Solar for Farmers

If you are involved in agriculture, be sure to take a look at our website devoted to solar for farmers. You can jump to it here, or point your browser to http://ohiofarmsolar.com.

 

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., July 25, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Army today awarded the final round of solar technology contracts that will support a $7 billion renewable and alternative energy power production for Department of Defense installations Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC).

The U.S. Army Energy Initiatives Task Force (EITF) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, established the $7 billion MATOC primarily to use for Power Purchase Agreements involving renewable or alternative energy projects greater than 10 megawatts.

These contracts will support the Army’s achievement of its congressionally mandated energy goal of 25 percent production of energy from renewable sources by 2025, and improving installation energy security and sustainability.

Today’s contract awards add 12 small businesses to the pool of qualified contractors who will be eligible to bid on future individual solar technology project task orders. Companies receiving contracts include Third Sun Solar of Athens, Ohio, the only Ohio small business that made the cut for this work. To pass muster for this assignment, Third Sun Solar had to complete a rigorous set of application procedures and be judged as a healthy, reputable company well-equipped to do work for the Department of Defense.

The MATOC involves third-party financed renewable energy acquisitions and involves no Army capital or Military Construction appropriation. The Army only purchases the power from contractors who own, operate or maintain the generating assets. The MATOC’s total estimated value of $7 billion refers to the total dollar value of energy available for purchase under all Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) task orders for their entire term (up to 30 years).

As renewable energy opportunities at Army installations are assessed and validated by the EITF, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, will issue a competitive task order RFP to the pre-qualified MATOC companies for the specific technologies. Task orders will specify the type and amount of energy to be supplied to the Army installation or other federal user as well as other pertinent information for the developer to prepare a response that meets the government’s requirements.

SOURCE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville

Part of what we do for our customers — and prospective customers — is keep an eye on solar market trends and market intelligence. We want to know where the value is in solar, and how to maximize that value for our customers. Often, that research reflects back upon us, and other companies that install solar in Ohio, showing us what customers think about, and look for, in a solar installer. So it is gratifying to see a survey like this, conducted by EnPhase and published in Renewable Energy World magazine.

When solar homeowners were asked, “Why did you select the installer you chose? (check all that apply,)” a huge 69% said that they chose their residential installer because they were the most trusted or highest rated installer, while just 56% of responders selected price. So price is certainly important, but trust and ratings are a much more common factor.

 

“It’s pretty clear that strengthening the trust of prospects and customers leads to solar sales and referrals, and reviews and other information found on the web are also important for acquiring and converting residential solar sales.” (Tor Valenza)

All of that said, it’s honest communication, follow-up and follow-through that win peoples’ trust. And maintaining focus. Each solar installation we do is the most important one we have ever done. That’s where our reputation comes from.

Tor Valenza a.k.a. “Solar Fred” is a solar marketing and communications consultant and the author of Solar Fred’s Guide to Solar Guerrilla Marketing. Sign up for the Solar Fred Marketing Newsletter, or contact him through UnThink Solar. You can also follow @SolarFred on Twitter.

The U.S. grid is the worst in the industrialized world (outages are up 285%!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Power outages in the United States are up an astonishing 285% since 1984. The U.S. ranks last among the top nine Western industrialized nations in the average length of outages. That dismal performance costs American businesses as much as $150 billion every year according to the EIA.

“The U.S. electrical grid, once one of the world’s great marvels, is crumbling after decades of underinvestment,” trumpets Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “It’s… something of a relic, largely built after World War II from designs that date to Thomas Edison.”

Although talk of a smart grid has been around for years, many utilities are now starting in earnest on a huge infrastructure makeover. It could cost almost $500 billion before it’s completed, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Smart Grid News. Author Jesse Berst is the founder and Chief Analyst of SGN and Chairman of the Smart Cities Council, an industry coalition.

Here is an Op-Ed by David Brooks, a conservative columnist for The New York Times. In it, he comments upon The Beatles, creativity, and B Corporations (like Third Sun Solar) — how the confluence of creativity, capitalism and the desire to “do well by doing good” leads to a potent, positive force in American business culture. [Our emphasis added in bold.]

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Joshua Wolf Shenk has a fascinating description of how Paul McCartney and John Lennon created music together. McCartney was meticulous while Lennon was chaotic. McCartney emerged out of a sunny pop tradition. Lennon emerged out of an angst-ridden rebel tradition.

Lennon wrote the song “Help” while in the throes of depression. The song originally had a slow, moaning sound. McCartney suggested a lighthearted counter melody that, as Shenk writes, fundamentally changed and improved the nature of the piece.

Lennon and McCartney came from different traditions, but they had similar tastes. They brought different tendencies to the creative process but usually agreed when the mixture was right. This created the special tension in their relationship. They had a tendency to rip at each other, but each knew ultimately that he needed the other. Even just before his death, Lennon was apparently thinking of teaming up with McCartney once again.

Shenk uses the story to illustrate the myth of the lone genius, to show that many acts of genius are the products of teams or pairs, engaged in collaboration and “co-opetition.” And we have all known fertile opposites who completed each other — when they weren’t trying to destroy each other.

But the Lennon-McCartney story also illustrates the key feature of creativity; it is the joining of the unlike to create harmony. Creativity rarely flows out of an act of complete originality. It is rarely a virgin birth. It is usually the clash of two value systems or traditions, which, in collision, create a transcendent third thing.

Shakespeare combined the Greek honor code (thou shalt avenge the murder of thy father) with the Christian mercy code (thou shalt not kill) to create the torn figure of Hamlet. Picasso combined the traditions of European art with the traditions of African masks. Saul Bellow combined the strictness of the Jewish conscience with the free-floating go-getter-ness of the American drive for success.

Sometimes creativity happens in pairs, duos like Lennon and McCartney who bring clashing worldviews but similar tastes. But sometimes it happens in one person, in someone who contains contradictions and who works furiously to resolve the tensions within.

When you see creative people like that, you see that they don’t flee from the contradictions; they embrace dialectics and dualism. They cultivate what Roger Martin called the opposable mind — the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time.

If they are religious, they seek to live among the secular. If they are intellectual, they go off into the hurly-burly of business and politics. Creative people often want to be strangers in a strange land. They want to live in dissimilar environments to maximize the creative tensions between different parts of themselves.

Today we live in a distinct sort of creative environment. People don’t so much live in the contradiction between competing worldviews. We live in a period of disillusion and distrust of institutions.

This has created two reactions. Some monads withdraw back into the purity of their own subcultures. But others push themselves into the rotting institutions they want to reinvent. If you are looking for people who are going to be creative in the current climate, I’d look for people who are disillusioned with politics even as they go into it; who are disenchanted with contemporary worship, even as they join the church; who are disgusted by finance even as they work in finance. These people believe in the goals of their systems but detest how they function. They contain the anxious contradictions between disillusionment and hope.

This creative process is furthest along, I’d say, in the world of B corporations. There are many people today who are disillusioned both with the world of traditional charity and traditional capitalism. Many charities have been warmheartedly but wastefully throwing money at problems, without good management or market discipline. Capitalists have been obsessed with the short-term maximization of shareholder return without much concern for long-term prosperity or other stakeholders.

B corporations are a way to transcend the contradictions between the ineffective parts of the social sector and myopic capitalism. Kyle Westaway, a lawyer in this field and the author of the forthcoming “Profit & Purpose,” notes that benefit corporation legal structures have been established in 22 states over the last four years. The 300 or so companies that have registered in this way, like Patagonia [and] Method [and Third Sun Solar], can’t be sued if they fail to maximize profits in order to focus on other concerns. They are seeking to reinvent both capitalism and do-gooder-ism, and living in the contradiction between these traditions.

This suggests a final truth about creativity: that, in every dialectic, there is a search for creative synthesis. Or, as Albert Einstein put it, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”

<End of Op-Ed>

That last statement from Albert Einstein is where solar comes in. We cannot solve the problem of reliance upon dirty fossil fuels by digging and burning more of them. We can solve the problem — gradually, one rooftop at a time — by taking it to a different level, by incorporating clean, renewable energy into the mix, and by slowly but definitively breaking our addiction to deadly fuel sources. We won’t solve the problem in my lifetime. But if we start now, we will solve it in our kids’ lifetime. Creatively, cooperatively, and by joining the unlike to create harmony.

You can read the full Op-Ed here.

Who is buying solar in Central Ohio these days?

Homeowners and farmers are going solar in growing numbers, for good reasons. For homeowners, solar puts their rooftop to work supplying clean energy for the home. Carefully-installed solar panels produce surprising amounts of electricity in Central Ohio and throughout the state. A quality solar installer will mount the right number of panels, in the right location, correctly tied into your home electric panel and your utility meter. With Net-metering, your utility will credit you on your bill for every kilowatt-hour of solar power you put back onto the grid, in effect, sharing it with your neighbors. This can shave your monthly bill down from, say, $125 per month to below $10 per month. The amount you no longer pay the utility is your solar investment, and once the system is paid down, you are making free electricity.

For many of us, these technical points and financial analysis model are of less interest than the opportunity to take control of our power and make a positive step toward a cleaner, more sustainable planet. No matter which comes first — the financials or the environmental commitment — solar makes sense across the board.

With utility rates rising, an investment today in a solar electric system offers predictable long-term energy costs and a strong hedge against energy rate inflation. A homeowner can often see a 7-9% internal rate of return on their solar investment, a far better return than many investments currently offer. And the higher and faster your electric bill rates rise, the higher the IRR and the faster your return on investment.

Farmers are also buying into solar in a big way lately. Why is that? Our experience has been that farmers, as businesspeople, tend to plan on a longer cycle than many other kinds of businesses. They plan years in advance, and they understand how major investments in equipment can multiply profit potentials. Among the long-term costs farmers seek to manage are their energy costs, which can be high with energy-intensive tasks as milk pumping, refrigeration, grain drying and grinding, barn lighting and fans. Solar can eliminate the volatility of energy costs; for farmers, who deal with volatility in many aspects of their operations, eliminating one area of uncertainty is worth more than money. Peace of mind is priceless.

In most places, no.

But it depends on where you live and how they appraise for property tax purposes. In Ohio (where we are) there are protections in place — Ohio has two solar property tax exemptions: one for solar electric systems up to 250 kilowatts, and a payment in lieu of property tax for systems greater than 250 kW. (250kW is a large, commercial-scale system — it would certainly not fit on any house I’ve ever lived in!)

In June 2010, Ohio enacted legislation granting these exemptions from public utility tangible and real property taxes. Prior to this exemption, property taxes were cited as a major barrier for renewable-energy deployment in Ohio, as a renewable-energy facility that sold electricity to a third party was considered a “public utility” for tax purposes.

In Cleveland and Cincinnati, they actually abate property taxes for adding green energy like solar.

More than 30 U.S. states (and Puerto Rico) offer some form of property tax incentive for solar installations. In the majority of these states, the incentive follows a simple model that excludes the added value of solar-energy equipment in the valuation of the property for taxation purposes. Although most property tax incentives do not have an expiration date, a handful of states allow the tax break only for a limited period, ranging from five years in Iowa and North Dakota to 25 years in Hawaii. With a few exceptions, these policies apply to all sectors, and both to solar-thermal systems and solar-electric systems (and passive solar, in some cases). Some states specify that a system must produce energy for on-site use to qualify.

In addition, several states authorize, but do not require, local governments to provide property tax incentives for solar. New Hampshire, for example, allows cities and towns to offer exemptions from local property taxes for certain renewables. The Office of Energy and Planning web site lists more than 80 municipalities that offer the exemption for one or more types of renewable-energy systems. New York’s exemption, on the other hand, is valid unless a local government opts out of the exemption, as opposed to the more common practice of requiring governments to opt in to grant an exemption. Other states with a “local option” policy include Alaska, Colorado, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia. Maryland, which requires a solar property tax exemption, allows counties to offer a property tax credit for solar systems for up to three years. Several counties in Maryland now offer such credits.

Due to the recent growth in large-scale solar and other renewables, a few states have developed separate policies for utility-scale renewables to preserve at least a portion of property tax revenue for local governments, or to assess such systems at a value comparable to a non-renewable energy facility. Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Nevada provide a partial abatement of property tax attributable to the solar facility using various assessment methods. Customer-sited installations, on the other hand, qualify for a full exemption in Arizona, Montana and Nevada, and, if authorized by the applicable local government, in Colorado. North Carolina’s property tax incentive, established in 1977, stipulates that solar heating and cooling systems not be assessed at more than the value of a conventional system. In 2008, North Carolina created a new incentive for solar-electric systems by exempting 80% of the appraised value of the system from property tax.

In California, they do not allow property tax increases resulting from adding solar (California Revenue and Taxation code codified this change in section 73, way back in 1980). Other tax jurisdictions vary.

Thanks to dsireusa.org and the U.S. Dept. of Energy for this info.

 

from USA Today, June 8, 2014

The $100 billion solar power industry is gaining a lot of attention both globally and domestically, attracting high-profile investment from Wall Street giants such as Apple, Google and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

The United States is the world’s third-largest solar market, right behind China and Japan, and it’s growing rapidly not just because of private investment, but also because of the Obama Administration’s efforts to make progress against global climate change.

One of the most desirable locations for building domestic solar facilities is in the Mojave Desert—25,000 square miles of sun-baked terrain spanning southeastern California, plus portions of Nevada, Arizona and Utah. It’s no surprise that some of the world’s most sophisticated solar plants are popping up there, showcasing the latest developments in the industry.

One notable, completed project is called Ivanpah, a partnership between NRG and BrightSource, which broke ground about three years ago. The $2.2 billion project was able to get up and running thanks in part to $1.6 billion in government loans, plus Google’s 20% investment.

Ivanpah showcases what the industry calls “solar thermal” technology. Simply put, it uses mirrors to heat water and create power through three towers, each 450 feet tall, or about 150 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. The plant sits on 3,600 acres—roughly four times the size of New York’s Central Park — and it uses 347,000 mirrors to generate enough power to operate about 140,000 homes. By itself, it currently generates a little less than 30% of California’s commercial solar energy.

While Ivanpah is renowned for power generation, it also is touted for its environmental accomplishments.

“From an environmental perspective, this is just a really great story,” said Tom Doyle, president of NRG Renewables. “We’re taking 400,000 tons of carbon out of the atmosphere by using this solar thermal technology in lieu of a conventional fossil fuel technology. So to put that in perspective, that’s like taking 72,000 cars off the road.”

Ivanpah and solar facilities like it also create a significant number of jobs.

“During construction, we had over 2,600 employees here…going forward we’re going to have 65 people in management and operations,” Doyle said. “Over the life of the project, we’re going to generate almost $650 million in salary and wages.”

But how long will it take before projects such as Ivanpah are generating power on a mass scale?

“I think for projects utilizing this technology to really hit the market in a large way, it will take a couple of years. Ivanpah just started commercial operation…but there are a lot of really interesting markets that are opening up in Saudi Arabia, India and Africa where this type of concentrated solar thermal is going to make a lot of sense,” Doyle said.

Companies like NRG that are focusing on solar are not putting their eggs in one basket, he said. Diversification is key.

“NRG is the largest solar company in the U.S., but we don’t just focus on one technology. We also have the two largest photovoltaic projects in the state of California, and we’re really starting to get into a high-growth distributed solar market,” Doyle said. “We’re currently building eight projects for the NFL — you see some really interesting customers when you get into that distributed solar space.”

Another set of photovoltaic facilities making headlines are the Solar Star Projects developed by SunPower and acquired by MidAmerican Solar for roughly $2 billion. Berkshire Hathaway’s energy unit owns MidAmerican Solar’s parent, MidAmerican Renewables, which is working on a basket of different solar projects.

Photovoltaic technology has become more popular recently as the cost of solar panels has decreased; total industry costs have declined 50% in the last five years. PV technology is very simple.

“We have solar cells that automatically convert sunlight directly into electricity… that electricity is then taken over to distribution lines, then is pumped into a substation onto high voltage transmission and then used in the broader community,” said Howard Wenger, president of Regions for SunPower.

The Solar Star projects are similar in size to Ivanpah — 3,200 acres — but they are a work in progress, to be completed toward the latter end of 2015. Last week, Solar Star installed its one millionth panel. The EPA recently estimated that Solar Star could reduce carbon emissions to the equivalent of taking 2 million cars off the roads over 20 years.

“Solar Star is the world’s largest solar photovoltaic power plant being constructed. We’ve installed about 170 megawatts of a total 579 megawatts and that’s enough to power a city the size of El Paso or Rochester, NY,” Wenger said.

Although Solar Star is a privately funded project, Wenger says the EPA’s release of draft rules to cut carbon emissions in the U.S. by 30% by 2030 increases the relevance of renewable energy sources like solar technology.

Challenges ahead

However, there are some challenges within the industry, infrastructure is one. “The great concern is that the generation that is being built can’t get to the markets where it is needed or demanded by the renewable portfolio standards, so there is a problem getting the transmission built associated with solar to get it to those marketplaces,” said Jason Hutt, Partner at Bracewell Giuliani.

Hutt also points out that it will take a significant amount of time before the use of solar power is common enough to make a pervasive impact.

“I’m not aware of an estimate of when solar takes over as an industry, but I think it’s fair to say we’re a long way away,” Hutt said. “If Congress and the Administration want to see the type of build they’ve seen in solar so far, they’re going to have to continue to subsidize that because the technology just isn’t yet in a place where it can compete without it.”

 

from http://afarmerinohio.blogspot.com

Deregulated electricity generators make most of their profits on hot summer afternoons, when air conditioners and offices force grid operators to call up their most expensive electricity: natural gas “peaker” plants. Cheap to build but expensive to operate, these plants are essentially jet engines, producing power on demand for a few hours at a time. However, the entire industry benefits when peaker plants kick in, because every other generator, including the cheapest hydropower operator, receives the same top dollar during those peak hours.

Solar panels — whether utility scale or residential rooftop — generate maximum power on exactly those hot afternoons when demand peaks. What’s more, they do so at no marginal cost; the sun is free. This reduces reliance on peakers, causing prices to fall across the board, including for customers without solar power.

This is what terrifies power companies. In California, the afternoon peak has effectively collapsed. CAISO, the state’s grid manager, projects that the peak will become an afternoon chasm, so low that even power plants designed to operate 24 hours a day as “baseload power” (nuclear energy is a good example) may face difficult decisions about when to operate.

The first victims among utilities will be generators that sell electricity from peakers and other plants in the open market. Soon, their plants will be needed only for the few hours around dusk when the sun is weak but demand is still relatively high.

The monopoly utilities will be hit next. Edison Electric Institute warns of “irreparable damages to revenues and growth prospects” due to the spread of distributed power generation from renewable energy sources.

Why is solar growing so fast? Because in the past three years, the cost of panels has been halved.

The move from a highly controlled and generally predictable grid to a more decentralized and less predictable system will be a huge challenge, but a challenge worth dealing with.

5/28/2014 by Jeff McMahon

American Electric Power Company was the largest emitter of carbon pollution from power plants in the U.S. in 2012, according to a report released this morning by Ceres, Bank of America, several utilities and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

AEPs fleet of coal, natural gas, and oil-fired power plants emitted 141,226,882 tons of carbon in 2012, according to the Benchmarking Air Emissions report. The next runner up, Duke Energy, emitted 134,277,330 tons.

AEP is the fifth largest producer of electricity, while Duke is the largest.

AEP spokesperson Tammy Ridout noted, “The important point in this report is the reduction in emissions, including CO2, from our plants.” She went on to say, “AEP’s CO2 emissions have been cut 21 percent since 2005, and they will continue to go down as we retire another 6,600 megawatts of coal-fueled generation in the next few years. AEP is one of the largest generators of electricity in the United States, and about 60 percent of our generating capacity uses coal, so it is not surprising that we produce the highest CO2 emissions by volume. But, the CO2 emissions rate from our coal plants is ranked much lower in the report – at No. 61 on the list – which means we produce the power we make very efficiently.”

In the report, larger carbon emissions generally correlate to use of coal.

AEP relied on coal to produce 73 percent of the electricity it generated in 2012, according to the report, delivering electricity in Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The Benchmarking Air Emissions report analyzes NOx (Nitric Oxide), SO2 (sulfur dioxide), CO2 (carbon dioxide) and mercury emissions of the nation’s 100 largest electric power producers, which collectively operate 2,700 power plants and generate 86 percent of the country’s electricity. It comes about a week before the EPA is expected to release new rules regulating carbon emissions from power plants.

After AEP and Duke, the largest carbon emitters included Southern Company, NRG, and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Although AEP produced the most gross carbon, it did not produce carbon at the highest rate. That distinction goes to the Kentucky-based Big Rivers Electric Corporation, which relies on coal for 84 percent of the electricity it generates.

Big Rivers emitted 2,267 pounds of carbon per MWh hour of electricity produced, compared to 1,729 for AEP.

Kentucky topped the 50 states with the greatest carbon emission rate—2,099 pounds of carbon per MWh—while Texas emitted the most carbon overall, by far—261.2 million tons of carbon compared to 117.7 for Florida, the next runner-up.

The lowest carbon emitting state, for both gross emissions and emissions rate, was Vermont.

The report’s sponsors emphasized good news, including these four key findings:

• NOx and SO2 emissions in 2012 were 74 percent and 79 percent lower, respectively, than they were in 1990 when Congress passed major amendments to the Clean Air Act.
• Mercury emissions decreased 51 percent since 2000. ”What these reductions show us, once again, is that the power sector can successfully meet air pollution standards while keeping our lights on and making sure our economy continues to grow,” said Ceres President Mindy Lubber. “There is no reason to think they can’t do the same with carbon dioxide.”
• CO2 emissions have declined 13 percent between 2008 and 2012. Energy efficiency improvements, displacement of coal generation by natural gas and renewable energy sources, and slower economic growth all contributed to the decline.
• U.S. reliance on coal declined by 5 percent from 2011 to 2012. Coal accounted for 39 percent of the power produced by the 100 largest companies in 2012, down from 44 percent in 2011. Also, average utilization of coal plants (how often the plants are run) has dropped from 73 percent in 2008 to 60 percent in 2013.
• Across the entire electric sector, renewable energy electricity generation increased 31 percent since 2010 (by more than 50,000 gigawatt hours) even as total electricity generation declined modestly.
• “The data shows that the power sector has already begun to decarbonize, to increase investment in natural gas, renewables, and energy efficiency,” Lubber said. “We see the trend nationally, and we see it among individual power providers in all regions of the country.

A new report details the extreme measure that the fossil-fuel industry has taken to attack clean energy.

Fossil fuel-funded front groups repeatedly spread disinformation on renewable energy standard and net metering policies in an effort to overturn pro-clean energy laws in 2013 and 2014.

A new report details the efforts of these front groups to eliminate clean energy policies across the country. The fossil fuel lobby aggressively uses lobbying and propaganda to achieve their goals. Self-identified “free market think tanks” are among the most effective advocates for the fossil fuel industry to lobby for policy changes. Dozens of these so-called free market organizations, a majority of which are members of the State Policy Network (SPN), worked to influence state level energy policies and attack the clean energy industry.

These organizations are usually described in neutral, nondescript terms, such as “think tank,” “institute,” or “policy group,” but publicized internal documents from the American Tradition Institute, Heartland Institute, and the Beacon Hill Institute suggest that these types of organizations embrace transactional relationships with the corporate lobbying interests that fund their operations.

The Beacon Hill Institute, a “think tank” based out of Suffolk University (and a Koch-funded member of SPN) submitted a controversial grant request to the Searle Freedom Trust, a prominent conservative foundation, in they expressly stated: “Success will take the form of media recognition, dissemination to stakeholders, and legislative activity that will pare back or repeal [the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (or RGGI)].” In other words, the Beacon Hill Institute proposed to pursue biased economic research to support the express goal to “pare back or repeal” a regional climate change accord — all before the institute performed any research determining the economic effect of the law.

Another example of the pay-to-play nature of these so-called “think tanks” comes from Heartland Institute’s Internal fundraising documents which stated: “Contributions will be pursued for this work, especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate [change] policies.”

Despite positioning themselves as ideologically-focused on smaller government, dozens of these organizations aggressively denounce policy investments in clean energy as market-distorting and unnecessary, while remaining silent on the far-larger, decades-old stream of taxpayer dollars and policies supporting oil, gas, and coal interests.

Over the years, government support for fossil fuels has come from a variety of sources: tax deductions, tax credits, direct subsidies, cheap access to public property, pollution remediation, research and development, and entire government agencies devoted to helping promote and assist fossil fuel industry growth. By all credible measurements, fossil fuel subsidies are massive and extremely unpopular, and are flowing to some of the most highly profitable industries on earth. Yet, fossil fuel subsidies go largely unmentioned by these “free market” groups, such as the Heartland Institute, despite their avowed opposition to wasteful government spending.

Fossil fuel-funded front groups operate in multiple areas to influence the policy-making process in their attempts to eliminate clean energy policies. First, groups like the Beacon Hill Institute provide flawed reports or analysis claiming clean energy policies have negative impacts. Next, allied front groups or “think tanks” use the flawed data in testimony, opinion columns, and in the media. Then, front groups, like Americans for Prosperity, spread disinformation through their grassroots networks, in postcards mailed to the public, and in television ads attacking the clean energy policy. Finally, lobbyists from front groups, utilities, and other fossil fuel companies use their influence from campaign contributions and meetings with decision makers to push for anti-clean energy efforts.

Instead of advocating for a fair and free market for electricity, over the past year and a half, fossil fuel front groups have advocated to repeal, freeze, and eliminate pro-clean energy policies across the country on behalf of allies and funders in the fossil fuel industry.

This is an excerpt from a new report, issued today by the Energy and Policy Institute entitled “Attacks on Renewable Energy Standards and Net Metering Policies by Fossil Fuel Interests and Front Groups 2013-2014.” You can download the 35-page report at this link.

In their Ohio Utility Rate Survey issued May 15, 2014, the Public Utilities Commission Ohio (PUCO) cited the rising cost of energy in Columbus as among the state’s highest. Many people — homeowners, farmers, business owners — are concerned about rising energy costs. That’s why interest in solar is exploding now. Solar is an effective hedge against rising electric rates, and allows you to lock in stable energy costs for the next 30 years.

Ask yourself: If you had locked in 30 years of buying gas back when it was $1.28/gallon, wouldn’t you feel pretty good right now?

Solar can give you 30 years or more of energy cost predictability, along with a nice internal rate of return on the solar investment. That could make you and your family feel really good — knowing you are also taking positive steps for the climate, the planet, and your future generations.

 

 

Once a system is installed, one of our solar technicians completes an extensive inspection/system commission before the system can be energized. A commissioning form is filled out and kept on record for every installation.

Once the system has been commissioned and all solar components are operating within their design parameters, the system may be energized.

In addition to the Third Sun Solar commissioning process, the State of Ohio and the Electric Utility must inspect the system to ensure that it complies with all applicable building and electrical codes before the solar electric system is permitted to remain in operation.

Ohio poised to slide into the dark on its energy policy

By Terry Smith, Athens News, May 7 2014

The state of Ohio is poised this week to continue its gleeful slide into backward, reactionary energy policy, with a state Senate Committee expected to approve an amended Senate Bill 310.

This bizarre back-pedaling is happening as most of the rest of the nation and world have accepted both the intrinsic good of ratcheting back on dirty fossil-fuel-driven energy, and the economic opportunities that come with promoting energy efficiency and a shift toward green alternatives such as solar and wind.

Before an amendment proposed Wednesday, S.B. 310 would have frozen at their current modest levels energy efficiency and renewable energy standards and benchmarks passed nearly unanimously by the Ohio Legislature in 2008. It would have canceled the 2008 legislation’s progressive stair-step of benchmarks ending in 2025. Sub. S.B. 310, unveiled Wednesday after negotiations with Gov. John Kasich’s offer, doesn’t appear much better.

It’s the predictable result of the intersection of flat-earth-society climate-change denial – now a firm plank in Republican ideology – and electric utilities and major manufacturers (or deep-pockets outside groups that support them) who are eager to contribute to state legislators who will promote and advance the doomed cause of fossil fuels. In fish-bowl Ohio, they’re all swimming heartily against the historic and scientific tide, as well as a growing business segment in advanced and alternative energy.

YOU SEE THE SAME SORT of willful resistance to reality and good government in the Ohio General Assembly’s refusal to consider raising oil and gas severance taxes to levels even approaching what they are in other frack-heavy states such as Texas and West Virginia.

The latest version of a severance tax bill in the Ohio House of Reprentatives has a top rate of 2.5 percent, which represents a compromise between Gov. Kasich’s proposal for 2.75 percent and the House’s recent proposal for 2.25 percent. It’s similar to a compromise between Bud Light and Miller Lite, basically no compromise at all.

The House Republicans had resisted Gov. Kasich’s proposal, which was still less than half of what drillers face in Pennsylvania. In West Virginia, the effective rate is 11.3 percent.

As an April 27 editorial in the Columbus Dispatch pointed out, “Kasich’s proposed severance tax could double in size and still be under those of Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Michigan, Arkansas, Texas and West Virginia – in the case of the latter four, well below.” (It should be noted that the Dispatch‘s editorial board is arguably the most conservative of Ohio’s major dailies.)

While comparing the severance taxes from state to state is difficult (the taxes are structured in different ways), no matter how you drill it, the 2.50 percent compromise proposal for Ohio is much lower than the tax in other states that Ohio is supposedly competing against to lure oil and gas drillers, entrepreneurs and investors.

Yet, there’s no public clamor to open up the state’s oil and gas sector to all comers, nor is there any groundswell for doing away with incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Meanwhile, there’s growing public recognition of the environmental hazards of industry run rampant, especially with regard to fracking and its resulting waste disposal.

SENATE BILL 310, AS EXPLAINED in an April 4 op-ed by Jereme Kent in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, have frozen freeze in place the renewable portfolio standards and energy-efficiency standards set in Ohio’s 2008 energy policy bill. “This would be the first time in any state, anywhere in the entire United States, that a renewable portfolio standard would be reduced, frozen or repealed.” (Kent is general manager of One Energy LLC, a Findlay company that helps industrial energy users explore the use of wind energy.)

The amendment to S.B. 310, released Wednesday, would replace the permanent freeze with one lasting two years. As Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, explained in the Columbus Dispatch, a special committee, with six House members and six senators, would determine whether to make other changes to the energy rules during the two-year freeze, and recommend resulting changes, if any, to the General Assembly. If lawmakers do not set a new energy course during that time, annual increases in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources – as set in the 2008 energy bill – would re-start in 2017 and continue until 2027.

In the widely supported 2008 bill, the General Assembly required utilities to take three steps to slow the growth in spiraling electric rates: 1) achieve savings of 22 percent by lowering electric consumption through energy efficiency by 2025; 2) achieve a 12.5 percent integration of renewable energy into the state’s electrical supply by 2025; and 3) achieve a 12.5 percent integration of advanced energy (cleaner and higher-efficiency forms of conventional technologies). These goals would be achieved through regular benchmarks up until 2025.

Sen. Troy Balderson, R-Zanesville, introduced S.B. 310, and reportedly was responsible for the amendment proposed on Wednesday. It should be noted that the top two campaign contributors to Balderson in 2012, after the Republican Senate Campaign Committee and Ohio Republican Party, were FirstEnergy Group, one of the main advocates of S.B. 310, and American Electric Power, donating $12,500 apiece. Balderson’s 20^th District includes the very northern part of Athens County.

In an article in the March 28 Plain Dealer, Ted Ford, CEO of the Ohio Advanced Energy Economy, predicted, “If enacted, Senate Bill 310 will systematically dismantle Ohio’s clean energy law, which was reaffirmed and improved in a comprehensive energy policy bill (SB 315) enacted by the legislature and signed by the governor just two years ago. This radical departure will devastate the advanced energy industry in Ohio, which includes more than 400 advanced energy businesses, employing over 25,000 Ohioans.”

Ford followed up Tuesday evening with an equally negative response to amended S.B. 310. “It is a very bad bill that is, in some ways, worse than S.B. 58 and S.B. 310. None of the proponents of the current (from 2008) standards were involved in shaping this ‘compromise.'” Ford urged other advanced-energy companies, the public and stakeholders to heavily lobby their senators and the governor against the substitute bill. “It is another attempt to take Ohio backward. It will destroy jobs, raise electricity costs, and put Ohio in a poor competitive position.”

In an email Tuesday before the Senate released its compromise to S.B. 310, Geoff Greenfield, president of Athens-based Third Sun Solar, predicted that retreating from the state’s current energy policy will cripple the growing solar energy industry in Ohio.

“If SB 310 went forward as written, it would make the economic payback for solar longer and harder to finance… Passing this law as is would probably cut in half the number of residential customers that go solar… Many would still do it even though the payback is slower,” he said. “For business customers and large projects, it would be devastating and probably shut down 90 percent of the projects, as these are much more financially driven. If this law passed as is, we (Third Sun) would stop hiring and growing in Ohio and focus on other states.” He didn’t appear to be any more impressed by the substitute bill released on Wednesday.

DEFENDERS OF S.B. 310 SAY the measure would protect Ohio electric energy consumers from the high costs of complying with standards in the 2008 energy legislation. In an April 12 op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch, Sen. Balderson claims that the 2008 energy standards were “fabricated to conform with a catchy gimmick or slogan…” Later in the opinion piece, he asserts that his legislation will allow Ohio’s energy policy to be “based on what evidence and science tell us, not the exaggerated rhetoric, slogans or how the political winds blow at a particular time.”

Anyone familiar with the rhetoric of climate-change deniers will see some of their rhetorical flourishes in Balderson’s vague references to gimmicks and slogans gussied up with a gratuitous fealty to science. That’s their perverse way of casting doubt on the overwhelming global scientific consensus that climate change is happening now, is getting worse, and is mainly caused by human-kind’s burning of fossil fuels.

Plus, as critics of S.B. 310 have pointed out and the utilities themselves have admitted, money spent on energy-efficiency standards will recoup twice as much in savings.

If Ohio wants to continue sliding backward into the darkness, while its elected representatives happily collect rent from the fossil-fuel and electric utility industries, and their allies in the dark world of Koch, it makes perfect sense to double down on coal- and gas-fired electric power and flea-market-level severance taxes for oil and gas.

One might hopes, however, that Ohio citizens would have a different idea and show it at the ballot box.

Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 01, 2014 by Robert F. Shields, Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Coast Guard (retired)

The Ohio Senate plans to freeze in place the progress Ohio has made in energy consumption and utilization of renewable energy sources. In addition to the economic arguments against it, passage of Ohio Senate Bill 310 runs counter to the national security needs of the United States.

In the Department of Defense’s recently published Quadrennial Defense Review, climate change is identified as a national security threat as it will lead to increased economic and political instability throughout the world, changes that will affect the United States. The Armed Forces are already implementing improvements in energy consumption and use of renewables from Afghanistan to Ohio. The military is leading the way.

SB 310 is intended to keep coal as the primary energy source for electricity in Ohio, much to the benefit of First Energy. A 19th century energy source, coal is a major factor in this security threat to the United States in the 21st century. Our Senators can either place the wants of First Energy and the 19th century over our 21st century needs, or they can guide the Senate to stand as one with the young men and women who serve our country. SB 310 is bad for Ohio and bad for our national security.

 

The Koch Attack on Solar Energy

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

At long last, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have found a new tax they can support. Naturally it’s a tax on something the country needs: solar energy panels.

For the last few months, the Kochs and other big polluters have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, which have been adopted by most states. They particularly dislike state laws that allow homeowners with solar panels to sell power they don’t need back to electric utilities. So they’ve been pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive.

Oklahoma lawmakers recently approved such a surcharge at the behest of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the conservative group that often dictates bills to Republican statehouses and receives financing from the utility industry and fossil-fuel producers, including the Kochs. As The Los Angeles Times reported recently, the Kochs and ALEC have made similar efforts in other states, though they were beaten back by solar advocates in Kansas and the surtax was reduced to $5 a month in Arizona.

But the Big Carbon advocates aren’t giving up. The same group is trying to repeal or freeze Ohio’s requirement that 12.5 percent of the state’s electric power come from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2025. [The bill trying to repeal clean energy requirements is SB-310.] Twenty-nine states have established similar standards that call for 10 percent or more in renewable power. These states can now anticipate well-financed campaigns to eliminate these targets or scale them back.

The coal producers’ motivation is clear: They see solar and wind energy as a long-term threat to their businesses. That might seem distant at the moment, when nearly 40 percent of the nation’s electricity is still generated by coal, and when less than 1 percent of power customers have solar arrays. (It is slightly higher in California and Hawaii.) But given new regulations on power-plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions, the future clearly lies with renewable energy. In 2013, 29 percent of newly installed generation capacity came from solar, compared with 10 percent in 2012.

Renewables are good for economic as well as environmental reasons, as most states know. (More than 143,000 now work in the solar industry.) Currently, 43 states require utilities to buy excess power generated by consumers with solar arrays. This practice, known as net metering, essentially runs electric meters backward when power flows from rooftop solar panels into the grid, giving consumers a credit for the power they generate but don’t use.

The utilities hate this requirement, for obvious reasons. A report by the Edison Electric Institute, the lobbying arm of the power industry, says this kind of law will put “a squeeze on profitability,” and warns that if state incentives are not rolled back, “it may be too late to repair the utility business model.”

Since that’s an unsympathetic argument, the utilities have devised another: Solar expansion, they claim, will actually hurt consumers. The Arizona Public Service Company, the state’s largest utility, funneled large sums through a Koch operative to a nonprofit group that ran an ad claiming net metering would hurt older people on fixed incomes by raising electric rates. The ad tried to link the requirement to President Obama. Another Koch ad likens the renewable-energy requirement to health care reform, the ultimate insult in that world. “Like Obamacare, it’s another government mandate we can’t afford,” the narrator says.

That line might appeal to Tea Partiers, but it’s deliberately misleading. This campaign is really about the profits of Koch Carbon and the utilities, which to its organizers is much more important than clean air and the consequences of climate change.

Ohio voters favor green energy, efficiency and political candidates who do the same, poll finds

By John Funk, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohioans overwhelmingly favor replacing coal-fired power plants with wind farms and solar arrays, and requiring utilities to help customers use less electricity, a poll released Wednesday has found.

The random telephone survey of 600 Ohio voters found:

• That 72 percent favor renewable energy over traditional power plants, with 52 percent strongly in favor.

• That 86 percent of Ohio voters support mandated utility energy efficiency programs, with 49 percent strongly supporting the rules.

• That two-thirds of voters say they would more likely support legislative candidates this fall who promote renewable energy over those who think the state’s utilities should continue to emphasize traditional coal-fired and nuclear power plants.

“The findings present a very clear picture of where Ohioans stand when it comes to energy policy and some of the debates going on in the state legislature,” said David Metz, a principal in the polling firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates. Known as FM3, the firm is based in California.

“And relative to other polling we have done in Ohio and around the country, these results are consistent in the strong support that Ohio voters offer for more use of clean energy and greater use of energy efficiency,” said Metz during a news conference.

Ohio Advanced Energy Economy, an advocacy group for efficiency and renewables, commissioned the poll. Ohio Advanced Energy has been battling against a proposal supported by the Republican leadership in the Ohio Senate — Senate Bill 310 — to amend state rules requiring power companies to help customers switch to more efficient equipment and lighting.

The law, which received bipartisan support by all but one lawmaker in 2008, requires utilities to help customers reduce power consumption through energy efficiency by 22 percent by 2025, compared with 2009 levels. And by the same year, the law requires that 12.5 percent of the power sold in the state to have been generated with renewable technologies. The percentages began at less than 1 percent in 2009 and are increasing annually.

But Republican lawmakers, in response to complaints from some large industrial companies and pressure from the utilities, led by FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron, want to freeze things at this year’s levels and then study the issue for three years.

FirstEnergy has been clear that it believes the efficiency rules have cut into normal market growth. Some large industries say it is costing too much in extra charges to fund the mandated programs. Proponents dismiss that complaint, saying the current law allows utilities to halt efficiency programs if they cost more than what they save customers.

Ford and other advocates for keeping the law argue that the bill pending in the Ohio Senate will effectively kill the efficiency and renewable industries that have sprung up since 2009.

“Ohio is home to some 400 advanced energy companies employing 25,000 Ohioans,” said Ted Ford, president and CEO of Ohio AEE. “Ohio’s clean energy law is working. It’s saving money for consumers, creating jobs, and making Ohio competitive. And now, we can demonstrate that the voting public strongly supports it, too.”

But the poll, Ohio Statewide Survey, also found that despite the efforts of energy efficiency advocates like Ford, almost half of the electorate haven’t heard anything at all about what lawmakers are considering. About 20 percent said they were aware of the debate.

Still, almost three-quarters of those polled said they support the current state law that requires utilities to switch to an increasing percentage of renewable energy.

And when asked what percentage of Ohio’s energy should come from wind and solar, on average, Ohioans said they would like to see a majority of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources, as much as 56 percent, said Metz.

“We saw a similar pattern when we asked about energy efficiency, he said. “Most Ohio voters see this (the current law) as something that could benefit them personally.”

“When we ask whether they would be interested in taking advantages of incentives to weatherize their homes, become more energy efficient and not waste energy, 90 percent of voters said that they personally would be interested.

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