Despite recent changes in federal policies, states and the private sector are making significant progress with wind and solar power deployment, which is a reason to be optimistic, former U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Sept. 30 during the Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability. 

Noting that there will be a rush to take advantage of existing tax credits before they expire, Granholm said there will be an acceleration of deployment for at least the next two years. 

“Two weeks ago, the Solar Energy Industry Association put out a report saying that they expect that they will be deploying nearly 250 GW of solar by 2030,” said Granholm, who is also the former governor of Michigan. “The Hoover Dam equates to 2 gigawatts. So, we will have added to our nation’s electric grid by 2030, 125 GW or 125 solar dams worth of clean power, regardless of what is happening in the next 1,200 days.” 

More than 800 people attended the 23rd annual Wege Lecture, U-M’s signature sustainability lecture series, at Rackham Auditorium. It was sponsored by the School for Environment and Sustainability, its Center for Sustainable Systems and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. 

The talk was moderated by Shalanda Baker, U-M’s inaugural vice provost for sustainability and climate action, whose questions included those submitted by attendees in advance. Baker and Granholm worked together in the Department of Energy.

Earlier in the day, Granholm met with small groups of SEAS and Ford School students and faculty for hour-long Q&A sessions. 

In a wide-ranging conversation that focused on the progress toward and current challenges of achieving a clean energy future, Granholm said there’s a lot that could be done at the local level to make the cost of energy more affordable for people, such as “eliminating the soft costs associated with adding clean energy to one’s home or energy efficiency to one’s home.”

When asked about the hot topic of data centers, which many communities are saying no to because of their heavy water and energy consumption, Granholm said data centers could be an ally in driving more clean energy deployment, if the policies are structured to encourage utilities and data centers to work together on grid optimization and community benefit agreements. 

Virtual power plants, Granholm added, could provide flexibility in managing data centers’ energy needs. “If these huge data centers allow the local utility to use that data center to turn on the dimmer switch when they need more power, then the data center actually becomes a grid asset,” Granholm said.

Granholm mentioned that these data centers, if done correctly in partnership with communities, could also help accelerate the clean energy transition because clean energy is the fastest, lowest-cost option to bring these data centers online quickly.

“At this moment, wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy in most places,” Granholm said. “So if you are a data center and you want to go fast, and you want to go the least expensive, you are going to use clean energy and storage.”

She added: “I view this next wave of technology as being technology that will allow us to have free, abundant, clean energy so that we won’t have to have these conversations, and that our children and grandchildren will be able to focus on other ways of saving our civilization.”

When asked what’s most important for the next generation of climate leaders, Granholm said having a “warrior ethos for the planet” is important. She closed her talk with a rallying call to action and mentioned a prayer that U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi shared with her from her travels to South Africa. 

“On the wall of a bishop’s office was a prayer. And the prayer goes, ‘when at last I stand before him, God will say, show me your wounds. And if I have no wounds, God will ask, was there nothing worth fighting for?’

“My hope is that we will bear the scars from the wounds that we have earned on behalf of the people on the planet,” Granholm said.

The Wege Lecture was part of U-M’s first-ever Climate Week, which is being held through Oct. 5. 

ICYMI: Watch Jennifer Granholm's full Wege Lecture.