by jboullion | Nov 14, 2012 | Uncategorized
RENEW Wisconsin‘s Michael Vickerman weight in on the recent changes in Wisconsin politics, and what they mean for the future of renewable energies. From this article in Midwest Energy News by Dan Haugen.
Will changing political winds in Wisconsin mean another new direction for wind energy policy in the state?
Wisconsin Republicans reclaimed control of the state’s senate last week, five months after recall elections tipped the balance to Democrats. Republicans will now hold power by a wider margin in 2013 than they held in 2011.
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| A wind farm near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Renewable energy advocates are expecting another challenge to the state’s wind siting rules. (Photo by Digidave via Creative Commons) |
Wind energy advocates are worried that might mean another attempt to repeal the state’s wind farm siting rules, which limit restrictions that local governments can place on proposed wind developments.
And one Republican state senator has already announced plans to seek a repeal of the state’s renewable electricity standard, though a renewable advocacy group doubts the bill will gain enough support to pass.
Hopes for bipartisanship
Overall, RENEW Wisconsin program and policy director Michael Vickerman expects less hostility and more acceptance of the fact that renewable energy plays a growing role in the state’s economy.
“We are hearing that there are Republican senators that want to introduce positive legislation on renewable energy next year, and they want to do so in a bipartisan fashion,” Vickerman said.
RENEW Wisconsin is a member of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.
While Republicans haven’t announced their energy agenda, RENEW Wisconsin is concerned about a proposal by Republican state Sen. Frank Lasee that would un-do the state’s wind farm siting policy.
“He’s spearheading a one-person jihad against wind energy,” Vickerman said.
Wisconsin adopted statewide wind siting rules in 2011 that put boundaries on the local zoning and permitting regulations, which had delayed or derailed wind projects in some counties.
In March, Lasee introduced a bill that would have rolled back those rules, putting wind developers back at the mercy of a messy patchwork of local rules, some of which were, in Vickerman’s words, “a never-ending obstacle course” meant to discourage any projects.
Lasee’s effort last spring came up one vote short when Republicans had a 17-16 margin in the state senate. Next year, Lasse’s party is expected to hold an 18-15 majority.
“We survived, really, by the skin of our teeth,” Vickerman said. “All other things being equal, we have to find another Republican senator who will stand [for the wind siting rules.]”
RPS challenge?
The American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative policy group that promotes identical, model legislation across the country, says it plans to make repealing state renewable mandates a high priority in 2013.
State Sen. Glenn Grothman, a Republican from Sheboygan, has already announced plans for a bill that would freeze Wisconsin’s renewable standard at its 2012 levels.
“The 10 percent renewable portfolio standard imposed on Wisconsin utilities in 2006 was a mistake,” Grothman said in a press release. (The senator’s office didn’t return a phone call last week.)
Vickerman said he is “not particularly worried” about Grothman’s bill. That’s because renewable energy has too many allies — from landfill operators to equipment manufacturers — who understand its importance to growing Wisconsin’s economy.
“He is looking at legislation that would not only scale back commitments to wind energy, but also solar, biogas, landfill gas, hydro — all the resources are covered,” Vickerman said.
The legislation would also have very little practical effect, Vickerman said, because most of the state’s utilities have met their requirements for 2015 already.
Gary Radloff, director of Midwest energy policy analysis for the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s tough to generalize about legislators’ positions on energy.
“My experience has been that there’s a pretty broad continuum of views on energy, and that there’s people within the Republican caucus who see the benefits of renewables, especially bioenergy,” Radloff said.
Renewable energy has broad support from the public and businesses in Wisconsin, Radloff said. He thinks there’s more recognition today that a broad, all-out attack on renewables would not be popular.
His advice for lawmakers: “I would urge elected officials from both parties to go slow on dramatic energy policy change around renewables,” he said. “I think it’s really important that they go slow, keep an open mind, and recognize that the world is changing.”
See the original article and comments here.
by jboullion | Nov 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
More information
Michael Vickerman
mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org
608.255.4044,ext. 2
State’s Renewable Standard Delivers Positive Results
Most utilities already meeting 2015 targets
Most Wisconsin electricity providers have already acquired all the renewable energy supplies they need to meet the state’s 10% target in 2015, according to the Public Service Commission (PSCW).
The agency’s annual compliance review showed that nearly 9% of electricity sold by in-state electricity providers in 2011 originated from such renewable energy resources as sunlight, biogas, hydro, landfill gas and wind, compared with 3% in 2006.
“By any measure, the state’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES) has been an unqualified success,” said Michael Vickerman, program and policy director for RENEW Wisconsin. “From the standpoint of job creation, resource diversity, price stability, environmental protection and revenue generation, the RES has delivered exceptional value to a state that is very dependent on imported fossil fuels for electricity generation.”
Passed in 2006, the RES has been the most powerful policy for driving growth in renewable electricity sales. Yet with so many electricity providers already in compliance with their 2015 requirements, the prospects for new investments in home-grown energy sources are uncertain.
“Right now, we don’t have a policy in place for directing investments into clean energy after 2015,” Vickerman said. “If we want to reap the economic and environmental benefits that come with renewables, state lawmakers will have to extend the Renewable Energy Standard or adopt a successor policy.”
“Investments in renewable resources not only supply Wisconsin utility customers with clean energy, they also generate work opportunities for local manufacturers and businesses, additional revenue for local governments, and income for farmers,” said Vickerman.
“Renewable energy should be the cornerstone of an economic development strategy that aims to increase the state’s workforce and expand investment opportunities,” Vickerman said. “We look forward to working with the Governor and the next Legislature to put in place a realistic, low-cost policy framework that maintains the momentum building from the current RES.”
by jboullion | Nov 9, 2012 | Uncategorized
A commentary by Michael Vickerman, Director, Policy and Programs at RENEW Wisconsin:
Shock waves reverberated across the Upper Midwest when Dominion Resources announced in late October that it would permanently shut down its Kewaunee nuclear generating station in early 2013. Operational since 1974, the Kewaunee station, located along Lake Michigan 30 miles east of Green Bay, currently generates about 5% of the electricity that originates in Wisconsin.
Virginia-based Dominion, which bought the 560-megawatt Kewaunee plant in 2005 from two Wisconsin utilities, attributed its decision to its inability to secure long-term power purchase agreements to keep the plant going. Without securing purchasing commitments from utilities, Dominion would have to sell Kewaunee’s output into the regional wholesale market at prices well below the plant’s cost of production.
While the pricing environment for all bulk power generators is nothing short of brutal these days, Kewaunee carries the additional burden of being an independently owned power plant, since the entities most likely to buy electricity from that generator—utilities–have power plants of their own that compete for the same set of customers. And a growing number of these utility-owned generators burn natural gas, which is currently the least expensive generation source in most areas of the country.
Dominion’s decision comes down to simple economics. Wisconsin utilities believe that over the foreseeable future natural gas will remain cheap and supplies will remain abundant. That would explain their unwillingness to enter into long-term commitments with Dominion, even though Kewaunee recently acquired a 20-year extension to its operating license and does not need expansive retrofits to comply with environmental standards, unlike a host of utility-owned coal plants in Wisconsin.
But even if Dominion’s managers were convinced that natural gas prices have nowhere to go but up in 2013 and beyond, the company, lacking a retail customer base in the Midwest, could not risk producing power below cost while waiting for the turnaround.
Wisconsin utilities have placed heavy bets on natural gas in the expectation that it will remain the price-setting fuel for years to come. Over the last 12 months, they have bought several combined-cycle generators from independent power producers. Buying power plants enables them to pass through their acquisition and operating costs directly to their customers while generating returns to their shareholders. I suspect these utilities are anything but broken up over the impending demise of a nonutility competitor that could have supplied electricity to Wisconsin customers for 20 more years.
But there is another side to this story; the low-price energy future that Wisconsin utilities are embracing can only materialize if natural gas extraction companies continue to sell their output below production costs. This expectation is unrealistic, given the massive pain being inflicted on these companies in the form of operating losses, write-downs, and credit rating downgrades.
Don’t just take my word for it, ask Exxon Mobil ceo Rex Tillerson, whose company spent $41 billion during the shale gas boom to acquire XTO, a large gas producer that is now yielding more red ink than methane. As reported in a recent New York Times article, Tillerson minced no words in assessing the impact of its recent misadventures on the company’s bottom line. “We’re all losing our shirts today,” Tillerson said. “We’re making no money. It’s all in the red.”
Much of the industry’s woes are self-inflicted. The lease agreements that drillers eagerly signed during the height of the shale gas boom obligate them to extract the resource by a certain deadline, regardless of whether such activity is profitable. That these companies cannot disengage quickly from existing leases is greatly diminishing their appetite for exploring new natural gas prospects. Until a pricing turnaround occurs, they will refrain from spending money on exploring new resource provinces like Ohio and Michigan.
Sooner or later, this slowdown in exploration activity will tip the supply-demand equation in the opposite direction, resulting in lower-than-average gas storage volumes. Barring a repeat of last winter’s unusually mild weather, the crossover point should occur around January 1st . But with so many balance sheets in tatters from this highly unprofitable market environment, nothing short of a strong and sustained price increase will be required to persuade drillers to start taking risks again.
When this corrective price increase begins rippling through the electricity markets, it will be interesting to observe how the customers will respond. Right now Wisconsin utility managers are convinced that they are making the right call on natural gas. So completely have they swallowed the shale gas “game-changing” mystique that they were willing to let a 560 MW nuclear plant fall out of the supply picture for good. In this brave new world of theirs, gas is the new coal, and resource diversity is passé.
In the aftermath of Dominion’s announcement, a few commentators have defended the impending closure as a textbook example of how markets work. But this view ignores the delusional thinking that sent shale gas extraction into overdrive, causing prices to plunge below the cost of production. The real game-changer, as it turns out, here was not the emergence of “fracking” technology but the industry-generated public relations campaign that implanted the narrative of a nation awash in cheap natural gas into virtually every American cranium. But as we now see, this narrative has boomeranged on the natural gas industry, and they are paying for their current woes in ways that guarantee a pronounced pendulum swing in the direction of higher prices.
The question going forward is: will this narrative also boomerang on Wisconsin electricity users, after the last employee leaving Kewaunee turns out the lights?
Michael Vickerman is program and policy director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization. For more information on the global and national petroleum and natural gas supply picture, visit previous posts Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog: http://www.madisonpeakoil-blog.blogspot.com. This commentary is also listed on RENEW Wisconsin’s blog: http://www.renewwisconsin-blog.org/
by jboullion | Oct 31, 2012 | Uncategorized
Now is the time to make sure you know where your candidates stand on the day’s most important issues. Two important issues that will have a major impact on our state’s future are clean energy and energy efficiency.
Voters typically consider energy a national issue, but state-level politics often have as much or more impact on our energy future. In Wisconsin, state laws determine the how much of our electricity comes from renewable sources like wind and solar power. Additionally, programs like Focus on Energy, the statewide energy efficiency program, help homeowners and businesses save millions of dollars on energy bills.
Despite these laws and programs, we still send over $12 billion out of state each year to purchase dirty fossil fuels. Increasing our commitment to clean energy and energy efficiency could help Wisconsin become more energy independent, clean our air and water, and create thousands of jobs.
Unfortunately, legislators voted to significantly cut funding to Focus on Energy in the last legislative session, despite the program’s proven success; it saves homeowners and businesses $2.50 for every $1 invested in the program. Now is the time to move clean energy and energy efficiency policies forward, not backward.
A recent poll by the bipartisan research team of Public Opinion Strategies and Fairbank, Maslin, Metz and Associates found that Wisconsinites overwhelmingly support clean energy and energy efficiency. In fact, the poll found that 85 percent of Wisconsin voters support increasing the use of wind energy to meet our state’s future energy needs, and 89 percent support increasing the use of solar energy. Additionally, 84 percent said they would support policies requiring 30 percent of Wisconsin’s electricity to come from renewable sources. This is well above the current standard of 10 percent by 2015, which utilities have largely met.
By passing clean energy policies and increasing funding for money-saving programs like Focus on Energy in the next legislative session, legislators can help create Wisconsin jobs. Companies like Milwaukee’s Helios SolarWorks, a solar panel manufacturer, Manitowoc’s Orion Energy Systems, a leader in lighting efficiency, Prairie du Sac’s Tower Technologies, a renewable energy installer, and hundreds more can create more jobs if leaders work together to advance clean energy and energy efficiency policies.
In addition, such policies could attract new companies to Wisconsin and make our state a leader in the rapidly expanding clean energy economy. In April,
Ibisworld.com listed solar panel manufacturing (No. 2) and green and sustainable building construction (No. 9) among the nation’s top 10 fastest-growing industries. The poll found that more than two-thirds of voters believe clean energy and energy efficiency will create jobs and investing in these industries now can help ensure Wisconsin remains economically strong for decades.
At a time when our state and nation remain deeply divided on many issues, clean energy and energy efficiency unite people of all political stripes. With less than two weeks to the election, now is the time to ask your candidates where they stand on these important issues.
Keith Reopelle is the senior policy director at Clean Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.cleanwisconsin.org. Find the original article here.
by jboullion | Oct 26, 2012 | Uncategorized
Clean Energy Choice (sometimes called third-party ownership) allows a customer to get electricity from a third-party which installs and maintains a renewable energy system on the customer’s premises.
With Clean Energy Choice, customers don’t have to put any money upfront, the major barrier to installing renewables. The customer either buys the output directly from the third-party owner or pays to host the energy-producing equipment and uses the electricity without any further cost under a long-term contract.
From a presentation by Michael Vickerman, RENEW director of policy and program, at Solar Powering Your Community, October 11, 2012:
- No up-front capital required from host customers
- Allows nonprofit entities to partner w/ for-profit companies that can use the 30% federal tax credit
- Based on a successful model for delivering energy efficiency (performance-based contracts)
- Could lower energy costs for customers over the contract life
- Hugely successful in states that allow it (e.g., California and Colorado)
- It’s your premises, after all
