Missy Stults didn’t set out to become a climate and renewable energy leader. She started as a marine biology student in Maine, drawn to the ocean’s megafauna. Then a required environmental ethics class changed everything. “We talked about the ethics of climate change,” she recalls. “I realised I wasn’t going to be a marine biologist— I was going to work on climate change because it impacts everything, from the species I love to the communities I care about.”
Now, as Ann Arbor’s Sustainability and Innovations Director, Stults is leading the city’s bold push for carbon neutrality by 2030 through the A2ZERO initiative—a plan that reimagines energy, mobility, land use and resilience with innovation, collaboration, and equity at its heart.
For the past six years, Stults and her team of visionaries have worked to reframe climate action as an investment in the future, not an optional cost. “We’re already paying for floods, heatwaves, disruptions, and public health impacts,” she explains. “The choice is whether to keep reacting or invest in stronger neighbourhoods and the future we want.” That framing wasn’t without pushback—especially when the A2ZERO plan revealed an eye-opening $1 billion price tag. But by being upfront about the costs and the stakes, Ann Arbor gained critical public and political support to move forward. And it’s working.
From “So What?” to “What’s Next?”
Stults’ journey into climate work began with a question she learned to ask during graduate school: “So what?” What does a changing climate mean politically, economically, and socially? How do we respond in a way that prioritises justice and community? These questions have driven her work ever since.
After stints in national and international climate initiatives, Stults found her calling at the local level. “I’m a localist,” she says. “I love working where you can see the tangible impacts of change, where you can walk into a community and feel the difference.”
Ann Arbor’s Goal: Renewables and More
Ann Arbor’s A2ZERO initiative goes beyond achieving 100% renewable energy. It aims to create a carbon-neutral, resilient, and equitable city. The plan, crafted with input from over 50 community organisations, includes strategies across four key sectors: energy, mobility, adaptation, and resource reduction.
Stults lists a flurry of initiatives shaping Ann Arbor’s transformation. “We’ve added bike lanes, sidewalks, and lighting to make streets safer, and we’re doing traffic calming to prioritise people over cars,” she says. “We’re supporting corner stores for easy access, investing in affordable housing, and building a circular economy. That includes neighbourhood swap days, refrigerant replacement programmes, and testing returnable containers at restaurants to cut single-use plastics. We’re working with local farmers and food artisans on a sustainable food business coalition, running a neighbourhood ambassador programme to foster social cohesion, and focusing on resilience with hubs, tree plantings, emergency preparedness work, and air and water quality monitoring.”
A Game-Changer: Ann Arbor’s Sustainable Energy Utility
At the core of A2ZERO is the Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), a voter-endorsed programme to deliver locally generated renewable energy, energy storage, and efficiency services. Passed with 79% approval, the SEU offers subscriptions to services like rooftop solar and district geothermal systems.
Unlike traditional utilities, the SEU is decentralised. “This is energy produced on your roof or in your neighbourhood,” explains Stults. “It’s local, resilient, and reliable.” This model reduces strain on Ann Arbor’s ageing grid, which is prone to outages, while creating redundancy through microgrids that can keep critical systems running during emergencies.
Already, 650 residents are on the SEU waitlist—months ahead of its launch. “The last time Michigan created a utility was over 100 years ago,” Stults notes. “This is uncharted territory, but the appetite for change is clear.”
Resilience Through Local Power
Ann Arbor is leading the charge to electrify, boasting Michigan’s highest EV adoption rate alongside efforts to promote heat pumps and electric appliances. However, the city’s existing grid, owned by the utility giant DTE Energy, is outdated. Largely running on a 4.8-kilovolt (kV) system, the current grid is ill-suited for massive electrification and struggling to keep pace.
“The grid is old, undersized, and vulnerable,” says Stults. “At the same time, we’re asking more of it.”
Ann Arbor’s SEU is designed to ease this strain by generating power locally and reducing reliance on the central grid. This decentralised model strengthens resilience, ensuring that critical systems like fridges, medical devices, and communication tools stay powered even during outages.
“Resilience is about being able to handle shocks,” she explains. The SEU takes the lead in providing energy, with the central grid serving as a backup for additional needs. By deploying solar and storage, the SEU creates a more resilient and reliable system, free from the vulnerabilities of large centralised distribution networks. “If the grid goes down—whether due to a disaster, a car wreck, or even an animal—you’d still have the SEU powering your critical needs like fridges, medical devices, or communication tools,” Stults says. As adoption grows, neighbourhoods can develop small-scale microgrids, enabling neighbours to share power across property lines and further enhancing community resilience.
Local energy storage, including solar panels with batteries, plays a crucial role. Ann Arbor’s vulnerable grid has led to growing interest in batteries—not just for emergencies, but for everyday use. “We’re seeing high solar adoption and, in recent years, a surge in energy storage,” Stults notes.
Batteries, she argues, are a cleaner, more versatile alternative to traditional generators. “A generator won’t give you your money back; it’s there so you don’t lose your fridge or medical devices. But a battery does so much more. It’s clean, reliable, and works every single day. You can manage peak loads, do arbitrage, and avoid pollution. And the technology is only getting better and more affordable.”
The SEU’s decentralised approach doesn’t just bolster resilience; it buys time for the central grid to catch up. “The SEU takes some of the strain off the centralised grid by focusing on local generation and use,” Stults explains. “That gives DTE the breathing room to invest in upgrades or reroute electricity where it’s needed.”
This dual approach—addressing immediate vulnerabilities while planning for long-term sustainability—is helping Ann Arbor rethink the future of energy. “It’s a creative moment to reimagine our energy systems,” Stults says, “and to build one that’s cleaner, more reliable, and better suited to the challenges ahead.”
A Model for Modern, Economic Energy
The SEU is more than a utility—it’s a bold reimagining of how energy can serve a community. By reducing dependence on the central grid, Ann Arbor is building a system rooted in sustainability, resilience, and local values.
“This isn’t just about where our energy comes from,” Stults says. “It’s about who benefits and how we adapt to future challenges. It’s a utility of the future—built with local labour, generating local power, for the local community.”
The SEU isn’t just advancing clean energy; it’s also delivering economic benefits.
“The system will be more reliable, which means people will not be losing groceries or meat stored in a freezer. Installing solar and batteries in homes throughout the city and repairing these systems if they go down means well paid local jobs. These aren’t things that you can outsource. So, we know we’re going to grow the industry,” Stults said.
While recognising the need to overhaul energy systems, Stults also acknowledges the contributions of the systems that have driven progress thus far.
“I am very thankful for the electric grid we have today. It’s the reason we have modern medicine. But it’s not the system of the future,” she said.
Embedding Climate Action
For Stults, success isn’t just hitting carbon neutrality by 2030—it’s making climate action part of Ann Arbor’s identity. “The ultimate goal is for this to become second nature,” she says. “When clean energy, resilience, and equity are just what we do, we’ve truly transformed.”
With A2ZERO, Ann Arbor is showing cities worldwide what bold, community-driven climate action looks like.
Discover more stories of climate leadership and innovation at the REboot the World campaign.
