Energy Exchange

EDF Energy Innovation Series Feature #12: Community-Owned Utility – CPS Energy

By Jim Marston / Published: September 25, 2012

Throughout 2012, EDF’s Energy Innovation Series will highlight around 20 innovations across a broad range of energy categories, including smart grid and renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency financing, and progressive utilities, to name a few. This series will demonstrate that cost-effective, clean energy solutions are available now and imperative to lowering our dependence on fossil fuels.

Find more information on this featured innovation here.

Want to build CPS Energy’s new massive solar project in San Antonio? Pack your bags. You may have to move to the Alamo city and hire a few hundred local employees.

With more than $2.3 billion in annual revenue and $10 billion in total assets, CPS Energy (CPS) is the largest municipally-owned electric and gas utility in the country, providing service to almost 750,000 customers in and around San Antonio, Texas.

CPS’s strategic goals and decisions are among the most progressive in the country. It is shooting for 20 percent renewable energy generation capacity by 2020 and has plans to mothball one of its 1970s-era coal plants in 2018, 15 years earlier than expected. But beyond carbon reduction targets and renewable energy commitments, CPS is using a very old-fashioned tool to spur energy innovation deep in the heart of Texas.

The tool? LEVERAGE. With a $2 billion annual operating budget and the highest credit rating in the industry, CPS has dollars to spend on innovative technologies, and the company is leveraging its renewable energy and clean technology dollars to bolster local job growth, protect the environment and help its customers use energy more wisely. CPS calls it the “New Energy Economy.”

“We have the opportunity to leverage our buying power to benefit our community, by requiring our partners to add more value to San Antonio,” said Doyle Beneby, President & CEO of CPS Energy. “That value comes in the form of jobs for our community by establishing headquarters and adding manufacturing. It also comes in the form of investment in San Antonio’s educational institutions.” Read More »

Posted in Energy Innovation, Texas, Utility Business Models / Read 1 Response

New York’s Decision To Take Time For A Public Health Review Of Hydraulic Fracturing Is A Wise Move

By Mark Brownstein / Published: September 24, 2012

Last week’s announcement that New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NY DEC) has asked New York State Department of Health (NY DOH) to undertake a review of the work NY DEC has done to date on regulating high volume hydraulic fracturing is welcome news. Citizens across New York have raised legitimate questions about whether NY DEC is doing all that it can do to develop regulations that protect public health. Review by a qualified panel of public health experts, under the auspices of NY DOH, is a necessary step to answer these legitimate concerns. Getting the rules right in New York is critically important, so we believe that taking the time for a public health review is a wise move.

Of course, it is critically important that this review be done well. The experts convened by NY DOH should be qualified, independent public health professionals. The scope of their review should be broad and the work that they do should be thorough. Science, not politics, should guide their work. Above all, NY DEC should stand ready to act on any recommendations that come from this review. EDF looks at this an opportunity to make NY DEC’s good work to date better, and we hope NY DEC sees it that way too.

EDF believes that New York’s regulatory regime should include the development of a public health baseline across the communities where shale gas development would be likely to occur, coupled with a rigorous, on-going effort by NY DOH to track key public health metrics against this baseline over time. We believe this step is necessary to assure that regulations are working to protect public health, and provide the data necessary to fix them if they are not.

No community should have to sacrifice public health or the quality of their environment for the sake of energy production. Nor should artificial deadlines cut short efforts to get the regulations right. New York Department of Environmental Conservation deserves praise for taking this necessary step.

Posted in Natural Gas, New York / Tagged fracking | Read 1 Response

EDF Provides Legal Support To Cities And Towns Fighting To Preserve Their Traditional Right To Zone Natural Gas Development

By Mark Brownstein / Published: September 19, 2012

A recent state court ruling in Pennsylvania was a huge win for local communities’ rights to make zoning decisions about natural gas development within their borders. As we’ve mentioned before, EDF fully supports the traditional rights of local communities to regulate this intensive industrial activity, much as they would any other commercial or industrial activity in their community.

Yesterday, EDF joined an amicus brief with Earthjustice and over a dozen other organizations to support a state court ruling, which recently overturned a state law curtailing local government regulation of natural gas development. The brief urges the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to uphold the lower court’s decision in Robinson Township v. Commonwealth, which deemed a section of this year’s oil and gas omnibus Act 13 unconstitutional as to its preemption of local zoning control over oil and gas development. The state law would have stripped away local zoning laws, limited private property rights, and in the process, hampered towns’, cities’, municipalities’ and county governments’ ability to regulate shale gas development within their own, respective jurisdictions.

Act 13 of 2012 is a major legislative package that reforms Pennsylvania’s oil and gas laws to reflect the new realities of the shale gas boom in the Marcellus formation underlying much of the state. State agencies are conducting substantial rulemaking activities to implement sections of the law on topics including well site development, air quality, pipelines and wastewater management. EDF looks forward to working with state officials to ensure that these rules are fully protective of communities and the environment.

However, parts of Act 13 went in the wrong direction. In particular, section 3304 obligated all local zoning ordinances to conform to a list of requirements related to the siting and permitting of oil and gas development activities and infrastructure – altering pre-existing zoning arrangements where necessary. Several Pennsylvania townships and non-profits filed suit in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, arguing that this preemption of local zoning control violated several aspects of Pennsylvania’s constitution. Read More »

Posted in Natural Gas / Tagged Pennsylvania | Read 1 Response

The Clean Economy is an Opportunity for US Latinos

By Jorge Madrid / Published: September 14, 2012

(Excerpt from original post on Fox News Latino on 9/13/12)

Economy and jobs are the top issue on Latino voters’ minds, according to the 2012 “Latino Decisions Poll,” a theme that will be featured prominently in this week’s Hispanic Heritage events in DC.

It’s all the more reason to discuss a powerful engine of opportunity in this country called the clean “green” economy – it is here, it is real, and it is one of the few bright spots in an economy desperate for a comeback.

In 2010, I wrote “Green Can Grow Latino Business,” arguing that the clean economy will create new demand for goods and services, new supply chains and niche markets, and opportunities to create new business models and reinvent old ones. Read More »

Posted in California, Clean Energy, State / Tagged green jobs | Comments are closed

Chasing Red Herring On The Wind

By / Published: September 13, 2012

The saying goes that hunters used smoked red herrings to train their dogs, trying to throw them off the scent of the hunt with something that has a much stronger and tempting smell but ultimately wasn’t the real target. This is quite similar to recent discussions about resource adequacy – now that it’s become clear that the EPA isn’t the reason for power plants shutting down, some seem more focused on finding another scapegoat rather than addressing the real problems in the market.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the low marginal costs of technologies like wind and solar power were seen as a good thing. In 2009 the Public Utility Commission (PUC) said “renewable generation has reduced wholesale and retail energy prices during some periods and has been instrumental in moderating price increases during periods in which the cost of natural gas was increasing.” Back then, this was seen as a good thing because there was a need for a moderating influence on high natural gas prices at the time.

Times have changed though, and lately PUC commissioners have taken to blaming wind energy for their current troubles, even when their own paid experts tell them otherwise. In a Senate Natural Resources hearing last week, PUC Chairman Nelson stated that “the market distortions caused by renewable energy incentives are one of the primary causes, I believe, of our current resource adequacy issues.”

The problem with this claim is that it isn’t supported by the facts, and most industry experts agree that the real problem (if you want to call low energy prices a problem) is a combination of a market structure in need of reform and consistently low natural gas prices. In the Brattle Group’s report on resource adequacy issues in ERCOT they make a pretty strong case that gas, not wind, is responsible for setting the bulk of market prices. Perhaps the best way to look at it is this chart showing how electric rates lined up with gas prices over the last decade. Read More »

Posted in Renewable Energy, Texas / Comments are closed

EDF Energy Innovation Series Feature #11: Battery Switch Model For Electric Vehicles From Better Place

By Jim Marston / Published: September 13, 2012

For more information on this featured innovation, please view this video on Better Place’s battery switch model for electric vehicles.

When it comes to refueling gas-powered cars, drivers around the world have about 100 years of practice: when you run low on fuel, you look for a gas station. With electric vehicles (EVs) beginning to enter the market, auto manufacturers, grid operators and customers are searching for ways to ease the transition from gas to electricity.

Better Place, a venture-backed company founded in Silicon Valley, is building charging stations in several countries to serve EV customers, and has designed an innovative approach that may well become the “gas station” of the future. Rather than refill your battery, Better Place’s automated service stations swap it out.

Better Place’s battery switch stations – which could be described as a mixture of a drive-through car wash and a Jiffy Lube service station – can extract and replace an electric car’s battery in a matter of minutes, without requiring the driver to get out of the car. To complement the switch stations, Better Place also builds a network of standard charging stations to regularly “top off” the battery when the car is parked.

Source: Better Place

“The switching concept makes sense for several reasons,” said John Proctor, Director of Global communications at Better Place. “Battery switch enables us to address the relatively high cost and limited driving range of EVs. Better Place buys the battery, removing that burden and worry for drivers, and enables them to quickly switch a battery for a fully charged one to overcome concerns about EVs having enough charge for longer trips.”

Some plug-in models, like the Chevy Volt, have gas powered range extenders that give the car the per-charge range of most gas-powered cars. But many models are powered purely by electricity. Enabling those cars to compete with comparable gas-powered models on cost and convenience is the aim of Better Place around the globe. Read More »

Posted in California, Electric Vehicles, Energy Innovation, Grid Modernization / Tagged EV | Read 2 Responses