Sustainable Madison subcommittee re-evaluates energy plan goals

As a part of the City of Madison Energy Plan, a subcommittee of the Sustainable Madison Committee was created to look at the goals in the energy and carbon section of the plan. 

The city council accepted the energy plan forming the committee June 7. The city’s current carbon and energy goals were accepted in the 2011 Madison Sustainability Plan and include reducing carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, obtaining 25 percent of electricity, heating and transportation energy from clean energy sources by 2025 and decreasing energy consumption 50 percent by 2030. To help accomplish these goals, the Sustainable Madison Committee created 10 main recommendations.

The subcommittee met Friday for one of the first times to receive feedback from community members and various organizations and to begin the process of re-examining the goals in the energy plan.

Elizabeth Katt-Reinders, the senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, urged the subcommittee to set community-wide carbon reduction and energy goals and to aim to be coal-free. 

“Madison can be a leader. We need to join cities around the nation and lead our community in this transition beyond fossil fuels,” Katt-Reinders said.

Many of the other public speakers echoed similar sentiments asking the subcommittee to have stronger goals, to encourage people to go solar and to get input from the public and other energy experts. 

Mitch Brey, the program manager for RePower Madison, said he hopes that the public will be more involved in the discussion of the energy plan. According to its website, RePower Madison is composed of citizens who wish to increase citizen involvement in energy planning.

“We could have a discussion whether it’s 80 percent, whether it’s 100 percent, whether it’s 2020 or 2025 or 2050, but before we get to any of that we need to talk about how we’re going to get the public to give input,” Brey said. 

Brey also said he would like the subcommittee to develop more annual goals to help gauge if the city is on track to meet the goals in the energy plan. 

Raj Shukla, the chairman of the Sustainable Madison Committee, said it is important for the subcommittee to talk about its objectives and focus on what the city can contribute to reducing carbon emissions.

“It’s pretty clear that the goal has to be at zero emissions at some point. When that occurs, we don’t know, but that’s part of what we have to figure out here,” Shukla said.

Shukla also said there is currently a subgroup that is working with Madison Gas and Electric on how to hit their goals even faster. MGE also has a separate energy plan from the city called Energy 2030 that parallels some of the city’s goals.