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Aug 09, 2023

Powering up

Clean energy is a burgeoning industry in Tennessee. Between established companies and those moving here, the state’s unique capacity to produce clean energy and plenty of creativity to drive it

Clean energy is a burgeoning industry in Tennessee. Between established companies and those moving here, the state’s unique capacity to produce clean energy and plenty of creativity to drive it forward, Tennessee has the potential to become a valuable asset in the American decarbonization journey. While state leaders and powerhouse entities like the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Oak Ridge National Laboratory are encouraging growth to some degree, the environmental and economic gains associated with the industry have yet to be fully realized. There is an entire industry of people pushing for that to happen.

The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council was established to connect the clean energy-related work happening across Tennessee’s different regions and sectors. It casts a wide net. To acknowledge a large scope of businesses and operations, the TAEBC uses the phrase “advanced energy” to describe “any technology that makes energy cleaner, safer, more secure and more efficient.” This technology may come from manufacturers, entrepreneurs, researchers, service providers, software companies and others. Members include Volkswagen, Verizon, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and Piedmont Lithium. The TAEBC’s most recent advanced energy economic impact report indicates that in 2019, the sector was responsible for hundreds of thousands of jobs in Tennessee. If the industry is following trends from past years, that number has likely grown significantly.

While the concept of advanced energy is helpful to describe the wide reach of clean energy business practices and models, not all organizations are solely focused on this work, and some forms of energy are cleaner than others. Nuclear energy, for example, is among the cleanest forms of energy, and it’s one that the state is leaning into. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, it is already Tennessee’s third largest source of energy consumption behind natural gas and motor gas. Gov. Bill Lee recently signed an executive order establishing a state Nuclear Energy 
Advisory Council, which will be a part of TDEC. The state legislature added $50 million to the state budget to encourage nuclear power-related business growth. Conversely, state legislators also passed a law defining natural gas as clean energy. Though it releases fewer emissions than coal, it still emits greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change. The TVA — the nation’s largest public power provider — is expanding its natural gas production, though it has been met with a lawsuit from environmental groups that claim TVA didn’t properly consider alternative forms of cleaner energy as required by federal law.

Burning coal, oil and gas is the largest driver of climate change because these fossil fuels’ emissions release greenhouse gasses that trap the sun’s heat and warm the earth. Increased temperatures cause ripple effects such as droughts and increasingly extreme weather events. Finding cleaner energy sources is a priority for countries around the globe, and many are legally bound to take climate action after signing the Paris Agreement treaty in 2016 (the U.S. signed the original agreement, withdrew itself under the leadership of former President Donald Trump, and rejoined when President Joe Biden took office). The Paris Agreement seeks to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change by limiting global temperature increases to at most 2 degrees Celsius, with a goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, however, warns that the world — and the U.S. — isn’t moving fast enough to meet this goal. Tennessee ranks among the top third of states regarding energy consumption despite an immense capacity for clean energy.

TAEBC Executive Director Cortney Piper says that barriers to realizing Tennessee’s advanced energy capabilities include a lack of connection, collaboration and communication. She also names a lack of economic development opportunities for smaller companies as a barrier.

“There’s still more work to be done in terms of getting all of our elected officials up to speed on the breadth and depth of the advanced energy industry and how it significantly contributes to our economic growth and development,” says Piper. “At the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council, we assume that as our responsibility.”

Even in the face of these barriers, compelling work and collaboration is still happening across the state, particularly in the private sector. Companies are seeing the benefits of utilizing and investing in advanced energy for several reasons, including consumer demand. Educational institutions are also fostering the next generation of clean energy leaders. The University of Tennessee Spark Innovation Center’s incubator program provides support to technology startups by providing lab space, mentorship and business support for two years. Most of these businesses, though not all of them, prioritize clean technologies, and the program won an award from the U.S. Department of Energy within its first year. The Spark Innovation Center further encourages clean tech development through its 12-week Cleantech Accelerator, presented in partnership with Evergreen Climate Innovations. The program supports budding clean tech businesses with a concentrated dose of services, support and connections and is a member of the Heartland Climate Tech Partnership, which seeks to expand climate tech and clean energy business across the greater Midwest.

“Doing clean tech, building businesses, promoting and rewarding the innovators and the entrepreneurs who are involved in clean tech is the right thing to do,” says John Bruck, director of the Spark Innovation Center. “That’s one pathway. That’s one strategy to helping out the planet. And in the meantime, we build new, very cool tech-based companies and we build East Tennessee and overall Tennessee into a better place.”

Laura Zapata

One established and particularly innovative clean energy company is Nashville’s Clearloop. Co-founded by CEO Laura Zapata and COO Bob Corney in 2019, Clearloop seeks to decarbonize the electricity grid by allowing companies to “reclaim their carbon footprint.” (Clearloop was later acquired by solar energy company Silicon Ranch — like Clearloop, a venture co-founded by former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen.) The company does this by allowing businesses to enter purchasing agreements used to build solar farms that effectively offset the carbon used from operations like travel or running data centers. Clearloop funnels that capital into building solar farms that support communities that are, as Zapata puts it, “carbon-intense,” or areas that rely heavily on fossil fuels in the Southeast. This process provides renewable energy alternatives in places where there aren’t many.

“You’re creating [carbon] somewhere and you’re trying to take it out of another part of the economy,” explains Zapata. “What we’re saying is you can actually clean up the grid for that amount — if you’re really intentional about where you build these projects.”

Zapata is careful to use “offset” as a verb rather than a noun. There is an entire industry focused on carbon offsets and carbon credits, or the idea that a company can make up for its carbon footprint by funding projects that benefit the environment. Over the years, various investigations have found that some organizations have bought and sold carbon credits that haven’t had the climate-positive impact that was promised, which renders climate-positive claims useless and even harmful as they correlate to climate-friendly marketing with no meaningful action. A ProPublica investigation, for example, found carbon credits that promised to prevent deforestation in the Amazon didn’t actually prevent as much deforestation as intended for a variety of reasons, and the promised climate impacts of these credits were difficult to truly quantify. Critics also argue that carbon credits serve as placeholders for companies to avoid meaningful climate actions within their own operations while still touting climate-friendly practices. The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative recently released guidelines for companies seeking meaningful climate engagement. They include releasing more transparent, science-based information about a company’s internal emission reports and climate goals and not leaning on carbon credits to account for a company’s climate plan, but to augment it with.

Clearloop’s approach to offsetting emissions leans on transparency and the ability to track outcomes — key factors missing from other offset claims. The company’s solar farms are built in the U.S. and come with dashboards that track how much carbon is being avoided and how much solar power is being generated in real time. It has established solar farms in Jackson and Paris, Tenn. Plans are in progress for a farm in Panola County, Miss., and North Louisiana, among other future projects. Clearloop’s solar farms are in places where solar power makes up less than 1 percent of the electricity grid. They’re also near under-resourced communities that can benefit from the solar farm by tapping into cheaper energy and better infrastructure.

“[If companies] are spending money on this stuff, we want to make sure that they’re spending it on some real infrastructure that we can show that they’re actually accelerating the decarbonization of the grid, and then invest in the communities that really could benefit the most,” says Zapata. “It’s real investment happening in a community that may not have seen any investment in a long time, climate or not.”

Clearloop demonstrates how innovative solutions can facilitate a multi-faceted approach that addresses economic, environmental and social issues. In a state like Tennessee, where some elected leaders aren’t as concerned by climate change, leaning into the economics of advanced energy presents a different yet meaningful case for future investment. The demand for cleaner energy is apparent, the need urgent. While the clock is ticking on climate-related goals, there is no shortage of innovation within the advanced energy field.

“Tennesseeans are a part of a new energy future,” says Piper. “We are manufacturing products right here from Tennessee. We are creating new job opportunities. …This industry is robust and it’s growing in Tennessee and we are making contributions that not only affect us, but the entire planet.”