Last September the Holland Board of Public Works launched our P21 Initiative with one goal: to start a conversation about how we’d like to meet Holland’s growing energy needs for decades to come. The investment that the Holland Board of Public Works will make in our future on behalf of the community will cost millions of dollars, and it’s important the public understand our options. In the months since the Initiative began, we’ve done exactly that.
We built a website, www.p21decision.com, as a hub for all of the information that we’d distribute in the months ahead. We brought P21 to social media with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter pages. We launched our P21 weekly Special Presentation series, which pulled industry experts from across the country to cover topics ranging from potential fuels and generation types to district heating and government regulations. Our Risk Analysis Process (RAP) sessions created a forum for key stakeholders from throughout the community to share their input and opinions. And advertising online, in the Holland Sentinel, and on billboards across West Michigan pointed visitors to p21decision.com to stay engaged.
In everything we’ve done, the goal has been to get people talking. It’s worked.
P21decision.com has received thousands of views. The Holland Board of Public Works has been fielding calls from community members with questions and concerns. Our P21 Special Presentation series has been well covered by the Holland Sentinel, and readers have been responding, both online and in print. People are talking.
We’re pleased with the level at which the community’s become engaged, but the conversation isn’t over.
One criticism we’ve heard in the community is that the P21 Initiative has taken place outside of the good work done on the Community Energy Plan by the Sustainability Committee. That is not true. In fact, the findings of the Community Energy Plan that are relevant to base load generation are being carefully evaluated, and key recommendations from the plan have been deeply embedded in the P21 process since the beginning—things like district heating, combined industrial heat and power, and biomass. These recommendations make great sense for our community, and as we take a decades-long view to how we meet our energy needs we know they will play an important role.
One other thing we know for certain is that no matter what decision is reached on base load, we need to invest in infrastructure to support it. If the decision is to purchase power from the grid we will need to link more fully with the outside world to bring a sufficient level of power into our community. And if the decision is to increase our base load generating capacity we’ll need to make the investments to support that. Either way, there’s a lot of work to be done to better connect Holland to the rest of the world—things like a more robust distribution system that will continue to deliver reliable, affordable, sustainable power to our community for generations to come.
Early this summer we’ll host a community meeting, to which we will invite a broader group of leaders and thinkers from across the community. At the meeting they will review and discuss the findings of our Sustainable Return on Investment (SROI) process. The community meeting will be the capstone of the process, and from there the HBPW Board and Holland City Council will go on to make an informed decision. Until then, keep sending us letters. Keep calling. Keep talking. It’s an important decision, and we’re happy to have you involved.
Dave Koster is the general manager of the Holland Board of Public Works
