that plan. JSA recently released their report on MG&E’s community conversations.

The report showed that MG&E customers were strongly in favor of increased investment in renewable energy, as well as energy conservation support and education and greater transparency and affordability. 

The discussion addressed each of these issues and more. 

According to Mitch Brey, the campaign organizer for RePower Madison, this means forging a partnership with Madison residents so that they can be more involved with MG&E in regard to where their energy comes from and what it will cost the consumer. He envisions an arrangement that allows consumers to have decision-making power rather than advisory roles. 

“Basically, we’re asking that the partnership be designed and operated with strong community representation and transparency, and accountability and real power to get things done,” he said. 

Don Ferber, Chair of RePower Madison, believes that this kind of arrangement might be attainable if Madison residents come together in favor of it and begin setting standards that they think MG&E should live up to.

“Look at all the energy they put into proving—or at least PR-ing—that they are your energy company. That is their identity that is what they care about. They live in this community, unlike a lot of other utilities where the people aren’t there and couldn’t care less about the community,” he said.

The group also discussed MG&E’s Energy 2030 framework, which Brey said seems like more of a goal than a plan at this point.

“There are a lot of good initiatives in there, but they’re quite generic and too vague to really measure whether they could be completed or not. So that needs more development, and frankly, I think it needs to be more ambitious as well,” he said. 

More than 30 people attended the discussion, and Brey was impressed with the turnout.

“Folks want to do something about MG&E. People showed up, and they all want to put their own time towards making sure MG&E follows through on becoming a community energy company,” he said.