by jboullion | Jan 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a news release issued by Governor Jim Doyle:
MADISON – Governor Jim Doyle today was joined by business leaders, labor, legislators and environmental organizations as he launched the Clean Energy Jobs Act, a landmark legislative package to accelerate the state’s green economy and create jobs. New industry-recognized research shows the package will directly create at least 15,000 green jobs in Wisconsin by 2025.
“Addressing climate change is not just an environmental issue, it’s about creating green jobs,” Governor Doyle said.
“The Clean Energy Jobs Act offers new standards to help accelerate Wisconsin’s green economy. I am calling on the Legislature to update renewable portfolio standards to generate 25 percent of our fuel from renewable sources by 2025 and set a realistic goal of a 2 percent annual reduction in energy consumption by 2015.”
The Clean Energy Jobs Act, State Senate Bill 450 and State Assembly Bill 649, implements the recommendations of Governor Doyle’s Global Warming Task Force to address climate change and grow the state’s green economy through several key measures:
• Enhanced renewable portfolio standards – A new 20 percent standard would be set for 2020 and a 25 percent standard would be set for 2025. The current 10 percent standard would be accelerated from 2015 to 2013. By advancing our current renewable portfolio standards, and setting new standards, we will ensure more of our energy dollars stay in the state, creating thousands of jobs for Wisconsin families in fields like construction, manufacturing, and agriculture.
• Enhanced energy efficiency and conservation efforts – Graduated statewide electricity savings goals would be set, leading up to a 2 percent reduction by 2015 and annual reductions thereafter. The cheapest way to lower carbon emissions is through energy conservation. By setting achievable conservation goals, this bill will help reduce energy costs in businesses and homes across the state.
A comprehensive economic assessment of the Clean Energy Jobs Act found that the package would directly create at least 15,000 green jobs in Wisconsin by 2025. More than 1,800 jobs would be created in the first year alone. The assessment also found that between 800 and 1,800 construction jobs would be created each year from 2011-2025, and more than 2,000 manufacturing jobs would be created once the laws are fully implemented.
Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin’s executive director said:
Wisconsin’s existing 10% Renewable Energy Standard has driven significant investment in rural, forestry and agriculture markets by encouraging the construction of large wind, biogas, biomass and solar projects. Increasing the Renewable Energy Standard to 25% in 2025 would continue to generate more of the lucrative payments to landowners and biofuel / biomass providers as well as create more jobs constructing and maintaining the additional projects are built to meet the new standards.
The bills also include three of the proposals backed by the Homegrown Renewable Energy Campaign:
• Renewable Energy Buyback Rates, also called an Advanced Renewable Tariffs, would set utility payments for small renewable energy producers who want to “feed energy” into the electric grid, enabling farmers and rural businesses to help Wisconsin become more energy independent with biopower, wind and solar.
• The Biomass Crop Reserve Program would award contracts to farmers to plant native perennial plants, which the farmer can then sell for bioenergy production, helping to solve the chicken-and-egg problem of jumpstarting the homegrown fuels market.
• A Low-Carbon Fuel Standard would be a market-based approach to promoting the cleanest, low-carbon fuels for Wisconsin, and would put Wisconsin in a position to capture the rapidly-developing clean energy market by using Wisconsin’s abundant natural resources like switchgrass.
Statements of support for the legislation came from Customers First!, WPPI Energy, CREWE, Clean Wisconsin, ACRE, MEUW, Sierra Club, and others.
by jboullion | Oct 23, 2009 | Uncategorized
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 23, 2009
MORE INFORMATION
Michael Vickerman
RENEW Wisconsin
608.255.4044
mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org
Utilities’ voluntary incentives hit limits
(Madison, WI – October 23, 2009) In contrast to the rapid growth experienced in the last three years, a leading state renewable energy advocacy group expects a sharp decline in installed solar electric capacity in 2010.
In statements directed to the Public Service Commission (PSC), three utilities – Wisconsin Electric Power (WE), Wisconsin Power and Light (WPL), and Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) – acknowledged yesterday that their voluntary solar incentive programs will be discontinued for new customers. All three had offered, on a limited basis, a special buyback rate for the generated electricity, which effectively cut in half the payback period for the systems.
“These three incentive programs spurred homeowners and businesses to install nearly 2.5 megawatts of solar electric capacity,” said Michael Vickerman, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin. “But for those incentives, we wouldn’t not have reached the milestone that PSC Chair Eric Callisto recently celebrated at the installation of a system serving the Town of Menasha.”
“Though voluntary initiatives are certainly welcome, they cannot by themselves sustain a vibrant solar marketplace. By far the most effective way to maintain solar’s momentum is for the Legislature to require utilities to purchase a set amount of renewable energy from their own customers at a reasonable price,” said Vickerman.
Going into 2010, the only investor-owned utility that has a special buyback rate is Madison Gas and Electric (MG&E), which pays its customers 25 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity generated from their solar systems. MG&E’s voluntary program still has room for another 600 kilowatts of customer-owned solar.
Until their voluntary initiatives had reached capacity, both WPS and WPL had been paying the same rate as MG&E, while WE had offered a 22.5 cents for each kilowatt-hour generated.
“If renewable energy is to drive job growth in Wisconsin, lawmakers must create favorable marketplace conditions to support new installations going forward. No policy will accomplish that goal more effectively than a state initiative to establish higher buyback rates,” Vickerman said.
END
by jboullion | Mar 9, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a post on Tom Content’s blog on JSonline:
The stimulus bill and what it could mean for Wisconsin’s energy future will be discussed at several forums during the Renewable Energy Summit on March 27 in Milwaukee.
Gov. Jim Doyle, U.S. Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wausau), a lead author of the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment and U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) are all scheduled to address the conference, organizers said. Gary Wolter, who heads MGE Energy Inc. and runs the state Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, has also been invited to speak.
The summit is planned for March 25-27 at the Midwest Airlines Center.
“I thought we were missing the boat if we didn’t focus on the stimulus bill and what’s going to happen,” said Art Harrington of Godfrey & Kahn, a conference coordinator. “We should focus one day on the opportunities created by the stimulus bill on renewable energy, and that morphed into the plenary session on Friday, March 27.”
by jboullion | Jan 20, 2009 | Uncategorized
A news brief from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Oconomowoc – Oconomowoc has become the latest community in southeastern Wisconsin to adopt Gov. Jim Doyle’s commitment for increased energy independence by 2025.
Aldermen passed a resolution Jan. 6 embracing Doyle’s “25 by 25” plan, which means that 25% of the city’s electricity and motor fuel supplies will come from renewable resources by the year 2025.
Oconomowoc city officials and civic leaders have created a special task force to promote greater use of wind energy, solar energy and other alternative resources.
The governor’s office said 73 cities and counties have embraced the 25 by 25 commitment. Other than Oconomowoc, the only one in southeastern Wisconsin is Kenosha County.
by jboullion | Jan 2, 2009 | Uncategorized
A column by Mike Nichols in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel seems to present an either/or dicotomy between wind-generated electricity and digester-generated electricity. Nichols wrote:
This is something to ponder as we head into a new year – and a new era. We are developing huge wind farms in Wisconsin. People are talking about setting turbines out on our Great Lakes. Breaking wind could be the key to the future. The only question now is “What kind?”
Do we harness our skies or our pies?
The Journal Sentinel published the following response from RENEW’s executive director Michael Vickerman:
The statement that Wisconsin can generate more electricity from manure than from windpower is not supported by the numbers.
To make biogas from manure, a dairy farm operator has to keep the cows inside and under a roof at all times. Only in a confined setting is it possible to collect cow manure and break it down in an oxygen-free digester that results in methane. Of Wisconsin’s 1.3 million dairy cows, only one-eighth of them live in confined animal operations. The average dairy cow here is part of a small herd and spends a considerable amount of time in pasture.
As stated in the column, Wisconsin is well ahead of other states in capturing energy from dairy cow manure and generating electricity with it, and there is certainly room for growth. Bear in mind, however, that takes more than 2,000 dairy cows to produce enough methane to equal the output from one commercial wind turbine. Yes, Wisconsin now boasts about two dozen biogas generation systems attached to dairy farms. But compared with the output from the 251 wind turbines installed this year at four different projects, their electrical production is quite modest.
Though other locally available resources–solar, small hydro, woody fuels and biomethane—will certainly play a larger part in contributing to Wisconsin’s electricity mix, wind energy will remain the renewable energy workhorse for the foreseeable future.
Finally, the Governor’s Global Warming Task Force recommended a raft of policies to achieve a renewable energy goal of 25% by 2025, no small undertaking I can assure you. If we are serious about achieving that goal, we must accept expanded contributions from all eligible resources. We do not have the luxury of playing favorites.
