by jboullion | Aug 18, 2008 | Uncategorized
From a media release issued by Focus on Energy:
MADISON, Wis. – On Sept. 4, Focus on Energy, Wisconsin’s energy efficiency and renewable energy initiative, will host a conference demonstrating how businesses and organizations can take advantage of Wisconsin’s most abundant natural resource – wood. The one-day conference titled “Work Smarter with Wood, Renewable Wood Energy,” will be held at the Best Western Midway Hotel in Green Bay, Wis., and will offer attendees information and tours highlighting how wood can be used to generate bioenergy. In addition, the conference is being presented as a precursor to the 63rd Annual Lake States Logging Congress – the Midwest’s largest forestry tradeshow – presented by the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association September 4 – 6. . . .
Focus on Energy’s conference will consist of information sessions and keynotes, including speakers from the Office of Energy Independence, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the Pellet Fuel Institute, and Focus on Energy. There will also be tours of two area facilities that are benefiting from the use of renewable wood energy, ST Paper and Pomp’s Service. Attendees will have a chance to tour a biomass combustion system located at ST Paper and Pomp’s Service’s wood brokering facility (ST Paper acquires their wood fuel from Pomp’s).
Complete workshop details here.
by jboullion | Aug 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
From a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by John Moses:
Milwaukee should recognize that one of its finest natural resources is local philanthropy. Joseph Zilber wants to write a $5 million check to the city of Milwaukee in each of the next 10 years. He’s asking other area benefactors to quadruple that amount.
So here’s the idea: Using some of that money, create a private fund to subsidize the purchase of photovoltaic solar arrays for home electricity generation by Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin homeowners. Lure an established or start-up solar cell company to Milwaukee, with the promise of a guaranteed local market for, at the very least, a significant portion of its production capacity.
Offer the usual government incentives for the construction of a photovoltaic manufacturing plant in Milwaukee’s inner city. Begin recruiting homeowners in the area. A typical set-up with 25 panels can run up to around $25,000. Create subsidies of at least 50%, depending on people’s ability to pay.
We Energies has promised everyone higher utility rates. The possibility that homeowners actually would see their meters running backwards (i.e. selling power back to the grid) on a sunny summer day, with an initial investment cost that could mean that they’ll recoup their money within a decade, might be enough incentive to get people on board.
by jboullion | Aug 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
August 13, 2008
Dear Editor:
What is the likelihood of a 200-foot wind tower coming near city of Madison residents, as discussed in Mike Ivey’s story in the July 30-Aug. 5 Cap Times? Consider the following facts.
1. There are no residential-scale wind turbines operating in Madison.
2. There are no residential-scale wind turbines in Wisconsin that are more than 165 feet tall. Any turbine taller than 170 feet would exceed the maximum height that would qualify for Wisconsin Focus on Energy incentives for renewable energy systems. Moreover, most jurisdictions would treat a 200-foot turbine as a commercial wind generator, requiring a conditional use permit.
3. At any elevation reachable with today’s turbines, Madison’s wind resource is too feeble to be economically viable for generating electricity.
4. Utilities like Madison Gas & Electric offer much higher rates for solar power than wind energy.
Even if there were 200-foot wind turbines available for residential use, anyone proposing to install one in Madison would be committing economic suicide. Of course, no one has and no one will, but that doesn’t stop elected officials who ought to know better from voicing these phantom threats as if they were real.
While it may be fun to conjure up headline-grabbing visions of ordinary Madisonians being terrorized by alien wind generators looming over their houses, it has no basis in reality. Such tactics can’t help but retard the city of Madison’s laudable effort to adopt an ordinance for permitting solar and wind energy systems in a manner consistent with state law.
Ed Blume
Communications director
RENEW Wisconsin
by jboullion | Aug 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an article by Sean Ryan in The Daily Reporter:
Vehicles, sidewalks and medians are stuck in a battle for right-of-way as the state and cities push for new bike lanes with road projects.
On the 76th Street reconstruction project in Milwaukee, for example, the state and city might need to take a chunk from the median to make room for bike lanes, said Dave Schlabowske, Milwaukee bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the Department of Public Works. But the city and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation must weigh priorities, such as whether a narrower median leaves enough room for cars to wait while making left turns, he said.
“You have to balance everything out,” Schlabowske said. “So we’re taking a closer look at it, and it looks like WisDOT is willing to flex a little bit on their lane widths.”
WisDOT is making bike lanes a priority on its projects along local roads because the Federal Highway Administration is tying its money to complete street requirements, Schlabowske said.
The desire to create complete streets for walkers, bikers and drivers is stirring up residents in Shorewood who don’t want trees cut down to widen the right-of-way. Shorewood is considering a long-range plan for a network of bike routes with bike lanes and directions sending bikers to roads that are wide or quiet enough to be safe.
Bikes are a hot topic, and many communities are creating long-range plans to establish bike routes because it’s politically correct and gas prices are driving more people to pedal, said Mary Beth Pettit, project manager of the Shorewood plan for Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer and Associates Inc., Milwaukee. She said the focus on bikes creates problems if the right-of-way doesn’t have enough room for bike lanes.
And a story by Dorie Turner in The Chicago Tribune reports that Ripon College, among others, will provide bicycles to students who don’t bring a car to campus:
Cycling already has a foothold at many colleges, where hefty parking fees, sprawling campuses and limited roads make it tough to travel. Still, most students are reluctant to leave their cars parked.
“They’re using them to drive from residence halls to class, which is a two- or three-block commute,” said Ric Damm, an administrator and cycling coach at Ripon College, which is giving away $300 bikes to freshmen who leave their cars at home. “We thought, ‘How can we provide an incentive to get them out of that behavior?'”
Damm’s school, outside Oshkosh, Wis., has spent $26,000 on its free bike program, which so far has signed up half of the 300-student freshman class, Damm said.
“I think a big draw is the just the environmental aspect,” said freshman Regina Nelson, who readily signed up for a free bike. “And, honestly, I think that anything free when you’re in college is good, especially something like a bike that is worth something.”
by jboullion | Aug 13, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
With all of the praise over the settlement reached this week on We Energies’ Oak Creek power plants, one might be tempted to ask, “What’s wrong with this picture?” Turns out, apparently nothing is. The deal allows We Energies and its two utility partners in the Oak Creek project to finish construction in a timely manner, provides needed help for Lake Michigan and expands renewable energy in Wisconsin.
And while the $105 million settlement will be paid for by electric customers ($100 million) and shareholders ($5 million), the price tag will be far less than it could have been under a protracted legal battle over the plant’s cooling system. We hope that next time the issues can be settled without going to court, but the utilities involved and the environmental groups who fought the plant deserve credit for reaching a compromise that serves everyone.
The issue settled this week was a dispute over the water intake system that We Energies will deploy to draw 1.8 billion gallons of Lake Michigan water per day for cooling at the new power plant. Environmental groups opposed the intake pipe and were demanding that the utility construct more expensive cooling towers.
by jboullion | Aug 11, 2008 | Uncategorized
From the testimony submitted by Michael Vickerman on behalf of RENEW Wisconsin filed with the Public Service Commission on August 11, 2008:
In my testimony I will survey the windpower prospects under development by independent power producers (IPP’s) in the parts of Wisconsin served by WPL. This information will include an estimate of their annual production (in the aggregate) as well as the current permitting and interconnection status for each prospect. The second half of my testimony outlines RENEW’s concerns with WPL’s proposal to co-fire biomass at Nelson Dewey 3 [proposed Cassville plant] . . . .
There are seven IPP-owned wind prospects under development. All range in generating capacity from 50 MW to 100 MW, totaling 609 MW altogether. . . .
RENEW’s reservations about WPL’s stated plans to co-fire biomass at NED3 flow from the specifics of the proposal. RENEW strongly supports using biomass for space and process heating. RENEW also supports generating electricity from dedicated biomass facilities that are considerably smaller than a new baseload facility.
One reservation we have this proposal is the idea of marrying a low-grade biomass fuel to a very expensive new power station with a capacity cost of about $4,000/kW. There are less expensive avenues for acquiring renewable energy, such as windpower, that have lower capital costs and zero fuel costs. There are also less expensive venues for burning biomass for electricity, such as the soon-to-be-retrofitted E. J. Stoneman plant or Xcel’s Bay Front 3 unit. Unlike building a new 300 MW coal plant, retrofitting those power stations to burn biomass fuel won’t require a capital investment in excess of $1 billion. It is a far more efficient use of ratepayer dollars to wed biomass fuel with smaller power stations (<50 MW) than with a larger and very expensive brand-new power plant. With smaller power plants, it is possible to configure them as dedicated biomass generating units. This is not possible with a 300 MW facility.
RENEW’s second reservation is triggered by the configuration of NED3. WPL’s selection of a circulating fluidized bed combustion boiler creates an opportunity to co-fire biomass energy sources at NED3. WPL’s plans, however, call for the biomass fuel to supplement the coal being fed into the boiler, which could easily be fueled with 100% coal. There is nothing about the boiler design that is dedicated specifically to biomass generation. Coal is the mainstay in this configuration, while biomass is simply an opportunity fuel to be used when available. The possibility of being unable to acquire enough biomass fuel for co-firing will not in any way hinder the operation of NED3, because there will always be enough coal on hand to operate the plant at its full rated capacity. Also, because the biomass portion of the plant’s output can vary, depending on how much biomass fuel is available, there is no possible way to predict how many renewable kilowatt-hours will be produced at the plant. Depending on NED’s variable biomass output to help satisfy in-state renewable energy requirements introduces a level of risk that can be avoided by relying on other renewable generation strategies.
Our third reservation stems from WPL’s need to lock up significant supplies of fuel sources of wood and energy at a lower cost than what the same resources would fetch in other markets, especially the biomass thermal market. As a general proposition, burning biomass in an electricity-only facility is a low-value use for a resource that can deliver substantially more energy to an end-user in the form of space and process heat. If biomass is burned at NED3, two-thirds of the energy value of the fuel, be it wood, agricultural residues, or switchgrass, is discharged into the atmosphere. In contrast, a modern wood-fired heating system serving a forest products company can convert 65% of the energy embedded in the fuelwood to useful heat. The higher the conversion factor of a particular energy application, the greater the energy return, which generally translates into a higher economic return. Thermal market participants are well-positioned to pay top dollar for the fuel they use, because they receive an energy return that is double what the same fuel yields when burned in a biomass electric facility. Because NED3 will, if approved, have a low thermal efficiency, WPL would be at a disadvantage if forced to match the prevailing biomass fuel price set by thermal market participants in order to secure upwards of 300,000 tons of biomass a year. . . .
In response to a rebutal of his testimony by one of Alliant’s expert witnesses, Vickerman said:
WPL’s 60 MW biomass initiative is piggybacked on a power plant that, if approved and built, would add four times as much coal-fired capacity estimated to cost more than $4,000/kW.
by jboullion | Aug 11, 2008 | Uncategorized
From a story by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Fielding calls from folks on Wall Street isn’t in the typical job description for someone working for a conservation group.
Opponents of an Oak Creek power plant reached a deal that will provide money to address environmental issues.
But the calls were about the costliest construction project in state history, the $2.3 billion We Energies power plant being built in Oak Creek.
Jittery stock analysts visited with representatives of Clean Wisconsin in Madison this spring, wanting to know whether its eight-year dispute over the building of a coal-fired generating plant could be resolved.
Those jitters were restraining the company’s stock price and were a key driver behind the settlement reached between We Energies and environmental groups. A deal was reached just hours before utility executives were scheduled to field questions from analysts about the plant’s status.
The settlement ended the last piece of litigation, which was being fought over the power plant’s cooling system. It not only removed hurdles to the plant’s opening, it also meant costly cooling towers wouldn’t have to be built.
Clean Wisconsin and the Sierra Club, in turn, won utility company commitments on a couple of high-profile environmental issues — the Great Lakes and global warming.
Although the deal was in the works for six months, it didn’t get done until utility executives faced their quarterly conference call with investors.
“They were clear they wanted to settle this thing before that analyst call,” said Katie Nekola, energy program director at Clean Wisconsin.
“We wanted to communicate that certainty could be accomplished. That is very true,” said Barry McNulty, We Energies spokesman.
by jboullion | Aug 11, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an article by Kathy Bergstrom in the Business Journal of Milwaukee:
Officials at Quad/Graphics Inc. see efforts to increase energy efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint as an opportunity to be both a better corporate citizen and a better company.
“Being efficient is just being socially responsible, and it’s frankly good business,” said Joe Muehlbach, director of facilities and environmental policy for the Sussex-based commercial printer. “If you’re not conscious of your energy consumption and your emissions, you in fact are probably a struggling business.”
Wisconsin business and environmental leaders said many companies are already taking steps to conserve energy and reduce waste because it makes good business sense. Rising energy prices mean those moves have an even bigger impact on a company’s bottom line.
But some leaders say embracing environmental responsibility at times requires more flexibility when looking at return on investment for an energy or environmental project.
From manufacturers such as Racine-based S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. to retailers such as Kohl’s Department Stores of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin businesses are taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use less energy.
“The really good thing about climate change and business is that almost all the things that are good to address reducing carbon emissions and global warming emissions are also profit making for businesses,” said Steve Hiniker, executive director of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, an environmental group based in Madison.
Quad/Graphics is one of seven Wisconsin companies listed as participants in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders program, which had 196 total members as of July 2.
Companies agree to complete a corporate-wide inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions, set long-term reduction goals and annually report their progress to the EPA, according to the agency’s Web site.
The program started in 2002, and the other Wisconsin members are Johnson Controls Inc., Glendale; Kohl’s; MillerCoors, Milwaukee; S.C. Johnson; the former Stora Enso, now NewPage Corp.; and Western States Envelope & Label, Butler.
by jboullion | Aug 8, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an article by Doug Hissom posted on OnMilwaukee.com:
We can each save more than $8,000 a year by taking mass transit says an American Public Transportation Association report. If gas prices stay in the $3.90 a gallon range (unlikely at this point) the association predicts a person can save around $672a month — more than the average household spends on food.
Among the top 20 cities with the highest ridership, Honolulu wins the savings title, amounting to $8,703 a year, Minneapolis riders saved about $8,104 a year by taking the bus and Chicago amounted to $8,100. Milwaukee did not make the list.
The association says its study is based on the assumption that a person making a switch to public transportation would likely purchase an unlimited pass on the local transit agency, typically available on a monthly basis.
by jboullion | Aug 8, 2008 | Uncategorized
BEFORE THE
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF WISCONSIN
Application of Wisconsin Power and Light Company
For Authority to Adjust Electric and Natural Gas
Docket No. 6680-UR-116 Rates
DIRECT TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL J. VICKERMAN
ON BEHALF OF RENEW WISCONSIN
Q. What is the purpose of your testimony?
A. The purpose of my testimony is to discuss the company’s proposed solar, wind and biogas energy buyback rates in the context of promoting customer-sited renewable generation facilities. Wisconsin Power & Light (WPL) proposes to acquire wind- and biogas-generated electricity at a price of 9.2 cents/kWh fixed over 10 years and solar electricity at a price of 25 cents/kWh fixed over the same duration.
Q. What are the estimated production costs for biogas and wind energy systems above 20 kW?
A. The data from Focus on Energy-funded wind and biogas energy systems in the past two years give us a clear picture of production costs. For biogas systems up to 500 kW installed this year, the break-even number is now 11 cents/kWh. Between 500 kW and one MW, the system cost drops to 10 cents/kWh. With respect to wind energy installations up to 100 kW, the break-even cost ranges from 18 to 25 cents/kWh range. For a 900 kW wind energy system, the production cost drops to 14 cents per kWh. These estimates are exclusive of federal renewable energy tax credits.
Q. Do you believe that the proposed tariffs will lead to the additional supplies of renewable distributed generation serving WPL?
A. At 9.2 cents, the biogas rate could result in new installations at dairy farms or food processing facilities, but only if the developer succeeds in attracting enough external funding from federal and state sources to cover the difference. Without a U.S.D.A Section 9006 grant or a Focus on Energy incentive in hand, the proposed rate is not likely to amortize a new 500 kW installation over its term.
As for the proposed wind tariff, I am skeptical that it could provide sufficient stimulus for leveraging independently owned installations, even with external funding. The gap between the rate and the system’s production costs is simply too great. It would take either exceptional fundraising talent on the part of the prospective wind turbine owner or a significant disinterest in cash flow to go forward with an installation through the tariff as proposed.
Q. Do you support WPL’s proposed solar electric buyback rate?
A. Yes I do. If approved WPL’s proposed solar tariff will spur additional installations in its territory, which help the utility manage its peak loads more effectively. Certainly that has been the experience with We Energies (WE) and Madison Gas & Electric (MGE). Customer installations of solar electric systems have increased dramatically in both WE and MGE territory since the utilities began offering solar specific rates. WE’s 22.5 cents/kWh rate took effect in January 2006, while MGE’s 25 cents/kWh hit the streets in January this year. The amount of solar electric capacity leveraged by WE’s solar rate is in the neighborhood of 600 kW. At MGE, about 200 kW of solar capacity has been applied for. Relative to other utilities, WE and MGE are attracting a disproportionate share of Wisconsin’s solar electric installations, a phenomenon that can only be explained by their solar buyback rates.
Q. Does the proposed solar tariff fit your definition of an Advanced Renewable Tariff?
A. It does in every way except for the price. Like a true Advanced Renewable Tariff, it is a fixed offering over a specified period of time that does not increase with higher retail rates. The solar tariff is certainly not based on utility avoided costs. However, it is not, by itself, high enough to capture the production costs of a typical photovoltaic installation. According to data gathered from Focus on Energy-funded PV installations, the tariff would have to be at least double that amount in order for the system owner to recoup the investment over a 10-year period. However, that estimate does not factor in the effect of federal tax credits, Focus on Energy incentives, or accelerated depreciation. When those external economic benefits are added on top of WPL’s proposed buyback rate, the overall package starts to approach the break-even point over a 10-year period, especially for larger-scale systems serving for-profit customers.
Q. Is there a need for additional information on WPL’s renewable energy tariffs?
A. Yes. WPL has not indicated whether it will consider money paid to its renewable energy-producing customers as taxable income. With respect to those customer-generators that currently provide electricity to WPL under the utility’s net energy billing tariff, the utility has a policy of disclosing to the Internal Revenue Service any payments made to those customers. Customers who receive a Form 1099-MISC from WPL are legally obligated to include those payments as part of their taxable income. But not all utilities report these payments to the Internal Revenue Service. Those that don’t include WE, MGE, and Wisconsin Public Service (WPS). If WPL intends to send 1099-MISC forms to its renewable energy-producing customers, it should disclose that that information in the tariff language. I can easily imagine the irritation customer-generator would experience when he or she learns that their return on investment is suddenly subject to federal and state taxes. An even better approach would be to discontinue that practice. Judging from the prevailing practice at WE, MGE and WPS, there appears to be no need for WPL to penalize its customer-generators in this fashion.
Q. Does this complete your direct testimony?
A. Yes, it does.
