Community wind projects are relatively rare, but allow numerous investors to share in the financial benefits of owning wind power. After the 2008 financial crisis, several projects were successful, tapping limited-time-only federal tax incentives. In March 2013, John Farrell and Wade Underwood spoke with community wind power developer and farmer Randy Caviness about his Green Energy … Read More
If we ignore self-generation, three policies are at the center of increasing local control of energy: deregulation (“customer choice”), municipal aggregation (“city choice”), and municipal utilities (“city ownership”). Two recent articles highlight the relative value of these policies quite clearly. The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) of Illinois, a nonprofit ratepayer advocacy organization, just released a report … Read More
In this edition of Local Energy Rules, John Farrell and Wade Underwood speak with Steve Johnson of Convergence Energy about a successful 660 kilowatt community solar project near Delavan, WI. The project required 33 separate LLCs to take advantage of the state’s net metering rules, and also used the limited-time federal cash grant program to pull it … Read More
Like many cities attempting to solve climate change at a local level, Minneapolis is finding the prospect more challenging that it may have imagined. The lion’s share of emissions (two-thirds in the case of Minneapolis) come from electricity and gas sold by two monopoly, corporate utilities. Minnesota’s state-level policy is helping: a renewable energy standard pushes … Read More
The following presentation outlines a 10% solar energy standard to be considered by the Minnesota legislature in early 2013. It would require utilities to supply 10% of their energy sales from solar electricity – largely local, distributed solar. It provides long-term, standard contracts to solar projects with a value of solar production-based price and a production … Read More
Suddenly everyone knows about Germany’s solar power dominance because Fox Newsheads made an ass of themselves, suggesting that the country is a sunny, tropical paradise. Most media folks have figured out that there are some monster differences in policy (e.g. a feed-in tariff), but then latch on to the “Germans pay a lot extra” meme. Germans … Read More
Hawai’an solar advocates are celebrating this week after the island state’s largest utility, Hawai’ian Electric (HECO) filed a plan with the public utility commission to take a “proactive approach” to adding more distributed solar to their grid system. Utilities across the country typically use “conservative blanket limits” on the amount of renewable energy allowed on local … Read More
John Farrell spoke to the Stone Arch discussion forum of the local DFL Education Foundation on January 12, 2013, about the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign to let the people of Minneapolis take charge of their energy future. The grassroots campaign is challenging the energy monopoly of Xcel and Centerpoint Energy and hopes to give the city’s … Read More
In this edition of Local Energy Rules, John Farrell and Wade Underwood speak with Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign about a nascent community solar project in Vashon, WA. We ask Bill about his involvement with the project as a community organizer—delving into the frustrating regulatory barriers that have kept the project from coming to fruition, … Read More
