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***Jumpstart our* *Clean Energy and Climate Futures Campaign***

Initial Funding Needs: $55,000

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Our History

CSPI’s Vision

How We Got Here - Our Vast Network of Experts

The Center for Strategic Policy Innovation (CSPI) was founded in 2018 to help jump-start clean energy buildout and support climate change efforts here in the United States. A decades-long dream of Kevin Daehnke, a noted California environmental attorney, CSPI has managed to emerge – in seven short years – to become a respected and acclaimed voice in the clean energy and climate fight.

To see massive amounts of clean energy generated locally, at or near the point of use, including solar arrays and energy storage systems that can operate independently as “microgrids” for critical resiliency purposes during power outages.

Operating on a shoe-string budget since its founding, CSPI owes its early success to the Center’s vast community of expert advisors, formal teaming partners - including Accelerator for America and our friends at Arizona State University - and other highly skilled benefactors. CSPI has benefited immeasurably from the skills and expertise of the Center’s Board of Directors, its Expert Advisory Board, and the numerous smart, experienced, and dedicated colleagues – in academia, finance, law, engineering, environmental justice, clean energy think tanks and government - who keep this important, heartfelt effort moving forward.

The Clean Energy and Climate Challenges We Face as a Country

According to the U.S. Department of Energy and other Experts:

To meet our climate goals, the U.S. needs a massive buildout of clean energy over the next 10-15 years
This includes a 200%-400% increase in the pace of local, community-based solar buildout

Some Stark Statistics from federal regulators . . .

Since 2015, national power outages have surged by 150%
In the next four years an alarming 300 million people across the United States are projected to face power outages
Seniors and vulnerable populations will suffer the most (think medical equipment and refrigerated medicines)

But there is Good News . . .

Significant amounts of solar energy can be produced locally, at or near the end-user (“distributed” energy generation).
Local solar power generation coupled with battery storage and microgrids - Key to recovery from climate and other disasters

According to the Department of Energy:

“Local community-based solar and energy storage systems that can operate independently as a “microgrid” during a power outage when the power is down are critical to the resilience of our energy system.”

“Solar microgrids lessen the likelihood of serious outages, reduce the death toll during disasters, and help to rapidly restore power once the precipitating event is over.”

At CSPI, we provide the Pathway Forward

A goldmine of these opportunities are just sitting there, not getting built. In most states, solar buildout at these sites PAYS FOR ITSELF, if you know where to look and how to build these projects.

Imagine hospitals, schools, community resiliency centers, fire, wastewater treatment plants, and all-important critical infrastructure being able to provide their own solar-powered electricity, independent of the grid, in the event of a disaster or other prolonged power outage.

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#2: Local champions are often unaware of the vast buildout opportunities

#3: Lack of in-house feasibility/modeling capacity

Here’s What We Do and Why We Need Your Help...

Three major obstacles to most local solar microgrid/resiliency projects:

#1: There is little know-how on how to target viable sites

The key is to first identify sites where solar buildout is financially viable.

Local leaders are often unaware of the potential buildout capacity for critical local infrastructure from these behind-the-meter energy resiliency projects.

Local planners, engineers and community champions often don’t have in-house modeling capabilities to vision these projects even when they are aware of the associated clean energy and resiliency buildout potential.

Our Solution (Teaming with Arizona State University):

National Capacity-building Training Course

CSPI has developed a capacity-building national training course for cities, counties, tribal nations and community/environmental justice advocates across the country to be able to identify, model, and plan for the buildout of solar energy, battery storage, and microgrids for climate action and resiliency purposes throughout their communities. The training was developed in cooperation with Arizona State University’s Laboratory for Energy And Power Solutions and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Learn more about the training

Our vision is to build out clean energy locally, at the community level across the country, and make it cost-effective and resilient.

While this vision is the same as it was seven years ago, the scope of our work has changed, grown, and is now scaling up massively. We are beginning to introduce our team’s special insight into hundreds of city, county, and tribal communities throughout the nation.

Fundraising Campaign - Key Areas of Investment

To meet these goals, CSPI’s One Thousand Resilient Communities Clean Energy and Climate Futures initiative and campaign will invest in three key areas. Though our immediate fundraising needs are $55,000, we are aiming to raise $1.5 million in 12 months to scale our impact, bringing clean energy infrastructure to communities across the country.

In order to ensure that CSPI can conduct its core operations over the next two years - with special emphasis on our signature One Thousand Resilient Communities Clean Energy Modeling Tools training cohort, we estimate our needs at $375,000. This money will include necessary outreach costs, and will provide ongoing support for our existing training, guaranteeing that we will be able to provide hands-on personalized classes, with a new training group each month, for the next two years, training one thousand graduates in that time. We will also use these monies to leverage our one-of-its-kind training by developing other spinoff training initiatives, focusing on the same local clean energy and resiliency buildout core message. This will include a train-the-trainers program which should have an exponential effect on the number of communities we will be able to reach with this critical local community capacity-building effort.
Cost: $375,000
CSPI has managed to operate over the years on a shoe-string budget by leveraging the many teaming agreements, strategic partnerships, and other relationships with academia, local government, environmental justice groups, and other strategic partners. However, this model is not sustainable as we ramp up our training and begin serving as a trusted zero-carbon buildout messenger in more and more communities across the country. We estimate that with an investment of between $400,000 and $500,000, we will be able to build a back-office that will be self-sufficient and self-sustaining as we move forward.
Cost: $450,000
CSPI has recently found itself in the exciting (and somewhat terrifying) position of being able to help effect a truly transformational change in the pace at which local clean energy projects are built out in this country. We have been given the reins to drive in-house local capacity for the buildout of solar energy and microgrids, with the potential to assist hundreds of communities in their clean energy, climate change and energy resiliency choices over the next several years.
By having at the heart of our work the best interests of the local communities we serve, and thus earning a coveted “Trusted Messenger” status, we have been placed in a position to help jumpstart, on a large scale, the critical community-based pipelines of clean energy, microgrids and “energy electrification” opportunities which will be critical to achieving success with our climate goals. We are in the process of expanding this Trusted Messenger role into hundreds of communities across the United States, not just with our training, but the creation of large-scale public-private investment vehicles, working together with our on-site expertise and assistance, to help communities vision a Direct Carbon-free Path to their futures. While we cannot ascertain the full scope of the work entailed with this exciting frontier, we have estimated these costs at $750,000 over the next 5 years.
Cost: $750,000