Livable Nashville Already Moving City Forward

Nashville, TN— Today the Nashville Electric Service’s community solar project received a capacity award through the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Distributed Solar Solutions program that will help it quickly move forward.  NES’s community solar project is a strong sign of the local utility’s commitment to the renewable energy goals proposed by Nashville community leaders serving on Mayor Barry’s Livable Nashville Committee. 

“Mayor Barry’s Livable Nashville Committee heard from residents that they wanted more ways to go solar. DeCosta Jenkins of NES quickly identified community solar as a way to give Nashvillians access to clean renewable power and help the city achieve its climate and energy goals, and I know his team worked hard to develop a proposal and get the support of TVA,” said Amanda Garcia, staff attorney in the Nashville office of SELC and a technical advisor to the climate and energy subcommittee of Livable Nashville. “Nashville has a long way to go if it wants to achieve 30% renewables, but this is a great first step in the right direction.”

The climate & energy subcommittee, chaired by Lipscomb University’s Dodd Galbreath and including the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Anne Davis and Amanda Garcia and NES’s DeCosta Jenkins, recommended that the city significantly scale up local renewable generation to help the city obtain 30% of its energy from renewables by 2030.  When the community solar project is complete, customers of NES will be able to purchase solar power even if they can’t put solar on their own roof due to technical or financial limitations. 

The draft Livable Nashville report was released in February 2017.  The report makes recommendations in five key areas, including climate & energy, green buildings, mobility, waste, and natural resources.  The final Livable Nashville strategy will be released this summer.

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The Southern Environmental Law Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. With nine offices across the region (Charlottesville, VA; Chapel Hill, NC; Atlanta, GA; Charleston, SC; Washington, DC; Birmingham, AL; Nashville, TN; Asheville, NC; and Richmond, VA), SELC is widely recognized as the Southeast’s foremost environmental organization and regional leader. SELC works on a full range of environmental issues to protect the South’s natural resources and the health and well-being of all the people in our region. www.SouthernEnvironment.org