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Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | No Comments | Updated on May 5, 2011

Buy Local Wind From Your Utility

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/buy-local-wind-your-utility/

A bill in Minnesota’s state legislature would require utilities to offer a green pricing program for local, distributed wind power.  The largest investor-owned utility in the state already offers Windsource, a program to buy blocks of wind power at a premium price.  The law would essentially require Xcel to offer a “Local Windsource” option for ratepayers.

Under the proposed law, projects supported by “Local Windsource” would have to be 25 megawatts or smaller, located in Minnesota, and owned by Minnesota residents.  Only ratepayers that opt in would financially support the program:

2.7    Subd. 2a. Local wind energy rate option. (a) Each utility shall offer its customers
2.8 one or more options allowing a customer to determine that a certain amount of electricity
2.9 generated or purchased on the customer’s behalf is from wind energy conversion systems
2.10 that meet the following criteria:
2.11 (1) have a nameplate capacity of 25 megawatts or less, as determined by the
2.12 commissioner of commerce;
2.13 (2) are owned by Minnesota residents individually or as members of a Minnesota
2.14 limited liability company organized under chapter 322B and formed for the purpose of
2.15 developing the wind energy conversion system project;
2.16 (3) the term of a power purchase agreement extends at least 20 years; and
2.17 (4) the wind energy conversion system is located entirely within Minnesota.
2.18 (b) Each utility shall file a plan with the commission by October 1, 2011, to
2.19 implement paragraph (a).
2.20 (c) Each utility offering a rate under this subdivision shall advertise the offer with
2.21 each billing to customers.
2.22 (d) Rates charged to customers for energy acquired under this subdivision must be
2.23 calculated using the utility’s cost of acquiring the energy for the customer and must be
2.24 distributed on a per-kilowatt hour basis among all customers who choose to participate
2.25 in the program.

The bill hasn’t even had a hearing, but it’s an interesting proposal for increasing the generation of local, distributed wind and its attendant economic benefits.

Photo credit: Flickr user scelis

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Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | No Comments | Updated on May 5, 2011

Solar Gardens Sprouting Everywhere

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/solar-gardens-sprouting-everywhere/

Community solar projects (called “solar gardens” under a new Colorado law) are blooming like wildflowers in spring, reports the Solar Gardens Institute.  The 2010 state law, discussed in our Community Solar Power report, creates a new legal structure for community solar projects and requires utilities to buy 6 megawatts (MW) of energy from community solar projects by the end of 2013.

The beauty of solar gardens is that they allow people without sunny roofs (e.g. renters, shade-dwellers) to go solar by subscribing as part of a group of people to a local distributed solar project.  Since most estimates of rooftop solar capacity indicate that only 20 to 25 percent of roofs are suitable for solar, community solar gardens can significantly expand the constituency for solar.

The spread of projects and interest in solar gardens is impressive, and has expanded far beyond Colorado.  In their recent news update, the Solar Gardens Institute published a map indicating where there is interest in solar gardens, either for hosting a solar project or interest in pursuing a solar gardens state law.

The growth of solar gardens means more potential, more capital and more public support for solar.  Check out the Solar Gardens Institute  or our 2010 report on Community Solar Power for more information!

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Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | No Comments | Updated on May 2, 2011

Boulder Colorado Charts Course for Energy Self-Reliance

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/boulder-colorado-charts-course-energy-self-reliance/

When is it time to break up with your utility?  Perhaps it’s when they come to ratepayers for $30 million in cost overruns on a “free” smart grid project.  Or when they fail to meet deadlines to propose a new franchise agreement.  Or when they cite national security in an effort to avoid sharing load information.  Or when they crash your office with 9 employees to present their delayed franchise plan.  Or perhaps when the propose raising rates again to keep up with rising fossil fuel prices.

The citizens of Boulder, CO, have put up with a lot from Xcel Energy, the investor-owned utility that spans several states and currently provides the city’s mostly-coal-powered electricity.  So it was energizing to be invited to Boulder by Clean Energy Action last week to share how the city could move forward.  (my presentation below)

 

Local Power, Local Control
View more presentations from John Farrell

The city’s saga began in 2003, when it first began studying the option of municipalizing their electricity system, to have more control over the grid and increase clean energy production.  The city dropped the plan in 2007 when Xcel offered to build a free smart grid network, called SmartGridCity, a program that deployed advanced meters and fiber optic cables to improve information flow on the local electricity grid.  However, with a dubious cost-benefit ratio from the Xcel program and a desire for more clean energy, the city leaders are once again considering their options.

In 2010, the city of Boulder chose not to renew its franchise agreement with Xcel, essentially a monopoly charter that gives Xcel the exclusive right to serve Boulder’s customers for an annual fee.  The citizens of Boulder voted to tax themselves to replace those funds for five years, giving the city time to evaluate alternatives.  They’re taking it seriously.

For one, their current electricity costs keep going up, according to Anne Butterfield of the Boulder Daily Camera:

In Colorado, plunging costs for renewables are furled against the steady upward march of fossil fuels. In March, Xcel filed for an 18 percent increase in the “electric commodity adjustment” (the ECA on your bill) which allows fuel costs to get passed through to customers. This hike would increase a typical monthly bill by about $3 — with a resultant boost to the RESA of only six pennies. Every buck paid to fossils on Xcel’s system leads to two pennies sent to cost-saving renewables.

For another, they’ve already learned about options to dramatically increase the portion of electricity from renewables.  At a Clean Energy Slam, one company proposed providing 50% of Boulder’s energy from renewables by 2014, up to 80% by 2025.  Their planning process has also revealed new ways of thinking about the grid.  Freed from the paradigm of big, centralized baseload coal power plants, they’re looking at electricity from the “top down.”  They start with a load curve, throw in renewables and storage, and then see what gaps need filling, a process that prioritizes renewable energy instead of trying to shoehorn wind and solar into the gaps where fossil fuels fall short.

City officials aren’t just interested in clean, reliable electricity.  They also want to learn more about the potential for generating electricity locally.  While any new energy generator can add jobs and grow the economy, locally owned renewable energy creates job and economic multipliers. 

Local activists are also strongly committed to changing the status quo.  They’re not only looking for ways to green the local electric grid, but for ways for citizens and businesses to finance significant energy efficiency improvements as well as distributed renewable energy generation.

Boulder may end up joining the 2,000 existing municipal utilities in the United States and chart their own energy future or perhaps Xcel will finally bring them an attractive offer.  But by taking the issue into their own hands, Boulder will definitely do better than before.

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Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | No Comments | Updated on Apr 18, 2011

Colorado Town Considers “How Much Renewable Energy is Feasible” – 80% by 2025?

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/colorado-town-considers-how-much-renewable-energy-feasible-80-2025/

A great story of a city looking to – literally – take ownership of its energy future:

The Colorado Renewable Energy Standard, as amended last year by the state Legislature, requires Xcel Energy to get 30 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

 …Boulder leaders — who let the city’s 20-year franchise agreement with Xcel Energy lapse at the end of 2010 — are now considering whether they can get an energy mix for their residents with a larger percentage of renewable energy than what Xcel is offering.

…At the “Clean Energy Slam” event in February, which gave participants two minutes to pitch a vision for Boulder’s energy future, a representative of Southwest Generation told the crowd that he believed his company could provide Boulder with an energy mix of 50 percent renewables and 50 percent natural gas by 2014. And by 2025, the company could provide up to 80 percent renewable energy to the city, the representative, David Rhodes, said.

…Jonathan Koehn, the city’s regional sustainability coordinator, said adding more renewables is only part of the equation.

“We’ve heard a lot of concern that, perhaps, more clean energy is driving this analysis,” he said. “But this is about long-term economic stability. When we talk about what our portfolio might look like in the future, we don’t have a predetermined notion of a certain percentage of renewables. What we want is to be able to analyze how we can have long-term stable rates.”

It’s not just about clean energy and stable rates, however.  The decision to eschew a utility franchise was also about localization, described on a city website as “taking more control in determining:

  • Where the energy supply comes from – Locally produced
  • What types of energy are provided – Renewables over fossil fuels
  • How much we pay for it – Rate control

Local generation of renewable energy will add more to Boulder’s economy than importing clean electrons, and if those projects can also be locally owned (perhaps via a community solar project like the Clean Energy Collective is doing in Carbondale, CO) then the economic benefits multiply significantly.

Photo credit: Flickr user respres (photo is of Denver, not Boulder, but I wanted a sunrise…)

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Rule filed under Broadband | Written by admin | No Comments | Updated on Apr 14, 2011

Chelan Public Utility District – Fiber-Optic Line Extension Policy

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/rule/3122-2/

Chelan is in a rural region of Washington state and was a pioneer in rural fiber networks, investing high-speed connections for citizens and businesses long before private companies saw any reason to do so. They have adopted an interesting line-extension policy that may lower the cost of the network to the PUD and allow households to take greater responsibility for connecting.

In short, the new policy is that the PUD will connect subscribers if the cost of doing so is less than $1500 (or average cost for a group of subscribers). If the cost exceeds $1500 per subscriber, the subscribers will have to pay the difference or make alternate arrangements to lower the cost. This alternate arrangement is where we think the rule is interesting. A homeowner, or group of homeowners that want to trench their own property and backfill can lower the costs, benefiting everyone.

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Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | No Comments | Updated on Apr 5, 2011

Solar is Contagious

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/solar-contagious/

Update 4/6/11: Adam responds on a listserv; his comment is added below.

Adam Browning of Vote Solar writes about a recent study of the peer pressure effect of solar PV adoption.  The linked study notes that for every 1 percent increase in the number of installations in a single ZIP code, there’s a commensurate 1 percent decrease in the amount of time until the next solar installation.  As he writes, “solar is contagious!”

I’m a data lover, so I thought it would be interesting to see what this looks like over time.  If you start with a neighborhood with 25 solar installations, where it was 100 days between the 24th and 25th installation, this peer pressure effect will reduce the time between installations to just 10 days by the 250th PV project. (see chart)

Of course, this process takes a while to unfold.  In fact, if solar PV was being installed only once every 100 days at the outset, the peer pressure effect will take over 15 years to reduce the time between neighborhood installs to 10 days. 

The second line on the chart (red) looks at the change if you start with 25 solar installations but with a time between installs of just 30 days.  By the 250th PV project, the time between installs has dropped to 3 days.  And because the lag time between installations started so much lower, the 10-fold drop in lag time takes less than 5 years. 

The basic formula – written another way – seems to be that a 10-fold increase in local solar installations will result in a 10-fold drop in the time between installations. This will hold true through the second iteration, as well.  In the neighborhood with an initial 100-day lag between installations, it will take another 15 years for the lag to drop to 1 day from 10 days, reaching this level when there are 2,500 local PV projects installed.

Perhaps I can amend Adam’s statement: solar is contagious, but it’s not yet very virulent.

Update (Adam’s reply): I would note that the current strain  (solar expensivus) is not a virulent as future strain (solar cheapus).  Minnesotans are expected to have low resistance — we are talking major epidemic levels of contagion.

Note: If only the experience cost curve for solar PV worked at the neighborhood level, since it typically shows a halving of installed cost for every 10-fold increase in total installed solar capacity (worldwide)! 

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Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | No Comments | Updated on Mar 21, 2011

Community Funds for Wind Power

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/community-funds-wind-power/

Public officials are looking for ways to reduce opposition to wind farms and the United Kingdom is piloting a “community wind fund” program for all new wind projects.  Under the program, each wind project must pay in £1000 per megawatt (~$1600 per MW), per year, for 25 years into a community fund where the project is located.  The funds would help maintain public support for wind power, but also (conveniently for the conservative government) replace reduced government funding for basic services:

“With all the current talk of libraries, community centres and sports halls being closed because of government cuts , here’s a great way for local communities to replace that funding. Local wind projects will from now on not just bring the benefits of local green electricity, but also the funding of vital social projects that government cuts would otherwise shut down.”

The impact for the community is significant.  Compared to the typical land leases (often $5,000 per turbine for the host landowner), the community fund payments would increase local revenue by over 60 percent, with the additional funds spread to the entire community rather than just the lucky turbine hosts.

The impact on turbine owner net revenue is small but not negligible, reducing the net present value of the project by about 3 percent. 

Using community funds to overcome local opposition may be worth the revenue reduction for the wind project owner, but the U.K. government strategy of using wind parks to offset (some) budget cuts represents a strategy that is unlikely to work well in the United States.

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Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | 1 Comment | Updated on Mar 16, 2011

Community Choice Aggregators Fight to Choose Their Power Provider

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/community-choice-aggregators-fight-choose-their-power-provider-2/

Communities in California have been trying to become more energy self-reliant for nearly 10 years, but not a single one has managed to establish a “community choice aggregation” network despite a state law requiring incumbent utilities to “cooperate fully.”

Community choice aggregation (CCA) offers an option for cities, counties, and collaborations to opt out of the traditional role of energy consumers.  Instead, they can become the local retail utility, buying electricity in bulk and selecting their power providers on behalf of their citizens in order to find lower prices or cleaner energy (or even reduce energy demand). Only four states have CCA laws on the books – Ohio, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and California.  Most have only a single CCA; California has none.  There’s a reason.

Incumbent electric utilities aren’t big fans of CCAs.  

In California, the CCA law passed in 2002 but utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) have stymied the development of local CCAs, even sponsoring a ballot measure – Proposition 16 – to require towns to get a two-thirds super majority to create a CCA.  The measure was narrowly defeated (with a 52% vote) despite $46 million spent by PG&E to steamroll local choice.  The ballot measure was only the latest in a series of attempts by PG&E to quash community choice, dating back to the utility’s bankruptcy and $8 billion bailout in 2001-02. 

Advocates are continuing the fight with new legislation to clarify what was meant in the original law when utilities were ordered to “cooperate fully” with communities seeking to establish a CCA.

The CCA difference can be significant.  Ohio’s largest CCA offers customers prices averaging 5% lower than the incumbent utility.  And CleanPowerSF, the CCA certified (but not yet operational) for the City of San Francisco intends to get 51% of its power from renewable sources by 2017. 

You can read more about Community Choice Aggregation in our 2009 policy brief.

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Rule filed under Independent Business | Written by admin | No Comments | Updated on Mar 15, 2011

Development Moratoriums

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/rule/development-moratoria/

In most states, cities can enact a moratorium on commercial development, provided that the moratorium promotes valid public purposes, is limited in duration, and is used for planning. A number of communities have temporarily suspended large-scale retail development in order to allow time to consider the impacts of superstores and to revise the local comprehensive… Continue reading

Article filed under Energy | Written by John Farrell | No Comments | Updated on Mar 15, 2011

Study: Getting Local Buy-in of Renewable Energy Projects

The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/study-getting-local-buy-renewable-energy-projects/

Methodical as ever, a European research group has published a study of “benefit-sharing mechanisms” to help renewable energy project developers gain local acceptance of their projects. 

Summary

Communities have three types of objections to renewable energy projects – environmental, NIMBY, and opportunism.  The study examines eight ways that developers can share benefits with the local community in order to address their objections to renewable energy projects. 

In a sentence: people want to avoid environmental and personal harm and share in the economic benefits of their local renewable energy resources and developers will increase their chances of success by addressing local desires.

U.S. developers should take note that opposition to wind farms may not seem so perverse when seen in the context of trying to use a community’s “free” renewable resource.

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