Brockton Brightfields: Barriers and Methods for Overcoming Them
The Brightfield project team has had to overcome a number of barriers to bring the project from concept to development. The key barriers include: • Financing – obtaining grant funds. These barriers were overcome by leveraging community support and political support, outreach to key stakeholders. • Legal and Regulatory Barriers – Need for Special Legislation. This barrier was overcome by working closely with the Brockton City Council and State Legislature to develop, file, and pass special legislation. Other stakeholders were called upon to provide support with key contacts. • Complex process / lean municipal staffing. This barrier was overcome largely through obtaining grant funds to support consulting and legal fees. Consultants performed technical and financial feasibility analysis, assistance developing electricity and REC agreements, community outreach, and overall project management. The home rule petitions, negotiation of REC contracts and the REC guarantee program, and development of the Request for Proposals required sophisticated legal advice. • Transactional costs – layers of bureaucracy and permissions, multiple funding sources. Transactional costs were high and were largely manageable due to grant funds and consultants dramatically reducing or waiving fees to see the project through to fruition. The city paid only $30,000 of its own funds in consulting fees throughout the project's duration. • Impact of time – changing market conditions, especially energy and REC markets. This was largely uncontrollable due to the project's complexity. It resulted in the project changing course from growing itself through positive cash flow to potentially facing a slightly negative cash flow.
Barriers Encountered and Methods for Overcoming Barriers Phase I Proposal from Global Solar Team
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