NEDERLAND - On October 25, the Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB) members voted unanimously to advise the Board of Trustees that the Town discontinue the Colorado RideShare program if it wasn’t made free next year. 

Colorado Rideshare allows participants to purchase a key fob for a shared car, which they can then book for minutes or days at a time. The program saw little participation in Nederland. The lack of widespread use made the expense of maintaining the program impractical. 

The problems began with major delays to the installation and operation of Levels 2 and 3 chargers because of broken pieces on Level 2 chargers and a bankrupted manufacturer. However, all chargers should be operational soon. 

The Board discussed additional places to install EV infrastructure around the town. The library has already agreed to discuss plans to add chargers to their parking lot at some point but no further locations were confirmed. 

SAB members discussed future goals for the committee. Their 2014 goal of ensuring Nederland is carbon neutral by 2025 is no longer achievable. The top three goals of the 2014 action plan were: 100% renewable electricity, improving the diversion rate at the transfer station while working towards zero waste, and promoting EV use and accessibility. 

One of the original components of the plan to reach 100% renewable energy relied heavily on private buy-in to a solar garden. Solar gardens allow participants to opt into a program that gives them credits for using the energy already in the power grid from a local solar farm. 

Once subscribed, the participant is issued bills, one from the solar garden in the form of credits and one from the electric company. According to the renewable energy company Solar Gardens’ website, credits from the solar garden can be applied to the utility bill, lowering the cost of electricity by 10-15%. 

As the discussion revealed, the solar garden hasn’t been as successful as the committee had hoped. “The problem was getting people in this town interested in participating,” Rich Orman said.  “You can lead a horse to water, right? And we, I think, made a lot of efforts to do that, but really, very few people wanted to take a drink.” 

Solar farms offer little personal financial benefit, and the administrative burden is often extremely high. Orman wondered if continuing the program would be the best move going forward as he felt people were often discouraged from joining by the long sign-up process and the resulting additional administrative burden of two bills. 

Installing solar panels has also come with its own problems. Chair Melody Baumhover said that people often discover that their house isn’t compatible with solar panels only after officials come for a site check, at which point the process is well underway. The greatest hurdle, however, remains engaging public interest. The Board discussed the need for more public engagement, but offered no solid plans at the time.

While the Board remained determined to keep pushing solar farm plans in the future, they agreed that they should explore alternative plans for reaching the Town's 100% renewable energy goals. The chair emphasized the need for a focus on resilience in the upcoming sustainability plan but didn’t come up with specific goals. “That next step is more so than just sustainability, but resilience, and especially when addressing climate change,” Baumhover said.

The specific goals are set to be discussed in next month's SAB meeting on November 14, at 6:45 p.m. at the Nederland Community Center.