August 12, 2011 - federal energy efficiency legislation

US energy efficiency may soon take a step forward in the form of federal legislation.  S. 1000, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2011 (link), aims to promote energy savings in residential and commercial buildings and industry.

The bill contains measures designed to tackle various aspects of energy efficiency.  Title I targets buildings, calling for improvements to national model building energy codes and appliance standards.  Title II gives public power districts and electric cooperatives access to a rural energy savings loan fund.  These entities can either use the money themselves at zero interest, or may loan it out to consumers at an interest rate capped at 3%.  Title III tackles industrial energy efficiency, creating a revolving loan program in partnership with states to fund industrial projects.  Title IV covers the federal government itself as an energy consumer, creating programs designed to study and improve federal energy efficiency.

S.1000 has been favorably reported out of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resource, and may move forward later this session.

August 5, 2010 - Patriot Place gets solar power; integrating wind into the grid

 
 Solar power in action: making wind, pushing sails past Ram Island Light, Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Several large utilities including Duke Energy Corp. have reported significantly increased power sales for the second quarter of 2010, particularly from industrial customers.  Duke now projects that 2010 power sales will rise 2%.  At its midwestern operating companies, Duke noted 20% growth in industrial power sales.

Here's a short letter to the editor of the Lewiston Sun Journal about old swimming holes now gone, including the impoundments behind older mill dams like the Barker Mill Dam on the Little Androscoggin River.

Add another high-profile place to the list of large businesses adding solar power: Patriot Place, the shopping mall adjoining the New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium, has installed a 525 kW solar array.  They turned to Constellation Energy for the installation, but the solar photovoltaic panels themselves were manufactured by Evergreen Solar of Massachusetts.

Wind turbine prices are flat, averaging about $1.37 million per megawatt of capacity according to a survey by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.  (Note that this is just the turbine price; towers, transmission and installation are all in addition to the turbine price.)  Turbine pricing is down about 15% from its peak in 2008, likely due to a mix of factors including new technology and increased production capacity, but also some decreased demand compared to the initial fervor.

Meanwhile, people continue to solve the problem of how to integrate wind into the grid.  Energy storage is one major approach.  Xcel Energy has issued a report on its experiments with massive 1 megawatt batteries to smooth out voltage and current from wind farms.  Xcel's project in Minnesota is promoted as America's first direct wind-energy-storage project.

July 20, 2010 - China passes US as world's largest energy consumer; NextEra signs wind deal with Google

China has passed the United States as the world's largest consumer of energy. The International Energy Agency measures states' energy consumption in a unit called "oil equivalent". The most recent IEA report shows that China used 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent, whereas the U.S. used only 2.170 billion tons of oil equivalent. This reverses the trend for more than the past 100 years, when the United States has been considered to consume more energy than any other country. While energy consumption has traditionally been viewed as directly correlated to GDP, this shift breaks that trend as well. Commentators point to China's increased industrial activity, particularly in light of the stagnant consumer-driven American economy.

Interestingly, American energy intensity remains high: the average U.S. citizen uses five times as much energy as does the average Chinese citizen. What will happen when China reaches the energy intensity of the U.S.?

NextEra's competitive energy subsidiary, NextEra Energy Resources, has entered into a power purchase agreement with Google Energy, LLC. Under the deal, Google will buy 114 megawatts of power from NextEra Energy Resources' Story II Wind Energy Center in Iowa.

4/8/10

These are wild times for those of us involved with the Maine legislature, as they worked well past midnight last night... and didn't quite finish up their session. Everyone returns Monday for the final push. The House passed the $85 million bond package, but the Senate came up several votes short. Sadly, despite advocacy from Efficiency Maine Trust executive director Michael Stoddard and industrial energy consumers, the bonding for energy efficiency spending was stripped out of the package. Moving forward, one of the big issues with the bond package is that if it doesn't pass, dozens of businesses in Aroostook County, the largest county east of the Mississippi, will soon be without rail access, when the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway will abandon 230 miles of track, unless the state can raise the funds to buy it. (The head of the Federal Railroad Administration Joe Szabo is coming to Maine to investigate the issue.) The vote may be based on principles, but it is also largely a partisan issue.

Also in Maine news: a good editorial by my friend Gordon Weil, arguing that Maine's Public Advocate -- the executive office tasked with looking out for the interests of utility ratepayers before the PUC and legislature -- should have more independence from the Governor. Gordon gives a first-hand account of how, in 1981, Governor Brennan created the office, and named Gordon as the first Public Advocate. Gordon also describes how in recent years, the public advocate has served more as an advocate for longer-term policies pushed by the Governor, as opposed to looking out for keeping rates low; indeed, in several contexts recently, organized industrial energy consumers have served as the sole advocates for low rates, in the face of proposals that would significantly increase all ratepayers' expenses.

Did Connecticut set its renewable portfolio standard too high? The energy committee has approved legislation that would halve Connecticut's goal of obtaining 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Connecticut is nowhere near on track to meet this goal; renewable developers point to a lack of financing as the problem. What can policymakers do to address the capital and credit crunches?

On the federal level, as we move closer to legislation that will promote significantly larger deployment of grid-scale renewables, there is concern about the lack of transmission development -- and federal transmission oversight -- that may be needed to connect generation to load.