by jboullion | Jul 11, 2012 | Uncategorized
Immediate release
July 11, 2012
More information
Jenny Heinzen,President
715.592.6595
jennyh@midwestrenew.org
RENEW Announces New Members of Board of Directors
RENEW Wisconsin (RENEW) members elected new directors to its governing board in July.
“The new board represents a wide range of talents and interests in supporting RENEW’s mission of leading and representing businesses, organizations, and individuals that seek more clean renewable energy in Wisconsin,” said Jenny Heinzen, RENEW’s board president. The new board offers a healthy mix of new and familiar faces, Heinzen said.
RENEW is an independent, nonprofit organization that leads and represents businesses, organizations, and individuals who seek more clean renewable energy in Wisconsin.
The following were elected to three-year terms on RENEW’s board:
• Jeff Anthony, Director of Business Development, American Wind Energy Association, Milwaukee;
• Alex DePillis, principal, Clean Energy Partners, specializing in commercial wind and solar thermal systems, Madison;
• Maureen Faller, co-owner, Kettle View Renewable Energy, LLC, installer of wind and solar systems, Random Lake;
• Jim Funk, owner and engineer for Energize, LLC, specializing in providing high quality, high performing solar PV systems, Winneconne;
• Gary Haltaufderheide, Sun Prairie;
• Duane Kexel, President, Duane T. Kexel Consulting, LLC, Madison;
• Jeff Peterson, executive director, Polk County Energy Fair and director at the Polk-Burnett Electric Cooperative, Luck;
• Pam Porter, owner, P Squared Group, energy consulting, Madison; and,
• Carl Siegrist, Managing Partner, Carl Siegrist Consulting LLC, Whitefish Bay.
The new directors will serve three-year terms and join existing board members to form the group that sets overall direction for the organization.
-END-
RENEW Wisconsin is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that leads and represents businesses, organizations, and individuals who seek more clean renewable energy in Wisconsin. More information on RENEW’s Web site at www.renewwisconsin.org.
by jboullion | Jul 6, 2012 | Uncategorized
Immediate release
July 5, 2012
More information
Don Wichert
Interim Executive Director
608.2554044
dwichert@renewwisconsin.org
Focus on Energy Resumes Offer of Renewable Energy Incentives
Financial incentives to support customer-sited renewable energy systems are once again available from Focus on Energy, the ratepayer-funded energy efficiency and renewable energy program in Wisconsin. About $2 million will be available for solar, wind, biomass, and biogas energy systems between now and December 31, 2012.
The resumption of renewable energy incentives marks the end of a suspension on applications for funding support that lasted six months for residential customers and an entire year for business customers.
“We are pleased that the funding uncertainties with Focus on Energy are behind us and that the renewable energy program is back up and running,” said Don Wichert,
Interim Executive Director of RENEW Wisconsin (RENEW), a nonprofit renewable energy advocacy organization.
“With the resumption of incentives, there is no need for customers to ‘wait and see’ what the future holds.”
In January, RENEW Wisconsin delivered a letter, signed by over 150 businesses, schools, and local officials, to the Public Service Commission asking the agency “to exercise its oversight authority over Focus on Energy and restore funding, without delay, for renewables at a level consistent with previous years’ allocations.” In early March, RENEW organized a similar write-in campaign to the PSC with over 200 comments submitted.
“I am hopeful that the reinstatement of incentives signals a closer working relationship between renewable energy businesses and Focus on Energy administrators,” Wichert said.
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RENEW Wisconsin is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that leads and represents businesses, organizations, and individuals who seek more clean renewable energy in Wisconsin. More information on RENEW’s Web site at www.renewwisconsin.org.
by jboullion | Jun 18, 2012 | Uncategorized
From a story by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
A report from the state Public Service Commission tallies the cost of complying with the state’s renewable power standard, concluding that it sent power rates up about 1% through 2010.
The report found that Wisconsin’s renewable projects accounted for more than 7% of sales in 2010, or nearly twice the level of 2006, when the state’s renewable standard was adopted by the state Legislature.
Since 2007, the commission has endorsed proposals to build $1.7 billion for utility-owned renewable projects, primarily wind farms built in Wisconsin and nearby states.
The report doesn’t account for about $500 million worth of projects, which were not completed as of 2010.
Large projects like new power plants are paid off over time, so the cost of adding those to the state’s fleet of generation was about $200 million, or an increase of 1% of utility sales, the report estimated. The estimate is based on a comparison of the cost of the projects with the average market price of power sold on the wholesale Midwest energy market during the period.
Wisconsin’s standard requires increases in the amount of renewable energy that utilities buy or build, so that 10% of utility sales in 2015 will come from renewables such as wind, solar and biomass projects.
The standard was enacted in 2006 with bipartisan and near-unanimous support. The state Assembly co-author of the bill, Republican Phil Montgomery, chairs the state Public Service Commission. . . .
Commissioner Eric Callisto, who was chair of the commission under Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, said the PSC staff’s analysis “confirms that balancing the state’s generation portfolio with clean, renewable energy facilities comes at a reasonable cost to consumers.”
While providing balance for a fleet that relies on fossil fuels for a majority of Wisconsin’s power generation. Callisto said the renewable projects also “act as important risk mitigation tools in a future of increasing air regulation, and provide opportunities for economic development within the four corners of the state.”
by jboullion | May 23, 2012 | Uncategorized
For immediate release
May 23, 2012
More information
Michael Vickerman
608.255.4044, ext. 2
Another example of company backsliding on renewables
In documents filed in conjunction with its pending rate case, Green Bay-based Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (WPS) proposed several rollbacks to its net metering service that would, if approved, sharply restrict a customer’s ability to generate electricity from renewable energy resources and sell a portion of it back to the utility.
Net metering allows customers to sell the unused output from their solar electric or other renewable energy system back to the utility at the full retail rate from month to month, so long as the surplus electricity is less than or equal to the customers’ usage in a 12-month period.
Currently, WPS customers may install solar or wind energy systems on their premises up to 100 kilowatts (kW). Beginning in January 2013, WPS would roll back that capacity limit to 20 kW.
WPS has also proposed to cap the overall size of its net metering offering at one-half of one percent of 2011 summer peak. No other Wisconsin utility has ever sought to impose capacity-based limits to its net metering service.
“What WPS proposes would be a really bad deal for customers installing small renewable energy systems serving their homes or businesses,” said Michael Vickerman, program and policy director for RENEW Wisconsin, a nonprofit advocacy organization promoting renewable energy use in Wisconsin.
“These service changes are clearly intended to discourage its customers from investing in solar and small wind energy systems,” Vickerman said. “If WPS gets its way, the renewable energy marketplace in that part of Wisconsin will slow down significantly.”
“At a time when the customers and communities in WPS territory are looking to renewable energy to support new jobs and manage their energy costs, the company is doing its level best to take that option away from them,” Vickerman said.
As an intervenor in WPS’s rate case, RENEW Wisconsin will ask the Public Service Commission to:
• Reject WPS’s proposal to impose a system-wide cap on net metering service;
• Maintain the current maximum system size at 100 kW; and
• Base WPS’s calculation of net energy on annual usage instead of monthly usage.
“What we will ask for is a standard of service that is already offered by two Wisconsin utilities: Madison Gas & Electric (MGE) and Xcel Energy,” Vickerman said. “WPS’s proposal is a particularly egregious example of company backsliding.”
Vickerman noted that MGE, which also has a pending rate proceeding before the Public Service Commission, did not propose any changes to its net metering service for 2013 and 2014.
“We urge the PSC to work toward a uniform net metering policy for the state using MGE’s and Xcel’s service as a template,” Vickerman said.
Vickerman added: “WPS, it should be remembered, was the driving force behind the “Outsource Renewable Energy to Canada Act,” which was signed into law in 2011. That law lets utilities apply the energy they purchase from large Canadian hydropower sources toward their renewable energy requirements, at the expense of in-state renewable energy providers. Within that context, WPS’s net metering proposal constitutes another slight to Wisconsin’s renewable energy marketplace.”
END
RENEW Wisconsin is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) that leads and represents businesses and individuals who seek more clean, renewable energy in Wisconsin. More information on RENEW’s Web site at www.renewwisconsin.org.
by jboullion | May 11, 2012 | Uncategorized
Call for nominations to RENEW Wisconsin board of directors
RENEW Wisconsin invites you to put yourself or another current RENEW member on the ballot for elections to a three-year term on the board of directors.
Your participation would help shape policies and programs to help lead and represent businesses, organizations, and individuals who seek more clean, renewable energy in Wisconsin.
As a board member, you can have fun and contribute to moving RENEW closer to achieving these solar, wind, and bio-energy goals in 2012:
• Organize stakeholders to articulate public policy messages on clean energy;
• Increase funding for renewable energy in the Focus on Energy program;
• Take the lead on wind permitting issues in Wisconsin;
• Advance third-party ownership of clean renewable energy systems;
• Overhaul and promote consistent net energy billing policies statewide;
• Revive utility commitments to expand renewable energy; • Promote attractive renewable energy buyback policies;
• Defend and repair Wisconsin’s 10% Renewable Energy Standard.
The board meets four times each year. Board members are expected to be actively engaged and to volunteer for at least one standing committee.
There are four board seats that will become available in July. Here’s the schedule for the elections:
• May 25 Deadlines for nominations
• June 5 Deadline for submitting a short statement (50-100 words) to appear on the ballot describing yourself and your interest in serving on the RENEW board
• June 11 Elections open • June 22 Elections close
• June 26 Candidates notified
• July 5 Elected members attend board meeting
A member of the board of directors must be a member of RENEW. To join RENEW, click here. To submit a nomination of get more information, contact M ick Sagrillo by email (msagrillo@wizunwired.net) or phone, 920 .837.7523.
