At long last!! After a few months of focused work and countless tweaks, we’re delighted to officially announce our remodeled website at www.txses.org.
Our goal for this new and improved TXSES website is to provide a more user-friendly way to learn about who we are, what we do and how you can get involved and make a solar difference in your community.
We improved the navigation to make it easier to find our business members, valuable information resources, learn about our active local chapters, upcoming events and the latest Texas clean energy news. Those lovely images you see on the home page? Those are residential and commercial installations by our Platinum and Gold business members, one of the benefits of those levels. The new site is responsive so it’s easy to navigate on your phone, tablet and desktop.
We’ll be constantly updating the site with relevant, timely information, articles, blogs, newsletters, company announcements and member successes in the News section.
Huge thanks to Stephen Bartoleomeo (stevebart9@gmail.com) for his relentless patience and exemplary technical support to get the new site up and running. We couldn’t have done it without him.
Questions? Comments? Let us hear from you! pparsons@txses.org
Schedule: Part-time Salary range: Commensurate with experience Position: reports to Executive Director and Board Chair Location: Flexible; Texas-based preferred
For more than four decades, TXSES has been the pre-eminent statewide organization developing free thought-leading, independent, fact-based educational materials that inspire innovation, share best practices and educate decision-makers on the critical importance of sound, favorable solar policies that will grow the industry; protect clean air; build healthy, resilient communities; support local, well-paying jobs; and lay the foundation for building a strong solar foundation for a 100% clean energy future for Texas, one community at a time.
Operating virtually, TXSES is a membership-based not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our unique niche is exemplified in our well-established local chapters in Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Houston and San Antonio. Having boots on the ground in these major metropolitan cities, which represent nearly a quarter of Texas’s 29 million citizens, enables our gifted, dedicated experts to disseminate fact-based, relevant solar information.
TXSES is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and embracing a workplace with diverse voices and perspectives. Applicants shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, marital status or medical conditions.
ABOUT THE POSITION
TXSES is seeking an experienced, self-motivated, and innovative development expert to provide strategic direction and oversight of the organization’s development operations, including prospect research, corporate and foundation relations, government grants, annual giving, donor, funder and membership stewardship and grant reporting tracking. Reporting to TXSES’s Executive Director, the Director of Development will strengthen and expand TXSES’s fundraising program, which establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships with foundation, government and corporate partners and individual donors. The Director will develop and implement fundraising strategies to support our mission and revenue goals, guided by established metrics. This is a part-time position and is a new staff role in the organization.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
Must embrace the mission of TXSES
BA or BS from a regionally-accredited institution
Minimum of five-seven years of progressively responsible development experience, including demonstrated expertise in corporate, foundation and major gift fundraising
Direct experience soliciting funds from individuals, corporations, government and foundations
Proposal writing proficiency, including budget development
Demonstrated passion to mitigate the climate crisis and be part of the clean energy future
Excellent interpersonal communication skills, including discretion and good judgement
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Ability to operate independently in a virtual environment and provide needed self-direction
Demonstrated ability to prioritize, be flexible and work in a collaborative environment
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Degree in nonprofit management, philanthropy/development, or public administration from a regionally-accredited institution
Current Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) certification
Additional training in the field, such as grant writing, prospect research, foundation and corporate giving, government grants
Knowledge of clean energy sector(s) such as solar, energy storage, electric vehicles, wind, energy efficiency, etc. considered a plus
RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategic oversight
Contribute to goals and tactics in support of TXSES’s Strategic Plan
Develop and implement the annual development plan
Coordinate efforts to identify, cultivate, solicit and steward individual, corporate, government and foundation prospects and funders, with the goal of increasing revenue in accordance with the development plan
Work with Executive Director to develop cases for support for proposals and interactions with potential donors and funders
Oversee grant seeking, including researching new opportunities, proposal writing, fundraising database and tracking systems
Manage donor and funder relations and stewardship
Make direct funding appeals/asks
Assist with fundraising special events
TO APPLY
Submit the following materials to pparsons@txses.org with the subject line “Director of Development” no later than February 1, 2022 by 5:00 PM Central:
Cover letter
Resumé, including information on major gifts/grants secured
Contact information for professional references
Example of annual or other fundraising plan(s) you have developed
Sample of a proposal and/or case for support language you authored
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 228-206 last night to build a bridge to a brighter future by passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on Friday. This major bipartisan package will improve Texas’ transportation and power infrastructure and ensure clean water over the coming decades.
Up next: a budget reconciliation bill that would help the U.S. stall climate change and clean up our environment. The Build Back Better Act includes clean energy tax incentives and other investments to tackle pollution.
Key environmental provisions with funding include: removing lead pipes; building EV charging stations; upgrading Texas’s ailing electric grid and power infrastructure; and upgrades to public transportation systems.
The affairs of TXSES are governed by a Board of Directors chosen from its membership. If you are a current member of TXSES or become a member prior to the election, you are eligible to run for the Board and help guide organizational policy to advance our mission:
Equitable access to solar energy for every Texan.
For more than four decades, TXSES has been the pre-eminent statewide organization that develops free thought-leading, independent, fact-based educational materials that inspire innovation, share best practices and educate decision-makers on the critical importance of sound, favorable solar policies that will grow the industry; protect clean air; build healthy, resilient communities; support local, well-paying jobs; and lay the foundation for building a strong solar foundation for a 100% clean energy future for Texas, one community at a time.
New board members will serve two-year terms beginning January 2022. Four at-large board seats are up for election on the December 2021 ballot. More election information and instructions to submit your application can be found here.
To confirm TXSES membership status, contact Pete Parsons, pparsons@txses.net.
The submission deadline for candidates is November 30, 2021. The election will occur during the month of December. Email questions to TXSESelections@gmail.com.
On a personal note, I have found serving on the Board to be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. If you have a passion for renewable energy and want to make a difference in these challenging times, please consider running.
For nearly two years now, a coalition of clean energy developers, advocates, and experts from across the U.S. has been working to develop a better understanding of how to build the least-cost, most reliable grid possible. The outcome of this work by the Local Solar for All (“LS4A”) coalition (localsolarforall.org) documents the exciting and money-saving potential that better models and analysis reveals is available from aggressive growth in the distributed solar and storage markets.
The LS4A team joined forces with Vibrant Clean Energy, a modeling firm based in Boulder, Colorado to use a new utility planning model called WIS:dom-P (“Weather-Informed energy Systems: for design, operations and markets”) to break through the limits of old-style utility models and, for the first time, understand the role that solar + storage distributed resources can play in decarbonizing our economy in an affordable and sustainable way.
The WIS:dom-P model was built to thrive in big data in a way that the old models simply can’t handle. With 10,000 times more data points and a resolution down to five minutes, three square kilometers, and one kilowatt, the model can identify the right resource in the right place at the right time to serve demand for electricity most economically. Not only can the model evaluate both large and small resources (below the 69 kV grid level), it also evaluates each kind of supply along with the cost to transmit and distribute it. Solving for electricity demand from a systems perspective reveals new savings opportunities across 80% of the hours in the year.
These amazing benefits arise for several reasons—some expected and some delightfully surprising. Because distributed solar and storage match better with load, these right-sized resources reduce over-building of expensive generation. The WIS:dom-P model can also identify when more expensive local resources are actually a better deal than cheaper resources when accounting for transmission and distribution costs. Even more amazing, the model shows how distributed resources actually reshape the system load that the utility system must serve, getting higher value and more savings out of the large-scale resources, especially wind and solar, as well.
The LS4A team launched its campaign with a study of the lower 48 U.S. states and learned that by optimizing and coordinating distributed solar and storage in utility system planning, the U.S. could eliminate 95% of the carbon emissions from the electric system and save nearly $500 billion in total system costs compared to a business-as-usual approach. The least-cost system has 247,000 MW of distributed solar by the year 2050 and relies on more than 9,000 GWh of utility and distributed storage, about evenly split, by the same date. A distributed solar and storage future also includes two million more jobs than the business-as-usual approach.
The LS4A coalition is planning even more analysis, including evaluation of proposals under discussion at the federal level. And since releasing the first national study, the team has studied the grids in Illinois, California, and New York and added evaluation of economy-wide electrification and impacts on environmentally and economically disadvantaged communities. Every study shows that the savings and other benefits only grow with these strategies. The future is clearly going to be much more distributed—with solar and storage—if we want an affordable, low-carbon energy economy.
Karl’s career spans more than 30 years in clean energy, electricity regulation, sustainability and advocacy. Experienced as a public utility commissioner, he’s also been a federal R&D executive, utility executive, advocate, and attorney.
There is a train wreck coming for behind-the-meter distributed solar and it’s our responsibility to fix it.
Even after the positive outcome from the policy debate with the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, we are entering another phase of tough-policy whack-a-mole. This will be harder to resolve for the benefit of solar owners because it’s against the big, anonymous, corporate world of “Retail Electric Providers.”
Last week, many solar owners got a notice from Green Mountain Energy and Reliant that they were no longer offering their net-metering-like Renewable Rewards program, instead putting in place a new program. Amending a Winston Churchill quote, the incorrect perception of the new solar-buy back policy got halfway around Texas before the real facts on the Energy Facts Label could be understood for what they really are.
Here is what Green Mountain Energy (GME) policy really is: GME will no longer buy back more excess solar for credit than you buy from them. If you pulled 700kwh from the grid, then the maximum solar credit is 700kWh, even if you pushed 1,000 back to the grid. A monthly plan charge of $9.95 was also added and that drives up the average per kWh charge further. This policy is very much like many of the electric cooperatives now. The most challenging part is that the energy charge is about 20% higher than for standard non-solar plans and for many, these price gaps spoil the solar value in the near term.
This might not be popular, but the solar industry is partly responsible for this situation. A solar industry with less oversight from Texas than hairdressers receive has over-promised to homeowners. Too many cases of overbuilt solar arrays resulted in customers producing far more than they used resulting in huge credits from their retail electric providers (REPs). Retail electric providers, like GME, contend it’s a losing business model for them.
Unfortunately, this happened at the end of the legislative session and that means we face two years of REPs adjusting plans without legislative leaders being able to weigh into the benefit of solar owners. All we have are the parting words of the Governor to the all-new PUC which was in essence “make renewables pay their fair share.” It started right away. Georgetown Utilities recently announced a $1,000 facility study fee and a $450 “Installation and Inspection” fee for solar owners!
In the competitive electric utilities, there is no mandate that REPs provide any form of solar buyback. Today there are about five REPs that do, with the terms getting worse each month.
It’s time for behind-the-meter solar installers to be part of the solution. This means that in our Texas (mostly) hands-off business mentality, we must design systems that are “win/win” for consumers and providers alike. No more designing to 100+% of need, even if the homeowner demands that he “wants a credit.” That’s what too many have done for years and now policy has taken a turn for the worse.
The pendulum is swinging against distributed solar, at a time when the state needs as much energy as possible from a variety of sources. Policies and buyback programs perceived by consumers to be unfair will disrupt the Texas solar industry.
It’s my hope that our TXSES business members will come together in this next year and develop, in collaboration with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), the Public Utility Commission and the legislature, well-founded professional standards to ensure that solar on your rooftop or behind your barn remains an indispensable part of the Texas energy landscape.
