This week John Farrell and Wade Underwood talk with Paul Spencer, President and founder of the Clean Energy Collective (CEC) in Carbondale, CO. The CEC is pioneering the process of delivering clean power-generation through medium-scale (mostly solar) facilities that are collectively owned by participating utility customers. In many ways, their community energy model is the “holy grail” because it has proven replicable in several places around the United States.
Paul Spencer and the Community Solar “Holy Grail”
By John Farrell, originally published by Institute for Local Self-Reliance
July 25, 2013
Tags: Community energy, decentralised power, solar power
Related Articles
Affordability, not scarcity, is the real energy crisis
By Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World
In this post, I examine differences in economic behaviour by comparing two types of periods: those with low energy affordability and those with high energy affordability.
August 26, 2026
Inside the struggle to dismantle America’s greenhouse gas data
By Rachel Santarsiero, Ashley Braun, DeSmog Blog
New accounts show the oil and gas industry trying to weaken methane reporting while saving the federal emissions system it relies on.
August 24, 2026
As U.S. oil and refined product exports soar, will the Trump administration impose an export ban?
By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
To implement an export ban, the president would have to declare an emergency. It’s not hard to see how Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz would be seen as an emergency.
August 13, 2026






Comments
Welcome to the new Resillience commenting system!
We have moved from the former Disqus commenting system to a new system as of September 10, 2026.
We made this change because of privacy concerns regarding Disqus. It's also part of a set of changes to bring more services to the Resilience community under a single login: commenting, (coming September 2026), and online courses (coming 2027). Unfortunately, your old Disqus comments may not reliably link to your account in this new system. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.