Across all panels at National Clean Energy Week 2024, the need for comprehensive permitting reform was a consistent theme.  The panel dedicated to the deployment of clean energy and new infrastructure shed some much-needed light on the real-world impacts of the current cumbersome permitting process.

Beginning with Malcolm Woolf of the National Hydropower Association citing an example of a permitting process that took 12 years for a company to obtain 21 permits for a one-megawatt test facility, he revealed that 40% of existing hydropower facilities are up for relicensing, with processes often taking up to a decade or more. Woolf continued, “…from my perspective, you can’t effectively transition to a clean energy grid with the existing permitting structure we have.”

As the discussion dove into workforce implications, Rob Mosher of the Interstate Natural Gas Association stressed that natural gas infrastructure has been crucial in reducing carbon emissions, but current permitting challenges are constraining infrastructure deployment and hampering the workforce: “we’re… hearing from our member companies about the difficulty of keeping their unionized workers under contract with these delays when it comes to the permitting of infrastructure.”

Kyle Davis of the Clean Energy Buyers Association further underscored the economic development opportunities being hindered by the permitting process: “I think we will continue to deploy clean energy, but just at a glacial pace. We really do need siting and permitting reform to help accelerate the market penetration of not only just wind and solar, but as you’ve probably seen with some of our member companies, they’re playing around with different technologies, and they would love to see legacy nuclear units that were retired over the last 10 years brought back to market.”

ClearPath’s Cheryl Lombardi, who moderated the panel, emphasized the importance of certainty for investments, and concluded the discussion by issuing a call to Congress: “It is paramount that Congress does engage. It is something that Congress needs to do. We can have these administration-to-administration actions, but we really need that certainty that moves forward.”