Philip J Edmundson

The old adage “seeing is believing” proved accurate last month, as two dozen business, government and academic leaders from Boston saw for ourselves what’s possible when a country decides to change its energy paradigm. Spoiler alert: things turn out just fine.

As part of a northern European Climate Innovations Study Tour sponsored by the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, I and fellow travelers visited Denmark, The Netherlands and Sweden. It was in Denmark that we saw most clearly the fruits of world-leading renewable energy efforts and gained insights into how Massachusetts could and should follow suit. Traveling by boat to view the 15-year-old, 20-turbine Middelgrunden wind farm off the coast of Copenhagen, we learned that wind power supplies over 40 percent of Denmark’s electricity. A full 45 percent of the country’s power comes from renewable energy sources of all types, including solar.

It wasn’t always this way in Denmark, as remnant oil tanks and refineries and fossil fuel-burning plants can attest. But with global climate change looming, and instability in oil-rich regions of the world mounting, the people, politicians and businesses of Denmark decided the security of their economic, environmental and public health future hinged on a sea change in the way they sourced their energy.

Here in Massachusetts, we have more recently arrived at similar conclusions, and new state policies to grow the renewable energy sector have begun to show results. The state’s wind and solar installations, which amounted to approximately 3 megawatts (MW) each in 2007, now total approximately 107 and 1,160 MW, respectively. Still, renewable power sources comprise only about 9 percent of the overall electricity generation mix in all six New England states, according to the Independent System Operator (ISO)-New England. In Massachusetts, state law mandates that utilities and other electricity suppliers move to 15 percent renewables by 2020, with an increase of 1 percent each year. But a quicker pace of transition is needed in order to decarbonize our economy fast and deeply enough to meet both the city of Boston’s and the commonwealth’s goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically by 2050.  Projections of sea level rise linked to carbon emissions, as reported by the Climate Ready Boston project on the eve of our European study tour, drive home this urgency.

Throughout our trip to Europe, a recurring theme was how investing in renewable energy and other climate preparedness and mitigation strategies aren’t sacrifices, but rather opportunities to enhance the quality of life of our communities. Renewable energy, for example, provides greater energy independence and global security for the U.S. by reducing our reliance on overseas sources of oil and gas, while reducing pollution to improve public health, and providing a much-needed hedge against further exacerbation of climate change impacts.

Economic Impacts

The economics of a robust renewable energy sector are also important. Earlier this year, ISO New England released a report showing that the region’s nascent offshore wind industry could eventually bring sizable economic and environmental benefits to New England. The draft 2015 Economic Study-Offshore Wind Study found the installation of 1 gigawatt (GW) of offshore wind could provide power production cost savings of $104 million to $407 million per year, with savings growing to as much as $807 million annually if offshore wind installations are doubled to 2 GW.

Renewable energy naysayers often claim that incentives put in place to drive clean energy production will increase  costs on businesses, discouraging job creation and pushing companies to other states. Those claims, however, ignore the reality of what’s been happening here in Boston and across Massachusetts since we began ratcheting up clean energy incentives a few years ago.

The commonwealth’s clean energy sector grew by double digits for the fourth consecutive year in 2015, according to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s (MassCEC) 2015 Massachusetts Clean Energy Industry Report. Expanding by 11.9 percent between 2014 and 2015, the state’s clean energy sector now employs nearly 99,000 workers at over 6,400 companies in every county of the state. The number of clean energy jobs has increased 64 percent since 2010 and now accounts for 3.3 percent of the state’s overall workforce, with three-quarters of those employees earning more than $50,000 per year. This $11 billion industry, which includes renewable energy as well as energy efficiency, represents 2.5 percent of the Massachusetts Gross State Product, according to MassCEC.

Connected to great centers of technology advancement such as MIT and other institutions of higher education, Massachusetts companies are poised to lead the development of the next generation of renewable energy innovation. This, coupled with the significant growth already under our belts, makes our region well-positioned to redouble its efforts and give our neighbors across the Atlantic a run for their money on global clean energy leadership. The time is now.n

Philip Edmundson is co-founder of WGA, an insurance brokerage firm sold in 2015 to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. He now serves as chair of the company’s Northeast region. He is past chair of The Alliance for Business Leadership.