SPARC* INITIATIVE

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

The SPARC Initiative is a landmark success in renewable energy policy development, with broad endorsement from constituents, environmental groups and industry. A highly collaborative process of engagement, education and research, is taking the County from crisis to consensus. In 2013, a moratorium on commercial solar projects was adopted to respond to extensive public resistance. We now have a regulatory framework that may well achieve our governor’s 50% renewable energy mandate, while respecting local priorities for community development, conservation and environmental stewardship. Innovative and extensive public engagement was key to this turnaround. The SPARC Initiative included nearly twenty workshops. To accommodate intense public interest throughout our enormous geographic area (20,000 square miles) SPARC also made extensive use of digital tools for virtual town meetings, sharing of research through a web-based library, public notices, editorial commentary, and a wide range of other web-based content. Key successes from this groundbreaking Initiative were our innovative web program, www.SPARCFORUM.org, a new regulatory Framework for renewable energy development, and broad consensus on community-scale development. The SPARC Initiative has brought the County into a new era of community-oriented renewable energy for the largest County – with the largest solar energy potential - in the nation.