Energy Exchange

California Leading The Way To Clean Energy Innovation While A Few Lag Behind Investing In Litigation, Obstructionism

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 17, 2013

This commentary by Erica Morehouse, EDF Staff Attorney was originally posted on EDF’s California Dream 2.0 blog.

Climate pollution threatens the health of California’s families and the prosperity of our economy. Last November, California began a vitally important program that reduces climate pollution, rewards clean energy innovation, and helps ensure that the biggest emitters are responsible for their own pollution.

The program places a firm limit on overall climate pollution from the largest industrial emitters in California, allows flexible solutions to achieve that limit across sources, and requires major industrial emitters to bear a small portion of their pollution costs by requiring them to obtain carbon emissions allowances under the state’s cap-and-trade program, under which allowances may be obtained in public auctions or trades on the open market.

Fast forward five months, Californians are already realizing critical health and economic benefits from this groundbreaking environmental policy. And, the Golden State continues to lead the way in clean energy and transportation jobs due in large part to AB 32, which has opened the door for greater investment in the clean energy economy. More good news: Yesterday, the state fulfilled a requirement of 2012 AB 32 Legislation by releasing its blueprint for how to expand these benefits by investing proceeds from auctions to strengthen our economy, our health, and the environment.

California’s plan focuses on making key greenhouse gas reductions in three sectors: transportation, energy, and natural resources. The goal is to create multiplier effects that allow Californians to draw benefits from these opportunities that far outweigh the investment. And every day new research shows just how widely the benefits of clean economy investments can ripple. EPA recently released a study showing that if energy costs accounted for the health impacts of burning fossil fuels, they would increase by between $361 and $886.5 billion annually. When California invests in clean energy those hidden health benefits accrue for years to come – and they protect our families and our children.

Also posted in California, Energy Efficiency / Comments are closed

Renewables BuyBack Bill Pays Good Money For Clean Energy

By / Published: April 15, 2013

Picture this: You live in Texas, the state with the most solar energy potential in the U.S. Knowing this, you decide to install solar panels on your home’s rooftop because, in Texas, you can lease – rather than buy – the entire solar energy system. The option to lease allows you to take advantage of a low monthly payment that will be offset by the savings on your energy bill, rather than face high upfront investment costs.

Now, while you are at work during the day, your panels are actually putting excess, unused energy back onto the grid, when electricity is most expensive. And, that surplus of energy isn’t just wasted; it is used by your electric company to serve other customers. In most states, electric companies buy this power back at a retail rate. But, in Texas it’s not quite that simple. In order to see any form of pay back, you have to be a lucky customer of one of only three retailers – TXU Energy, Reliant Energy and Green Mountain Energy – that offer “renewable buyback” rates in Texas. If you happen to buy electricity from one of the other 50 retailers serving residential providers across the state, though, you could always switch over to a renewable buyback program. But there is no guarantee that you will be paid a fair market value for the 25+ years your solar energy system is expected to last.

Making a long-term investment to protect against highly-fluctuating, unpredictable electric rates is a difficult decision, and making that decision without knowing whether you are guaranteed fair compensation is nearly impossible. This is one of the key reasons why Texas lags behind the nation in solar adoption. Fortunately, there is a solution in the works. Senate Bill 1239 from state Senator Jose Rodriguez seeks to guarantee homeowners, schools and religious facilities at least a minimum buyback rate based on wholesale market energy prices, which were about 50 percent lower than retail rates in 2011, on average. The bill has a similar impact for rural electric co-operative, municipal and independently-owned utility customers, ensuring that any homeowner, school or religious entity that installs a properly-sized solar energy system will be compensated comparable to the way a fossil fuel power plant is compensated in the wholesale market. Read More »

A Clean Energy Paradise In The Pacific

By / Published: April 12, 2013

When people think Hawaiian paradise, usually beaches, sun and trade winds come to mind. The price of energy? Not so much.

The state actually has the highest electric rates in the nation, approximately 2 to 3 times higher than the average price on the mainland. Given these high rates and the relatively mild climate, it makes sense that Hawaii’s customers are among the lowest monthly consumers of electricity at 585 kWh per month. However, despite low energy use, Hawaii’s customers still have the highest electric bills in the nation, at a whopping $203 per month on average. That’s 20 percent higher than the next highest state’s average bill!

It’s appropriate, then, that the Aloha State is on the forefront of policy measures intended to lower energy bills by looking to energy efficiency and renewable energy. Hawaii’s sunny days, coupled with its extraordinarily high cost of electricity, make going solar a relatively attractive option. And, not to mention, a much cleaner option given that the state relies on petroleum to generate over 75 percent of its electricity. In fact, Hawaii ranks third in the nation for total installed solar electric capacity per capita. However, the upfront cost of installation remains a significant barrier to widespread adoption of clean energy technologies. Access to financing is limited to those with stellar credit, and there is little incentive for renters to pay for energy upgrades to properties they don’t own. In Hawaii, solutions that work for renters are especially important since over 40 percent of the state’s residents rent.

But all is not lost. On February 1^st, the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC) delivered a blueprint of a promising on-bill program to help residents and small commercial customers — including renters — invest in cost-saving, clean energy projects. By allowing for repayment of private financing for energy efficiency and renewable projects on customers’ monthly utility bills, Hawaii would be the first-in-the-nation to offer a statewide residential and small commercial on-bill program. The program works for renters and property owners because the energy benefits and the repayment obligation transfer from tenant to tenant with the property, enabling customers to invest in projects that outlast their terms of occupancy. Read More »

Also posted in Energy Efficiency, On-bill repayment / Tagged Hawaii, Hawaii PUC | Read 1 Response

Lowering The Price Of Residential Solar Starts In The Neighborhood

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 11, 2013

By: Guest Blogger Scott A Robinson, University of Texas at Austin – Energy Systems Transformation Group

Source: SolarCity

The price of solar panels has been decreasing rapidly in recent years. This decrease in price has been reflected in residential markets, with installation numbers booming. However, the total costs of the system remain high enough to discourage mainstream adoption of the technology—even in places like Texas, which have abundant solar resources.

From a customer’s viewpoint, there are two components of the cost of a solar photovoltaics (PV) system. The first is the “sticker price” of the system: the price you pay out of pocket. The second is information cost: the time you must spend researching the technology to understand if it would be a good investment overall. This is a more difficult task for PV technology than it is for a new phone, or even a new car. The complexity of assessing solar PV creates a cost barrier on top of the reported price of the system.

To better understand these costs to consumers, and what can be done to decrease them, Dr. Varun Rai and I looked at data from PV owners across the state of Texas. We wanted to better understand the drivers behind the length of time people spent researching solar PV before deciding to buy. Our paper describing the results of the research, “Effective Information Channels for Reducing Costs of Environmentally-friendly Technologies: Evidence from Residential PV Markets”, was published last month in Environmental Research Letters (ERL). Read More »

Also posted in Investor Confidence Project, Texas / Read 1 Response

America’s Schools On The ABCs Of Energy Efficiency

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: April 8, 2013

As part of my role at EDF, I keep track of stories about the benefits of energy efficiency. By that, I don’t just mean data and figures, rather stories about the real, tangible and positive impacts saving energy can have on everyday people. We live in a data-driven world, especially those of us who work on energy and climate issues, but it’s the stories about people that really stay with us. In the past few months, I’ve noticed a quite a few stories from local papers around the country discussing the benefits that schools have seen from implementing customer, or demand-side, solutions – such as energy efficiency, on-site renewables, like rooftop solar, and demand response (DR) initiatives – which allow customers to voluntarily reduce their high electricity use and receive a payment for doing so in the process.

For example, a story from the Louisville, Kentucky National Public Radio station WFPL covering the nation’s first net-zero school recently caught my attention. To be considered a true “net-zero” building is an impressive feat, because it means the facility’s net annual energy consumption, AND its carbon footprint, is zero.

The featured school, Richardsville Elementary in Warren County, has made some impressive improvements, from installing geothermal heating and cooling, bamboo gym floors, solar panels on the school rooftop and in the parking lot, efficient cooking technologies in the cafeteria to using a ton of natural lighting. As a result, the school receives zero utility bills. But the two most compelling pieces of this story are the energy costs and the educational opportunities.

Kentucky has some of the cheapest electricity prices in the country. Many states, particularly in the southern U.S., also have low electricity prices—meaning, the cost incentive is not as powerful for energy efficiency. But I would argue that, regardless of electricity prices, schools always have an incentive to save money. With schools, for every energy dollar saved, one more dollar goes to good teachers, textbooks and computers. And the non-monetary incentives are extra important when talking about children, whose developing lungs need the cleaner, indoor air and more natural lighting that come with efficiently-designed schools, as detailed in my previous post on schools. Read More »

Also posted in Energy Efficiency / Read 2 Responses

Consumers At The Heart Of Illinois Smart Grid Revitalization Project

By Raya Salter / Published: April 3, 2013

On April 1, Illinois’ largest utilities, ComEd and Ameren Illinois (Ameren), updated their plans to launch one of the nation’s largest electrical grid upgrades, a $3.2 billion project that will set the stage in Illinois for how utilities and customers interact in the future. The ComEd and Ameren plans provide new detail on how they intend to replace the aging Illinois grid and begin to transform it into a digital smart grid capable of monitoring customer and environmental benefits. EDF and Citizens Utility Board (CUB) teamed up with both utilities to create twenty new benchmarking metrics that will measure how the utilities deliver benefits to consumers and improve their performance annually.

To elaborate, such metrics include reductions in peak energy demand, increased adoption of renewable energy, such as solar power, wide-spread implementation of smart energy devices and diminished greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, among others. In addition, ComEd and Ameren have elected to work with EDF and CUB to develop new and better ways to measure how smart grid technology can help reduce GHG emissions and electrical inefficiencies. Using smart grid devices to precisely measure GHG and line loss is technically challenging, but key to unlocking the promise of smart grid technology.

When customers are empowered with the knowledge and tools to control their own energy usage, they are also empowered to save money on their utility bills. As CUB Executive Director David Kolata points out, “A smart grid begins with smart policy. These new metrics will help bring the power grid into the 21^st century more quickly and cost-effectively, ensuring that consumers see the benefits in the form of lower electric bills.”

To take full advantage of the $3.2 billion project, born out of the Illinois Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2011, ComEd and Ameren must go above and beyond the business-as-usual utility metrics. Utility metrics to date have commonly focused on general measures to gauge customer benefits, such as customer awareness survey completions and number of customer outreach events attended. These new tracking mechanisms go further in that they will allow the utilities to track and report where customers are realizing the benefits of electric grid improvements, and the extent to which they are participating in these opportunities. This includes measures like the number of customers who can directly access their own energy usage data and the time it takes to connect renewable energy resources, like solar power, to the electric grid. Read More »

Also posted in Grid Modernization, Utility Business Models / Tagged Ameren, ComEd | Comments are closed