Movement shows importance of sustainable energy

Energy Alabama in Huntsville recently kicked off a movement in efforts to convert Alabama to 100 percent sustainable energy.

The local team of Energy Alabama presented a platform for people within Madison County to come together and share ideas as well as act upon those innovations and ideas.

“Energy Alabama wanted to launch a movement within Huntsville that would bring awareness to the renewable energy within our own community,” events coordinator Amy Curtis said.

The main goal of Energy Alabama is to help Alabama become net zero, which means that the amount of energy used is equivalent to the amount of energy produced.

“We believe this area is a wonderful area to showcase Alabama’s part in transitioning to renewable energy,” Curtis said.

Though the movement focuses on sustaining energy, the group would like people to look beyond just LED lights. Instead, they want individuals to look at the technology and deployment already in place in our community. This can be connected to technology in schools as well as other areas.

“Huntsville is full of potential and is already moving forward to energy sustainability. Whole Foods is powering their parking lot with solar and wind.” Curtis said. “There is an electric charging station downtown and solar panels are along Memorial Parkway to share just a few models of renewable energy.”

Upon seeing the potential in the community, Energy Alabama CEO Daniel Tait expresses other factors that play into converting to 100 percent sustainable energy.

“It is about more than screwing in new light bulbs,” Tait said. “That is important, no doubt, but we need people working on community scale issues and also letting their elected leaders know just how important this is to them.”

Curtis feels renewable energy is the future and can drastically change the way people in Alabama live for the better. Curtis had a variety of misconceptions when she began volunteering. After much learning and experience, she began to understand the importance of energy.

“Over the last few months, I’ve read books, attended workshops and listened when people spoke about renewable energy,” Curtis said. “Gaining knowledge on policies, types of renewable energy, and the process of becoming our own micro grids has helped me to better understand the importance of our community coming together to power our future.”

Despite the fact that the movement has just begun, the number of volunteers is already growing. After only two meetings, 40 people have already signed up to work in the community. The movement has gained support from individuals that have attended organized events as well as people who are connected to partnering groups.

“We’re partnering with the Co-working Group of Huntsville to host events every two weeks for people to collaborate and deploy projects,” Curtis said.

The movement itself focuses on sustaining energy, but the learning that takes part is what volunteers really want people to take away from the movement. The volunteers offer a variety of levels of knowledge and education that can help individuals make a difference.

“We are here to share our knowledge so volunteers like myself can learn about renewable energy while trying to grow energy sustainability within our own community,” Curtis said.

The Energy Alabama team is well aware that their goals will not come true overnight, but they are willing to work until the job is done.

“Long story short, if we are serious about solving the energy challenge, we must build a movement of people who care enough to get their hands dirty and help build the solutions,” Tait said.

Join the movement at http://alcse.org/the-movement-hsv.