“Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?”
This refrain, familiar to any parent who has ever taken their child on a long trip, underscores an important point. On the journey to 100% renewable energy, a town needs to track and report its progress. Setting milestones along the journey can help.
In the planning section of this guidebook we quoted Lewis Carol to emphasize that a plan is necessary to achieve a goal. That plan defines the path forward. The ultimate goal of 100PercentCT will take years to achieve, and involves many participants. In setting an “endpoint” to this process, each town should consider a range of factors, including those goals set by the state and the regional grid. Often, these goals are set arbitrarily: near enough to prompt action and yet distant enough to allow for the large amount of work that will be required. While important, such distant goals do not help to measure incremental progress. For this purpose, incremental goals or milestones are essential.
Monitoring will allow the town to:
Although a newly commissioned plan has no progress to monitor, the time to start the monitoring process is at the commissioning. Ideally the plan should answer these questions: