March 15, 2008

How to make a power plant a welcome neighbor

Derick Dahlen, Avant Energy, and Dave Pokorney, Minnesota Municipal Power Agency

Openness from day one

A facility of this nature must be well-designed, with the community in mind, in order to be accepted by a host city. A key element of getting the plant built on time and on budget was anticipating community concerns and addressing them in advance.

Those of us in the power generation business aren't necessarily born to be erudite spokespersons for a project. We're practical people—focusing on technology, engineering, and the bottom line. But when we're bringing a high-impact project into a community, we need to learn to be communicators as well. Early in the process—after identifying Faribault as the optimum location for the facility—we decided to seek the expertise of communications professionals. They helped us take several steps:

• We created a communications plan so that we could make an orderly, logical entry into the community. Communications were to always be honest, forthright, and transparent.
• We translated our engineering-speak into well-written, convincing messages to help us tell our story to the community.
• We sought out and identified likely advocates and allies for the plant and we then met these people individually and in small groups.
• We met very early in the process with editors and reporters from the city's daily newspaper and clearly laid out our plans for the project. We talked about the community benefits and favorable environmental profile of the plant. We also explained the need for more power generation in the region.
• We anticipated possible objections from the community and environmental activists and developed articulate and well-thought-out responses.

Push the envelope

This up-front work wasn't always easy. It's not necessarily natural for those of us who are engineers and business people to put ourselves in front of members of the community, risking criticism for what we know to be a smart, responsible plan of action. But it was worth it.

Our open communication with the community was also part of our regulatory approval strategy. Demonstrating a quantifiable need and presenting a responsive and responsible plan for addressing it made gaining regulatory approval a relatively smooth process.

Above all, we became comfortable with articulating our vision: that we could build much more than a power plant. We were building an energy park that would be a long-term asset for the people of the community as well as a source of needed power. And, in the bargain, we could produce power that is efficient and affordable in an environmentally friendly manner.

Telling the environmental advantages of combined-cycle technology was an important part of our Faribault Energy Park message. The environmental story became a compelling one, consisting of: combined-cycle efficiency, low emissions, renewable fuel capability, quiet operation, efficient water management, and an appealing wetlands area accessible to the public.

When you are telling the story of your new plant to the public, it's important to catalog all the environmental advantages—and perhaps create some new ones, such as environmental education—to be able to assemble a credible, compelling environmental story.