Investment in green business was the focus of a visit by Democratic candidate for governor Ned Lamont and running mate Susan Bysiewicz to a Cheshire solar company on Thursday. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy joined the pair in a call for more state and federal spending on green energy as a downpayment on cheaper electricity and lower carbon emissions in the future.
“This is what our future is all about,” Lamont said, gesturing at the crates of solar panels stocked in Trinity Solar’s warehouse at 611 West Johnson Ave. “I believe in this, I know what a difference it makes.”
Lawmakers need to take action to grow green energy in the state, the Democrats agreed. “Sadly Connecticut’s solar laws are not as progressive as they should be,” Bysiewicz said. “One of our goals today was to learn more about legislation that could make us more competitive with surrounding states.” The candidates’ plans include include streamlining the solar permitting process and promoting the addition of solar panels to brownfields, parking lots and warehouses.
“We are reliant on state and federal policies right now to make our industry work,” said Mike Trahan, executive director of Solar Connecticut, an industry group. “We spend an awful lot of time as an association of businesses here reaching out to candidates and elected officials to get them interested in solar power.” Currently about 3,000 people are employed statewide in the solar industry, Trahan said, mostly by smaller companies. Many of these firms are anxiously awaiting the status of several state programs that subsidize solar installation.
One of the those programs, the state’s Green Bank, was gutted last year by a decision by lawmakers to divert some $165 million earmarked for clean-energy programs to the general fund.
“Let’s go back to funding the Green Bank; let’s go back to funding the Energy Efficiency Fund,” said Lamont. “We get a triple win on those investments in terms of jobs and the environment and in terms of bringing down the price of energy for homeowners.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski has also criticized the diversion of funds from the Green Bank and called for legislative action to block such moves. “Our environment must be protected, and lawmakers should not be using dollars reserved for environmental purposes to make up for budget shortfalls,” said a statement on Stefanowski’s campaign website.
The Democratic candidates singled out the recent growth of Trinity Solar as an example of the potential of green businesses in the state.
Headquartered in Wall, N.J., Trinity has ramped up Connecticut operations and performed almost half the residential solar installations statewide last year, according to Regional Manager Jay Celozzi. The company completed more than 1,700 residential installations in 2017 and expects to do 2,600 in 2018.
“As utility costs increase, people want to find a solution and solar creates a solution,” Celozzi said. “We’ve had a tremendous increase over last few years.”
The company plans to double its workforce — currently 262 in the state — in the next 18 months and expand its network of sales offices in Connecticut.
Solar panels in Connecticut generated 463 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2017, according to a report earlier this year by Environment America, with the state seeing 32-fold growth in annual solar generation since 2008.
Contact Liese Klein at lklein@newhavenbiz.com
