by jboullion | Feb 23, 2010 | Uncategorized
Anews release issued by Alderman Tony Zielinski:
The Community and Economic Development committee unanimously approved an ordinance today that allows the City of Milwaukee to create the state’s first property assessed solar power revolving loan program to make solar power a more attractive option for homeowners.
Alderman Tony Zielinski, primary sponsor of the ordinance says promoting solar power is critical for environmental reasons as well as job creation. “Encouraging solar power options creates job opportunities for solar panel installers and also helps to increase a need for manufacturing the panels and the jobs related to that process,” Ald. Zielinski said.
“Historically, one of the barriers to installing solar power in homes has been the upfront costs. This loan program reduces that impediment and for as little as a few hundred dollars, a homeowner can create energy efficiency in their home and begin saving money immediately,” Ald. Zielinski said.
Homeowners who take advantage of the loan program have 15 years to repay the installation costs; money they can easily earn in energy savings, Ald. Zielinski notes.
Co-sponsor of the ordinance, Alderman Nik Kovac said “Creating this energy efficiency improvement fund is one way the City of Milwaukee can help its residents increase the efficiency of their own home while simultaneously creating a specific job market within the city.”
“Homeowners are looking for green solutions,” Ald. Terry Witkowski, co-sponsor, said, “and the City of Milwaukee can only stand to benefit by exploring alternatives like the solar power loan program.”
The ordinance will appear before the full Council on Tuesday, March 2 for approval. Residents who would like to learn more about the property assessed solar loan program or access the program manual should contact Andrea Luecke, project manager of the Milwaukee Shines program, at aluecke@milwaukee.gov. For more information about how the City of Milwaukee supports solar energy, click on www.MilwaukeeShines.com.
by jboullion | Feb 23, 2010 | Uncategorized
An announcement Regenerative Culture:
In this time of economic recession, climate change, resource depletion and social isolation, it is clear our current systems aren’t working. Our world is changing and our leaders aren’t leading.
Ariane Burgess, founder of Regenerative Culture, will offer an interactive presentation that outlines the new community leadership training course she may offer here if there’s enough interest.
She will overview our current crises and highlight the course’s approach to helping us re-skill and lead our communities toward a resilient and regenerative future.
The holistic and in-depth approach Ms. Burgess will present focuses on 5 key dimensions of community design:
Economic, Ecological, Social, Worldview and Leadership. These five elements are woven to create a springboard to help us move from talk and theory into action. She will describe how the course will help us prepare, communicate and implement action plans to develop our community’s resilience.
The free talks will be held:
• Tues, March 9 at 7:00 p.m. – Western Technical College, 220 South Main Street, Viroqua
by jboullion | Feb 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a commentary by Michael Vickerman, RENEW’s executive director:
In the next six weeks the Legislature will make a truly momentous decision on the state’s energy future. Either it can embrace an ambitious 15-year commitment to invigorate the state’s economy through sustained investments in clean energy or decide to coast along on current energy policies until they lapse and lose their force and effect.
Arguably the most innovative feature in the Clean Energy Jobs Act, as it’s now called, is a proposed requirement on larger electric providers to acquire locally produced renewable electricity with Advanced Renewable Tariffs (ARTs). These are technology-specific buyback rates that provide a fixed purchase price for the electricity produced over a period of 10 to 20 years, set at levels sufficient to recover installation costs along with a modest profit. Now available in more than a dozen nations in Europe as well as the Province of Ontario, ARTs have proven to be singularly effective in stimulating considerable growth in small-scale production of distributed renewable electricity. . . .
Consider the much-vaunted Dane County Cow Power Project, which should be operational before the end of the year. Using anaerobic digestion technology, this Waunakee-area installation will treat manure from three nearby dairy farms and produce biogas that will fuel a two-megawatt generator. This community digester project, the first of its kind in Wisconsin, will be built with private capital and a State of Wisconsin award to support a technology that reduces the flow of phosphorus into the Yahara Lakes. A second digester project is also planned for Dane County.
The key element that makes the financing of this project work is the special biogas buyback rate that Alliant Energy, the local utility, voluntarily put in place a year ago. With the higher rate, the project’s return on investment was sufficient to interest outside investors. . . .
If we are serious about neutralizing the algae blooms that turn the Yahara lakes green each year, we’ll need to adopt a clean energy policy, including ARTs, that facilitates the development of biodigesters in farm country.
by jboullion | Feb 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
From the newsletter of Energy Concepts, Hudson, WI:
Wisconsin residents have their own “perfect storm” solar incentive brewing: the combined credits from Focus on Energy, the Federal tax credit and the State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP) can reduce the cost of a solar hot water system by over 50%.
Let’s tote them up:
• Focus on Energy will support qualifying solar thermal systems up to $20 a therm, to a maximum of $2,750 per system.
• SEEARP, which is actually a Federal program initiated under the 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment act, will reimburse the same system up to $2,000.
• The Federal 30% tax credit can be applied to the balance of the installation cost.
A sample cost worksheet might look like this:
Installation cost: $11,000
Focus Rebate: $2,250
SEEARP: $2,000
Federal Credit: $2,025
Total Credits: $6,275
Final Cost: $4,725
Price reduction on system: 57%
This does not include possible MACRS depreciation recapture should the system be installed in a business–that could shave another 10%–15% from net system cost.
How much energy savings accrue annually is dependant on how much hot water is consumed and what the price of gas or electricity is in your area.
But, solar hot water is known to produce the shortest payback period in the renewable energy industry. It would not be wild speculation, given energy inflation, to say that the above system would pay back in under 10 years.
With State PV incentives of just $1.25 a watt, Wisconsin residents might feel jealous of Minnesota’s new PV incentives. But the best response would be not to get mad, but to get even. And right now, that means installing solar hot water sytems in the Badger State, understanding that renewable energy’s quickest payback period just got a lot quicker.
by jboullion | Feb 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an announcement made by Gateway Technical College:
Harnessing Renewable Energy Opportunities
DATE: February 24, 2010
TIME: Morning Seminar – 1 :OOp.m. – 3:00p.m.
Evening Seminar – 7:00p.m. – 9:00p.m.
HOST & LOCATION: Gateway Technical College, Horizon Center, 4940 88th Avenue, Kenosha, WI 53144
YOU ARE INVITED: to attend an interactive presentation on methods, execution and sustainable economical outcomes for communities. Robert Laporte, Molecular Biologist and CEO of Neutopia ecoSolutions, Inc., will present the seminar. Mr. Laporte will show several examples of how communities have benefitted from sustainable implementation, such as decreasing municipal waste issues, creating new revenue streams and more.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Sheila Axl, EleclriChargeMobility:
262-789-8409
eleclricharge@me.com
by jboullion | Feb 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
Commentary
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
February 22, 2010
As the Legislature mulls over the pending comprehensive energy bill known as the Clean Energy Jobs Act (SB 450/AB 649), both supporters and opponents have been keeping their artillery banks busy, peppering the airwaves and cyberspace with press releases, position papers, radio advertisements and economic impact studies. It’s a veritable war of words out there.
In pursuit of the larger objective of undermining public support for that bill, several opponents of the energy bill are attempting to manufacture a controversy out of the State of Wisconsin’s purchasing of renewable electricity, an outgrowth of the state’s current energy policy law (2005 Act 141). That law directed the State of Wisconsin to source 10% of its electrical usage from renewable resources by 2007 and 20% by 2011. In the initiative’s first year, the purchase of renewable energy added $1.4 million, or 1.7%, to the state’s overall electric bill.
The critics, led by Rep. Brett Davis (R-Oregon), contend that the state’s purchase is a budget-straining extravagance that taxpayers cannot afford at this time. In a letter sent to the Department of Administration, Davis insinuated that one of the energy purchase contracts amounts to a sweetheart deal for the utility provider, WPPI Energy, because it charged higher premiums than the other two utilities. Davis has asked the Legislative Audit Bureau to review the WPPI contract. WPPI, it should be noted, is a nonprofit wholesale energy provider serving more than 40 municipal electric utilities in Wisconsin.
Before we plunge into the politics behind this puffed-up molehill, a brief primer little on energy pricing is in order. First and foremost, the renewable energy in question is acquired by the state under long-term contracts that set forth a fixed price. Whether we’re talking about windpower, solar or biogas, the price of that resource remains steady over time. It does not yo-yo up and down the way certain fossil fuel prices do.
By contrast, an unregulated energy commodity like natural gas is especially susceptible to price volatility. Even though natural gas is primarily used as a heating fuel in Wisconsin, its price behavior strongly influences wholesale electricity costs at the margin.
Back when the State of Wisconsin signed its contracts with its renewable energy providers, natural gas prices were significantly elevated. After July 2008, they plummeted, which took the air out of wholesale electric markets. As a result, the cost differential between conventional energy and renewable energy widened going into 2009. But the renewable resources didn’t become more expensive; their costs stayed the same as it was two years ago.
The energy provided by WPPI Energy comes from the Forward Wind Energy Center located in Fond du Lac and Dodge counties. Keep in mind that the Forward project is a local energy source; no state dollars leave the state to procure the electricity. This 129-turbine installation pumps more than $1 million a year into the local economy in the form of land rental payments, local government revenues and maintenance crew salaries. Not a single dollar from the State of Wisconsin stays with WPPI Energy.
The State’s arrangement with WPPI Energy is nothing more than a standard hedge contract. This type of arrangement is common between suppliers of propane or fuel oil and their customers. Those businesses routinely offer their customers an opportunity to lock in a certain fuel price in advance of the heating season. Sometimes it works out for the customer, sometimes it doesn’t. But many customers and suppliers elect to enter into hedged contracts, because both parties can lock in their fuel expenses for the winter regardless of how the energy markets behave.
Yet, if wholesale electricity prices are slumping, then so is the cost of heating buildings with natural gas. According to a recent post by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Content, residential and business customers are spending 15% to 30% less on heating bills this winter. The primary cause of the reduction in heating bills is the ongoing slump in the price of natural gas.
Content goes on to say that while electric rates rose at the beginning of this year, the savings on the heating side are neutralizing the impact on customer pocketbooks. If you and I and every other utility customer are seeing significant reductions in our heating bills, then it stands to reason that the State of Wisconsin is too. Put another way, the very dynamic that lifted renewable energy premiums last year also lowered energy bills statewide this winter.
Most people expect fossil fuel prices will rise again, and history will not disappoint them. Rep. Davis knows this too, which is why he and every other Republican legislator except one lone dissenter voted in favor of the state renewable energy purchasing initiative four years ago. But the Republicans were in the majority back in 2006, and thus took credit—deservedly so–for their leadership in passing Act 141.
In a further irony, the source of Davis’s ire was a pet policy of a fellow Republican legislator, former representative Scott Jensen. As a member of Gov. Doyle’s Task Force on Energy Efficiency and Renewables, Jensen championed the idea of the state acting as a “model customer,” whose leadership by example serves to educate other customers on the virtues of renewable energy.
But the real reason why Rep. Davis and others have sought to make a federal case out of this molehill is to blow up the Clean Energy Jobs Act bill before it can pass a Legislature that is, this time around, controlled by Democrats. Unlike their rivals four years ago, Republicans don’t see any electoral advantage to working with the majority party on this bill, even though it is clearly the most important economic development initiative that the Legislature will entertain this session.
During most of my 19 years as a renewable energy advocate, there has been an implicit recognition that both parties should share in the risks and rewards associated with something as fundamentally important as state energy policy. But times have certainly changed. Bipartisanship is completely MIA in this debate, as evidenced by the unnecessary and unconvincing posturing over the state’s renewable energy purchase. To echo the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats, the center is not holding.
Michael Vickerman is the executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization headquartered in Madison. For more information on the Clean Energy Jobs Act bill (SB450/AB649), visit RENEW’s web site at: www.renewwisconsin.org.
