Oregon House passes biomass energy bill February 11, 2010

Two energy-related bills moved from the Oregon House on Wednesday and went to the Senate.

House Bill 3674, which passed 60-0, allows some pre-1995 plants powered by biomass or municipal solid waste to be counted against Oregon’s goal of utilities obtaining 25 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025. The bill also allows utilities to collect for steps toward development of hydrogen power stations.

The bill’s first part was a reworking of a 2009 bill vetoed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who said he is satisfied with the changes.

“The compromise legislation ensures this renewable energy resource continues to help the state reduce its carbon emissions while also maintaining Oregon’s aggressive renewable portfolio standard and improving the health of our forests,” he said in a statement.

House Bill 3675, which passed 59-1, makes technical changes to a 2009 state loan program for projects promoting energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy.

Peter Wong, Statesman Journal - http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20100211/LEGISLATURE/2110339/1001/news

Solar project forum Feb. 21 in Yakima February 11, 2010

The public is invited to a presentation on forming a community solar project on Feb. 21 at Wesley United Methodist Church.

The featured speaker is Gary Nystedt, who created a successful community solar program for Ellensburg. He will share Ellensburg’s experience in setting up the nation’s first community solar project in 2006 and what steps Yakima would need to take to set up a similar project.

Ellensburg’s project has received attention from around the world. Community members invested in solar panels that were installed in a park near town. Investors get a return on their investment in clean energy through a credit on their electric bill.

Wesley United Methodist is at 14 N. 48th Ave. in Yakima. The presentation begins at 10:15 a.m.

Yakima Herald Republic – http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2010/02/10/solar-project-forum-feb-21-in-yakima

NW power plan: No coal, only wind, gas, efficiency February 10, 2010

The latest energy plan for the Pacific Northwest has been adopted with the goal of limiting greenhouse gas pollution by increased conservation and wind power development.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council unanimously adopted the regional energy plan Wednesday at a meeting in Portland.

The plan covers Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana for the next 20 years. But the council revises it every five years to keep up with changes.

The new plan says most of the increased demand for electricity in the Northwest can be met with improved efficiency, conservation and wind power.

Associated Press – http://www.tri-cityherald.com/1154/story/895843.html

PSE expanding renewable energy grant program February 9, 2010

Puget Sound Energy’s work in bringing renewable energy demonstration systems to Washington state schools is expanding its reach this year. Monday, Feb. 8, the utility opened the application period for schools and, new to the program this year, select institutions that educate the public about renewable energy and the environment, to apply for a small scale solar array or wind turbine grant.

Between $5,000 and $20,000 in funding will be available for renewable energy demonstration systems ranging from 900 watts to 2 kilowatts to be installed in 2010.

PSE’s Renewable Energy Education (formerly the Solar Schools Program) and voluntary Green Power programs have already funded 20 educational solar power projects in the Puget Sound region in the last six years. The programs promote understanding and acceptance of renewable energy technologies and expand the range of options available to local educators, students, families and communities in PSE’s nine county electric service area.

Three new features to the 2010 Renewable Energy Education Program have been added:

All institutions with a renewable energy education focus are now eligible to apply, previously the program had only been open to school districts with Resource Conservation Managers.

Applicants will be required to have utilized a PSE energy efficiency program in the past 36 months.

An electronic application is available for online submittal, applications can be found on PSE’s Web site at: www.pse.com/community/educationalprograms/Pages/SolarSchools.aspx

Successful applicants will receive grants to fund renewable energy education demonstration projects at their educational facility. The grant will provide supplemental funds or in approximately four cases cover the entire cost of a renewable energy demonstration system.

In addition to the rooftop-mounted solar panels or wind turbines, the grants support Web based monitoring software that allows students and interested community members to track how much energy is being generated as the weather changes. Also provided are educational materials and support including science teacher training, classroom activity guides and renewable energy science kits.

Small-scale renewable energy demonstration systems require no fuel and minimal maintenance while generating enough power, on average to operate 10 to 20 notebook computers, each consuming 33 watts for eight hours a day. The wind and solar equipment has a typical system lifespan of 20 or more years.

Schools and education institutions qualifying for the grant will submit plans detailing their educational goals and objectives for a solar or wind demonstration project. All proposals must be received by PSE no later than 5 p.m. on March 22, 2010.

In 2009, Puget Sound-area schools received more than $110,000 in grants for the installation of solar systems:

• Green River Community College, Auburn

• Liberty High School, Renton

• Hazen High School, Renton

• Coupeville Middle and High School, Whidbey Island

Since 2004, PSE has funded the installation of other systems at Redmond High School, Port Townsend High School, the Bellingham Environmental Learning Center, Depot Market Square in Bellingham, the Puget Sound Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee’s Training Center in Renton, the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, Western Washington University in Bellingham, the Institute for Environmental Research and Education, JG Commons Building and Vashon Household building all on Vashon Island, Thomas Jefferson High School in Federal Way, Marshall and Washington Middle Schools in Olympia, Interlake High School in Bellevue, South Whidbey High School and Sakai Intermediate School on Bainbridge Island.

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For more information, visit www.PSE.com.

Auburn Reporter – http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/aub/business/83910027.html

Gresham celebrates solar facility opening February 4, 2010

Gresham is celebrating its new claim to fame: Being home to the largest ground-mounted solar facility in the Pacific Northwest.

A grand opening of sorts is set for 10 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 9, at the city’s wastewater treatment plant, 20015 N.E. Sandy Blvd.

REC Solar Inc. installed the solar panels at no cost to local ratepayers. The panels cover an entire acre on the wastewater treatment plant’s southeast corner, which faces busy Sandy Boulevard.

The array is considered a benchmark project because while other municipal buildings have installed solar array projects, none are as large as Gresham’s, said Laura Bridges-Shepard, the city’s spokeswoman.

Seventy percent of the power used by Gresham’s wastewater facility is already considered sustainable — 50 percent is produced on site by converting methane gas into energy and another 20 percent is from wind power purchased from Portland General Electric.

The solar panels are expected to generate on average 8 percent of the plant’s annual electricity usage.

Gresham has entered into a 20-year power purchasing agreement with solar electricity company SunEdison, which owns, operates and maintains the solar array, valued at approximately $2 million. In return, the city is buying the power it generates.

Over the purchasing agreement’s 20 years, the cost savings to the city is estimated at $102,500.

Mara Stein, The Outlook - http://www.theoutlookonline.com/news/story.php?story_id=126516578157773100

Biomass option still on the table for Flathead Electric February 2, 2010

Flathead Electric Cooperative managers say they have long been exploring the potential for the development of a biomass cogeneration plant, but so far it has penciled out as the most expensive source to meet future power needs.

With the recent closure of the Smurfit-Stone container mill in Frenchtown, there has been a renewed interest in biomass cogeneration in the Flathead to serve as an alternative and productive destination for the region’s wood-waste products.

Chuck Roady, vice president of F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co., outlined plans to build a cogeneration plant at the company’s sawmill facility west of Columbia Falls during a recent panel discussion at Flathead Valley Community College.

Roady said one of the biggest obstacles to the project is the relatively high cost of continually gathering biomass material to power the plant.

“We have the same interests as Chuck does in biomass,” said Kenneth Sugden, the cooperative’s general manager. “We’ve worked with Stoltze for about three or four years.”

It is true that the co-op will be faced with the need to meet a rising curve in future power loads because hydropower from the Bonneville Power Administration has been capped. The problem is that simply having BPA purchase power from other sources to meet power needs over the next 17 years would cost about half as much as the cost of local biomass generation.

The co-op estimates that adding a 15 megawatt biomass cogeneration plant to the local power grid would lead to electricity rate increases of more than 12 percent.

But Sugden stressed that the cooperative’s board of directors has never shut the door on the possibility.

“One of the misconceptions we hear is that our board has voted [on biomass cogeneration] and it hasn’t,” Sugden said. “Our board has said all along that we are interested.”

He said the board has instructed management to pursue all kinds of alternative energy sources. There is a state-directed goal of having 15 percent of the co-op’s power coming from renewable sources by 2015.

Sugden said the co-op worked with Plum Creek Timber Co. on a potential biomass cogeneration plant for several years, but the company suspended those plans in early 2008.

Now the Stoltze project has taken on a higher profile, largely because of the closure of the Frenchtown pulp mill.

“This has become a big issue and people want to talk about it,” said Mark Johnson, the utility’s assistant general manager. “It has become a more popular item.”

Johnson and Sugden said they will meet with Roady for more discussions on how to make biomass cogeneration more economically feasible.

“We’ve got to either make the project smaller or we have to get the costs down,” Sugden said, acknowledging that some form of government subsidy could advance the project.

Johnson said there currently are better government tax incentives and grant programs available for solar and wind energy projects than there are for biomass projects.

“If it were treated on par with solar and wind … it would be able to lower the cost of the Stoltze project,” Johnson said.

Solar and wind have won political favor because they are carbon-free energy sources. While biomass advocates maintain it is a “carbon-neutral” energy source, it is not considered to be as clean as wind and solar.

Johnson noted that wind and solar have the drawbacks of not being consistent sources of power and they are not likely to be significant energy sources in Northwest Montana. He said it is obvious to the co-op’s board that the region has abundant timber resources.

“For us, it is the major renewable in our area,” he said.

Sugden and Johnson acknowledged that many people would consider a 12 percent power rate increase to be palatable, particularly if it helped save jobs and the wood-products industry.

However, they said the board must account for the people who could not afford such an increase, particularly during an economic recession. Electricity rates already are slated to go up 3 to 5 percent this spring, an increase that the co-op incurred in October but intentionally deferred over the winter months.

“We have seen an incredible increase in people having a hard time being able to pay their bill,” Sugden said.

Johnson added that the co-op’s billing department is “talking to people they’ve never had to talk with before.”

They said the board must find “a balance” in new energy sources and affordability.

JIM MANN, The Daily Inter Lake – http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_912e86f0-0fa1-11df-aaf9-001cc4c03286.html

Study suggests burning wood pellets in place of coal can be cost-Effective February 1, 2010

A recent study concludes that burning biomass in place of coal, such as Portland General Electric is considering for its Boardman power plant, can be cost-effective.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, looked at replacing all or part of the coal supplying power plants in Ontario, Canada, and it found that co-firing with wood pellets and coal was a realistic way to reduce a plant’s greenhouse gas emissions.

A mix of 90 percent coal, 10 percent pellets would increase the cost of electricity from the two test plants’ by 0.6 and 0.9 cents per kilowatt hour, the study says, while significantly reducing the amount of climate-changing gasses they produce.

“If 10% co-firing were to be implemented in all coal (plants) in the United States and Canada, electricity generation from biomass could contribute approximately 4% of annual generation of the two countries (185 of 4660 TWh), reducing GHG emissions by 170 million metric tons/year, 5% of emissions from the two countries’ electricity sectors,” the study says.

Read about PGE’s plans for biomass at its Boardman coal-fired power plant here.

“The results suggest that electricity produced from biomass in existing coal GS should be considered, along with other alternatives, as a means of achieving near-term GHG reductions,” it says.

But there are limits to how many pellets forests can sustainable supply, the study cautions.

(Hat tip to Green Inc.)

Matthew Preusch, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/02/study_suggests_burning_wood_pe.html

More on possible biomass plant conversion in Boardman, Ore. February 1, 2010

Portland General Electric has three options for its Boardman power plant: close it, stop burning coal there, or make costly upgrades to clean up emissions.

Most of the debate about Boardman, Oregon’s only coal-fired power plant and the state’s largest single source of air pollution, has focused not on whether, but when, it should shut down. But the utility is looking at the possibility of keeping Boardman open by burning biomass instead of coal to spin its turbines.

They aren’t the only utility considering replacing some of their coal with plant material, but they are among the few thinking about doing away with coal entirely by using biomass, said Christopher Wright,  a research engineer and biomass energy specialist at the Idaho National Laboratory.

“In that regard, they are on the forefront of that thinking when we look out on the landscape,” Wright said.

Coal-fired power plants in Europe, charged with reducing emissions of climate-changing gasses, are already replacing portions of their coal with wood pellets imported from British Columbia, the southeastern United States and elsewhere.

“Once the Europeans realized that that was a fairly cost efficient way to meet the goals for renewable energy standards, the demand started to grow very rapidly over the last four or five years,” said Keith Balter, senior economist with Forest Capital Partners in Portland.

North America’s pellet industry has grown from having the capacity to produce about 1 million metric tons in 2003 to an estimated 6 million tons last year, according to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture study.

U.S. coal plant owners see similar regulations on the horizon, so utilities like PGE are considering mixing wood pellets with coal in their boilers.

“We’re actually looking at doing some co-firing with green pellets in the very near future, just as a test,” said Jaisen Mody,  director of generation projects for PGE.

Right now, Oregon’s wood pellet industry is focused on home-heating stoves and animal bedding products.

Andrew Haden,  vice-president of A3 Energy Partners, a Portland pellet-for-energy company, did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and found that if just 15 percent of Boardman’s energy needs came from biomass, that would require about 500,000 tons of pellets year.

“That would mean a doubling or even tripling of Oregon’s pellet production,” Haden said.

Assuming testing at Boardman goes well, and they could find enough pellets, the Portland-based utility estimates it can replace up to 20 percent of the coal at their 585-megwatt Boardman plant with wood pellets similar to those used to heat homes.

While that would drop Boardman’s contribution to climate change, PGE would still need to install expensive upgrades at the plant to comply with clean air laws, which is what prompted the utility’s recent announcement it could close the plant by 2020, about 20 years ahead of schedule, or switch to an alternative fuel.

“When you replace all the coal with biomass, you could reduce the amount of that equipment substantially,” said Mody.

View full sizeSo PGE is looking at whether it can replace all of the millions of tons of coal it burns a year at Boardman with plant material that has been pre-treated through a still experimental process called torrefaction.

In torrefaction, plant material is roasted at high temperatures – 200 to 300 degrees Celsius – until it becomes a dry, high energy substance similar to the Kingsford charcoal you might use to grill steaks on your Weber.

This so-called torrefied biomass can be easily converted to pellets, making it easy to haul and simple to burn at pulverized coal plants like Boardman.

“This acts like coal and behaves like coal,” Wayne Lei,  director of research and development at PGE.

But it’s not nearly as easy to find as coal.

There are no commercial-scale torrefaction facilities in the U.S. And PGE estimates it would need about 2 million tons of torrefied biomass a year to operate Boardman, which supplies about 15 percent of the energy used by its more than 800,000 customers.

And though the torrefied material has a high energy content, it requires significant energy to produce, calling into question whether it’s a truly renewable resource.

“At this point, it doesn’t seem realistic, because torrefaction is really in an experimental phase and not at a commercial scale,” said Cesia Kearns,  an anti-coal activist with the Sierra Club.

Kearns said PGE should focus on a mix of renewable energy projects and energy efficiency initiatives to replace Boardman’s power production. The utility could also replace part of Boardman’s output with new natural gas plants.

“It’s not going to be a silver bullet, but rather silver buckshot” that replaces Boardman, Kearns said.

Mody said that torrefied biomass, what little there is, costs from $100-120 per ton, roughly three to four times coal hauled by rail from Wyoming.

A big part of that price difference is the cost of transporting the biomass to Boardman.

Lei, PGE’s research chief, said the answer to the supply question could lie in a tall, reed-like grass called Arundo donax, or giant cane.

Californians know the plant as an imported species that has run wild along some of their waterways, causing extensive environmental damage. But PGE thinks the plant can be safely grown as a crop in Oregon and converted to fuel for Boardman.

They would need to convince enough farmers that it’s in their economic interest to grow a lot of giant cane, about 90,000 irrigated acres worth. Morrow County, home to Boardman, has a total of 89,897 acres of irrigated farmland planted in food crops.

“Can they routinely, sustainably get that amount every year from the Oregon countryside?” said Wright of the Idaho national lab.

That’s just one of the questions PGE will consider as it spends the next several years planning for Boardman’s future, or lack thereof.

Matthew Preusch, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/coal-burning_power_plant_in_bo.html

4 major transmission lines planned to export wind energy from Montana January 31, 2010

At least four major power lines to export electricity from Montana are on the drawing board. Here is the status of the projects:

Mountain States Transmission Intertie: NorthWestern Energy, Montana’s largest electric-and-gas utility, is proposing this 430-mile, $1 billion line run from Townsend to southern Idaho.

The 500-kilovolt line would transport power generated in Montana to Southwestern markets. A draft environmental impact statement on the project is expected this year, and NorthWestern plans to accept bids this spring for space on the line. Construction is slated for some time in 2014 or 2015.

Collector System: NorthWestern also is proposing this network of lines to gather power from wind farms in Montana and route it to the Townsend hub, for transmission elsewhere.

Bids for space on the lines will be accepted at the same time as MSTI. Construction of all or portions of the line could begin in 2014 or sooner.

Chinook Transmission Project: TransCanada of Calgary, Alberta, is proposing this $3 billion, 1,100-mile line from Harlowton to southern Nevada. It says the line will carry mostly new wind power, to the Southwest.

In December, the company accepted bids from energy developers and suppliers to buy space on the line. TransCanada plans to announce winning bids by spring.

If all goes well, TransCanada will file for permits and conduct an environmental review between now and 2012 and start construction in 2012, a company spokesman said.

Colstrip transmission line upgrade: NorthWestern, utilities from Oregon and Washington, and the Bonneville Power Administration are considering on this project, which would increase the capacity of lines between Colstrip and the Pacific Northwest by 30 percent. The partners say the line is supposed to move “renewable” power, likely wind, from Montana into Washington and Oregon.

Discussions are under way on how the ownership and cost would be divided. The earliest the upgrade would occur is 2012.

MIKE DENNISON, Missoulian – http://www.missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_31c8154e-0e31-11df-b9be-001cc4c002e0.html

Idaho Power Files Plan To Meet Future Power Demand January 30, 2010

Idaho Power Co. has filed a plan with the state’s energy regulator detailing how it will meet growing customer demand over the next 20 years.

The state’s biggest utility says it intends to add 3,000 megawatts of power generated by a mix of natural gas, wind and geothermal to serve an estimated 680,000 customers by 2029. The company now serves about 486,000 customers.

The majority of the new energy is expected to come from the Langley Gulch natural gas plant now under construction near New Plymouth. Wind generation will provide 150 megawatts of energy, and geothermal sources another 40 megawatts.

The filing with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission also predicts increases in customer costs as the utility relies less on energy produced at coal-fired plants. About 78 percent of its electricity in 2008 came from hydroelectric and coal resources.
Idaho Power said it also hopes to reduce summer power demand by encouraging customers to use energy efficient appliances.

Associated Press -http://www.kivitv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11904919

Oregon fourth among states for new wind capacity January 30, 2010

Oregon added more wind turbines than all but three other states last year, according to a recent industry report.

The American Wind Energy Association reported in its Year End 2009 Market Report (PDF) that wind developers installed 691 megawatts worth of wind towers last year in the state. Texas, the faraway leader, added 2,292 megawatts. One megawatt of wind capacity is enough to supply from 225 to 300 homes, according to the association.

The report says that, despite tightening of the credit market, federal stimulus dollars continued to encourage wind development.

“The U.S. wind energy industry shattered all installation records in 2009, chalking up the Recovery Act as a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “But U.S. wind turbine manufacturing – the canary in the mine — is down compared to last year’s levels, and needs long-term policy certainty and market pull in order to grow.”

Oregon now ranks sixth among state for total installed wind capacity, with 1,758 megawatts.

Three more wind farms – Biglow Canyon Phase III, Combine Hills II and Star Point – are currently under construction in the state that will add another roughly 336 megawatts to Oregon’s total.

Matthew Preusch, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/01/oregon_fourth_among_states_for.html

Wind Farm to fund community action org in Wash. January 30, 2010

The Coastal Community Action Program has announced that it has received financing for the construction of four 1.5-megawatt wind turbines on 29 privately owned acres in the hills off County Line Road in Grayland.

Known as the Wind Energy Project, the energy produced by the turbines will be sold to the Grays Harbor PUD and the profits used to fund CCAP’s many social service programs, including Meals-On-Wheels and in-home care assistance for seniors, transportation services for the disabled and HIV/AIDS medical management.

It is believed to be the first wind project developed to fund a community action organization.

“We’re excited,” Craig Dublanko, the chief financial officer for CCAP and the project’s manager, told The Daily World. “For the community, it’s a renewable energy project. For us, it’s a social service project using renewable energy.”

According to Dublanko, the non-profit social services group will receive $3 million in New Market Tax Credit financing from Shore Bank Enterprise Pacific Coast V, a partnership between Shore Bank Enterprise Cascadia in Ilwaco and Wells Fargo Community Development Corporation.

In addition, the National Community Fund I, an affiliate of United Fund Advisors in Portland, Ore., and a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp in Minneapolis, Minn., monetized $7 million of New Markets Tax Credit, as well as renewable energy Investment Tax Credits.

“At UFA, we ensure that each of our investments has a meaningful social or environmental impact,” said Chris Hasle, a principal at United Fund Advisors, in a press release. “The CCAP project is a home run for everyone because it has tremendous returns for both the second and third bottom lines.”

The financing will supplement a $5 million state grant secured by state Sen. Jim Hargrove in 2007.

CCAP estimates the wind project will produce 13.5 million killowatt hours of clean energy annually, as well as net revenues of $500,000 per year. The lifespan of the turbines is expected to be 25 years.

“It has been a long road to reach this point,” said Troy Colley, the executive director of CCAP, in a statement, “but we see a bright future ahead with clean renewable energy not only lighting up homes, but making a difference every day in our community by supporting CCAP.”

According to Dublanko, preparation for construction of the wind turbines is under way at the site.

“We’re making sure all the pieces are in place before the delivery of the turbines happens,” he said, adding that General Electric could deliver the turbines as early as the first or second week of March, with the turbines expected to be up and running by June.

Mike Marsh, Daily World - http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2010/01/29/local_news/doc4b632f1a00330147458480.txt

Forecast: NW Energy prices likely to rise modestly January 24, 2010

Energy prices in 2009 reflected both good and bad news for consumers; the good news was that prices for natural gas and oil were much lower than the previous year; the bad news was that a severe recession was part of the reason for the lower prices.

Looking ahead to 2010, I expect a modest recovery of energy prices, the extent of which depends to a large degree on the economy. A robust recovery from the recession would put more upward pressure on energy prices. A sluggish recovery would moderate energy price increases.

Oil prices should increase moderately during 2010. They remain high by historical standards even during the recession. The outlook for oil prices, however, must always be conditioned on developments in the Middle East. Changes in world oil prices quickly find their way to the gasoline station and consumers’ pockets.

Natural gas prices fell by about 50 percent between 2008 and 2009. Many consumers have seen the effects of this reduction in their natural gas bills as distributors pass along cost reductions in rates. I expect moderate natural gas price increases this year.

However, a new development is at work in the U.S. natural gas market that could affect future prices. A couple of years ago, natural gas supplies were expected to decline for the U.S. and Canada. Yet, improved drilling and recovery technologies have unlocked natural gas supplies from shale and other non-conventional formations. The result was a substantial increase in natural gas supplies that, combined with the recession, contributed to the collapse of prices in 2009. While there are questions remaining about the future of these non-conventional supplies, they are likely to help contain price increases for years to come. Nevertheless, the higher cost of developing these supplies will prevent large decreases in natural gas prices in the long term.

Electricity prices for consumers are less volatile than oil and natural gas prices. They are regulated to a greater extent and more insulated from market fluctuations. This is especially true in the Pacific Northwest, where hydroelectricity supplies a large share of our electricity. Hydroelectricity cost does not change directly based on fuel prices.

Future costs of electricity are increasingly likely to be affected by policies addressing climate change concerns. It is important to understand that, nationwide, electricity generation accounts for 38 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.

Because of the large presence of hydroelectricity in the Pacific Northwest, the electric generation share of carbon dioxide emissions is only 23 percent. For example, electricity generation in Washington state produces only 20 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt-hour of the total U.S. electricity generation.

Nevertheless, efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are likely to significantly affect the cost of electricity. Electric utilities in Washington are subject to renewable portfolio standards that require growing shares of electricity supplies to be renewable. Renewable electricity generation is more expensive than existing generation and new natural gas-fired electricity generation. Proposed cap-and-trade systems for greenhouse gases would raise the cost of existing carbon dioxide-emitting generation, especially existing coal plants that account for 85 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from the Northwest power system. Even improved efficiency of electricity use can raise electricity rates, while at the same time reducing electric bills for homes and businesses that participate because less electricity is consumed.

Conservation vs. new power

Carbon emissions and electricity costs were issues that the Northwest Power and Conservation Council addressed in its new draft Sixth Power Plan for the Pacific Northwest. The resource strategy advocated in the plan is an aggressive pursuit of improved efficiency (conservation) in homes, businesses, and factories.

The council found that much of the region’s expected growth in electricity needs could be met with conservation at far lower cost and risk than building additional generation. In addition, renewable electricity generation acquired to meet renewable portfolio standards in the region will help reduce carbon emissions. The region should improve the operational procedures of the power system to better integrate variable generation sources such as wind, but also should look for other small-scale renewable opportunities in local communities. After renewable power requirements are met, natural gas-fired generation is the next best source, if necessary. In the long-term, other forms of generation, efficiency, energy storage, or operational changes should be considered, researched, and demonstrated, including smart-grid technologies.

Such an energy strategy requires that the region’s citizens and businesses, working with their local utilities, participate in securing their own energy futures. Low-cost supplies of energy can no longer be taken for granted. But energy that is available can be used far more efficiently, reducing the impact of rising costs and resulting in a more sustainable economy.

Terry Morlan, Columbian forecaster; The Columbian – http://www.columbian.com/news/2010/jan/24/energy-prices-likely-to-rise-modestly/

Water bureau to flip switch on biggest solar station in the NW January 21, 2010

The Pacific Northwest’s largest water utility-powered solar station will go online next week in Northeast Portland.

The Portland Water Bureau will flip the switch for “Solar on the Slough” at the Columbia South Shore Well Field, Portland’s groundwater supply source, next Tuesday.

The more than 1,200 panels near NE Airport Way will generate nearly 300,000 kilowatts of electricity each year, about 1.5 percent of the power used by the bureau.

The panels can also generate up to 9,000 watts even on cloudy days.

The electricity runs to a meter, then to a pump station. Energy not used by the pump station is sent to the PGE utility grid.

Checkout the Live cam

David Krough, KGW – http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Water-bureau-to-flip-switch-on-biggest-solar-station-in-the-NW-82274612.html

Seattle Gets Power from Trash January 21, 2010

Customers of Seattle City Light recently started using power generated in part from their own rotting trash. It’s part of the city-owned utility’s push for more renewable energy.

Seattle residents recycle about half of their waste. The rest, about 400,000 tons a year, gets put on trains and shipped to a massive landfill in north-central Oregon. Waste Management, the company that runs the Columbia Ridge landfill, collects the methane gas produced as garbage decomposes and burns it to generate electricity. Waste Management’s Dean Kattler says that closes an energy loop.

“The waste collected in the city of Seattle goes to our Columbia Ridge landfill, and now the energy produced at the landfill comes right back to the city of Seattle.”

Seattle City Light is buying the entire output of the plant, enough to power more than 5,600 homes. That’s a small down payment on the new renewable power the utility has to find over the next decade. Under an initiative passed by Washington voters in 2006, most utilities have to get at least 15 percent of their juice from renewables by 2020.

Liam Moriarty, KPLU (FM) – http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1602508/KPLU.Local.News/Seattle.Gets.Power.from.Trash

Longview Fibre seeks permit for biomass boiler January 21, 2010

Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging Inc. announced Thursday it will build a $100 million power plant to convert waste wood into renewable energy, a hot commodity for electric utilities that must meet green-energy laws.

Fibre officials said the 65-megawatt biomass plant will annually burn some 38,000 tons of mill waste, including wood chips, sawdust and hog fuel.

“We are investing in our infrastructure at the mill. This project will support our goals to use biomass-based energy, improve efficiencies and solidify the long-term viability of the business,” Fibre President Randy Nebel said in a written statement.

The company, which applied for a permit this week from the state Department of Ecology, said it hoped the plant will be operating by the end of 2011.

Biomass power plants make sense for pulp and paper manufacturers, such as Fibre, which have wood waste on site, said Peter Moulton, bio-energy coordinator for the state Department of Commerce. Other mills, such as Port Townsend Paper Corp., are starting similar projects, he said.

“There’s a reason why all the mills are turning into bio-energy refineries. When you look at bio-energy factories in our state, pulp and paper factories are the low-hanging fruit,” Moulton said.

Fibre officials say they haven’t determined how much, if any, excess power they will be able to sell to utilities in Western states hungry to meet state-mandated renewable-energy standards.

By 2020, 15 percent of the power sold by large Washington utilities will have to come from renewable resources, according to voter-approved Initiative 937. In California, some utilities will be required to obtain as much as 33 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2020.

As a large power consumer, Fibre must produce or purchase renewable energy to meet its contract with Cowlitz PUD, utility spokesman Dave Andrew said. The biomass plant would fulfill that requirement, he said.

“Any industry or company in the region that builds a renewable resource is a real positive for the region,” Andrew said.

The Fibre project is the third major biomass energy project to emerge in Cowlitz County in recent months. Vancouver-based Northwest Renewables LLC announced in September it was changing plans and will build a 24-megawatt biomass plant at the Mint Farm Industrial Park, instead of an ethanol plant.

In October, Olympia entrepreneur Marc Rappaport said he was trying to develop a biomass plant in Longview near Swanson Bark that would be capable of producing 25 megawatts of power and 20 million gallons of ethanol a year.

Fibre’s biomass project likely won’t create any new full-time jobs at the mill, company officials said. The company hasn’t determined how many construction jobs would be created, Fibre spokeswoman Sarah Taydas said.

Erik Olson, The Daily News – http://www.tdn.com/news/local/article_8643f3e6-06e7-11df-beda-001cc4c03286.html

Avista wants two dams certified as low-impact January 20, 2010

Avista Corp. wants to certify its two Clark Fork River dams as “low-impact” hydro projects, a designation that would allow the utility to sell renewable energy credits from the dams.

About half of Avista’s electricity comes from the Cabinet Gorge and Noxon Rapids dams, which generate up to 803 megawatts of power. To certify the dams as low-impact, the utility has to demonstrate that they meet criteria in eight areas, including water quality, river flows and fish passage.

“For many knowledgeable consumers, hydropower raises questions,” according to the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, a Maine-based nonprofit that issues the certification.

While dams don’t generate greenhouse gases, they can affect the environment by flooding habitat, degrading water quality, blocking fish movement and altering natural river flows. Through the certification process, institute officials scrutinize dams, determining if negative effects have been minimized or offset.

If Avista gets the certification, it will be able to sell renewable energy credits from the dams on the Chicago Climate Exchange, said Anna Scarlett, a utility spokeswoman. The credits are sold to consumers who want to support environmentally friendly energy production.

Comments on Avista’s application will be accepted through Feb. 9. Visit lowimpacthydro.org for more information.

Spokesman Review – http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/jan/20/avista-wants-two-dams-certified-as-low-impact/

MATL could unleash torrent of wind projects January 18, 2010

A biting wind whipped across the snow-covered Montana prairie as Clayton Larsen and John Mattheis took soil samples from 30 feet below the surface north of Conrad late last week.

The men, who work for SK Geotechnical in Billings, are helping to build the $215 million, 230-kilovolt Montana Alberta Tie Line — a transmission line that could be the key to the future of wind development in the region.

With calls for more renewable energy increasing, new plain-looking pole-and-wire projects such as MATL are sprouting up in anticipation of the construction of more eye-catching wind farms.

The first stage of construction of MATL, which will carry up to 300 megawatts in each direction, began this month with soil testing.

The project is part of more than $2 billion in proposed transmission projects in Montana that could progress this year, with the lines a direct response to demands from wind developers who are banking on the lines to ship power from the boondocks to big cities.

The U.S. government also has a big stake in the success of MATL and other lines like it.

Last year, $3.25 billion in low-cost loans, which were part of the federal stimulus bill, was approved for 15 Western and Midwestern states, specifically to build transmission lines that ship renewable energy.

Tonbridge Power Co., MATL’s developer, was the first company to receive a loan, which could be as much as $161 million.

The Toronto-based company was one of about 200 developers that applied for funding, said Bob Harris, regional manager of the Upper Great Plains Region of the Billings-based Western Area Power Administration, which includes most of Montana, the Dakotas and parts of Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

WAPA is in negotiations with additional developers about loans for other transmission projects.

“It tells me there’s a lot of interest in renewable energy development — and typically they’re not close to the load,” Harris said.

Without new transmission projects, all the talk about building wind farms and developing other forms of green energy will end up being mostly hot air, according to industry experts.

In the past, power generation facilities such as coal-fired power plants typically were constructed close to the people who would use the power, Harris said.

However, the power delivery model is changing.

States are passing laws requiring the use of more renewable energy, but that green power often is located in remote rural areas such as windy Montana, while the demand is thousands of miles away in big cities. That generation model requires new transmission lines to ship the power.

“We are sure this is going forward,” said Bob Williams of Montana Alberta Tie Ltd., the Tonbridge Power subsidiary in charge of the construction of MATL.

MATL first to fruition

MATL is the first of the proposed power transmission projects in Montana to proceed from blueprints to construction.

Four years in the making, work on the line began the first week of January with soil testing.

“We’re just drilling a soil boring for the turning point for their line,” SK Geotechnical’s Larsen said Thursday, before tromping through the snow and climbing over a fence to reach the drilling rig.

The most critical testing areas are where the line changes direction, such as the location north of Conrad where SK Geotechnical worked Thursday, Williams said.

Tonbridge has received the permits and financing it needs to build the line, which Williams said will take 18 months to construct, with the first poles going in the ground in May.

Poles will be planted in farm fields along a 214-mile stretch of windswept farmland between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alberta.

Its immediate impact will be transporting what is now stranded wind power in Montana north to Alberta markets, where peak demand is 10,000 megawatts. The line will be energized sometime in 2011.

Williams said negotiations with the more than 300 landowners along the route in Alberta and Montana have picked up. Easements need to be negotiated before poles are installed, and final engineering is occurring now in advance of physical construction.

Three wind developers have purchased the shipping rights to the line.

Tonbridge officials said that once the transmission line is finished, $1 billion worth of wind farm investment could spring up along its path.

“It’s all about transmission,” said Bill Alexander, chief development officer for NaturEner USA and NaturEner Canada. NaturEner already has purchased shipping rights on MATL. “Markets are coming back. Energy prices are strengthening. It’s now just a matter of getting the transmission (capacity) to move the energy to market.”

Project north of Cut Bank

At a cost of $800 million, NaturEner plans to construct a 309-megawatt wind farm called Rim Rock between U.S. Highway 2 and the Canadian border once MATL is done, Alexander said.

The Rim Rock project would be due north of the 210-megawatt, $500 million Glacier Wind Farm that NaturEner completed last year in Toole and Glacier counties. Existing transmission is shipping that power to out-of-state markets, including California.

Mark Jacobson, director of business development for Chicago-based Invenergy, which owns the Judith Gap wind farm in Montana, said the No. 1 hurdle facing wind development is a lack of transmission, but building lines is a challenge. Obtaining the necessary permits and financing are the biggest obstacles to building new transmission, he said.

“If it was easy, everybody would be doing it,” he added.

Tonbridge’s approach possibly could serve as a model, Jacobson said. Tonbridge formed specifically to construct transmission projects, charging developers to use the lines.

South of Great Falls

With MATL under way, the company has turned its attention south of Great Falls.

In November, Tonbridge announced it was partnering with Irish wind developer Gaelectric, which has an office in Great Falls, to study a 100-mile transmission line between Great Falls and Townsend. That line, called the Green Line, would be a southern extension of the MATL project.

Even after the construction of MATL, Jacobson said a transmission logjam exists at Great Falls, preventing power from being shipped south to reach bigger transmission lines that eventually go out of state.

Invenergy, which already owns space on MATL, is in discussions with Tonbridge about securing capacity on the Green Line, Jacobson said.

“I think that’s a very strong idea for solving the transmission problems in Montana and providing export opportunities,” he said.

Montana currently produces about 375 megawatts of wind power. The state’s overall electricity production is 5,445 megawatts.

Approximately 4,882 megawatts of new power generation projects are waiting for access to NorthWestern Energy’s transmission queue, with about half of that total tied to wind farms, company spokeswoman Claudia Rapkoch said.

That’s more wind electricity than the approximately 1,900 megawatts the state’s users currently consume from all sources.

Nationwide, almost 300,000 megawatts of wind projects are waiting in line to connect to the electrical grid as a result of inadequate transmission capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

NorthWestern has big plans

In addition to MATL, NorthWestern is proposing new lines to meet demand from wind developers, including the $1 billion, 500-kilovolt Mountain States Transmission Intertie from Townsend to Jerome, Idaho.

Rapkoch said the utility is expecting a final decision on the line from the state Department of Environmental Quality this year, and hopes to begin construction soon after that, with the goal of energizing the line by 2015.

NorthWestern also is studying construction of new “collector” lines, or smaller transmission lines, in five locations in Montana where interest is heavy in wind development, including north of Great Falls. Each of the collector projects would cost as much as $220 million. The goal is to have those upgrades completed by 2014.

“New transmission needs new generation and new generation needs new transmission,” said Rapkoch, comparing the question of whether to build new transmission or wind farms to the classic chicken-and-the-egg question.

Before proceeding with the risk of constructing the new collector lines, NorthWestern is planning an “open season” later this year in which the utility will accept bids from wind developers interested in reserving space, Rapkoch said.

NorthWestern is planning to pass along the expense of building the new transmission lines to the shippers and not existing ratepayers, Rapkoch said.

Cascade County would be seeing explosive “Texas-type” growth in wind energy if not for the physical limitations of the existing transmission system, according to Cascade County Commissioner Peggy Beltrone, who developed the county’s wind promotion program.

In Texas, 8,200 megawatts of wind power are on the grid — the most in the nation.

Beltrone called MATL a bright spot in the short term, but said large-scale wind power will be stranded until multi-state cost allocation and permitting issues are addressed and new transmission is built in the West.

“In the meantime, there will be a push to look for strategic, smaller opportunities on the existing system,” she said.

Karl Puckett, Great Falls Tribune – http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20100117/NEWS01/1170301

PGE mulls biomass if Boardman closes January 18, 2010

Should Portland General Electric Co. be successful in its pitch to close the Boardman coal-fired power plant in 2020, it will need to find a replacement for its 375 megawatts of generation capacity.

While the most logical plan calls for building an additional natural gas-fired plant, the Portland-based electric utility (NYSE: POR) is considering alternatives, including biomass.

PGE spokesman Steve Corson said the company is keeping a close eye on research around a biomass technology called “torrefaction.”

Under torrefaction, biomass feedstock such as wood or plant material is treated with a heat and chemical process that partially decomposes it, turning it into a dense, coal-like substance.

The end product could be a direct substitute for coal, allowing the Boardman plant to continue operating but using a renewable and carbon-friendly feedstock.

Theoretically, the operation could be fueled by plant material grown locally, Corson said.

Corson said PGE at this point doesn’t favor one source of replacement power over another. Its strategy is simply to devise a strategy to replace Boardman’s output by 2020.

“We’ve got some homework to do,” he said.

Meanwhile, PGE is already taking steps with regulators to prepare for an additional natural gas-fired plant.

Earlier this month, the company filed its first permit applications for a proposed combined-cycle natural gas plant that would be adjacent to the Boardman coal plant at Carty Reservoir.

The Carty plant will only produce around 400 megawatts of generation capacity, but the utility is seeking regulatory approval for up to 900 megawatts, allowing it to add additional gas-fired capacity later, Corson said.

In September, PGE filed an electricity resource plan with the state Public Utilities Commission that called for keeping the Boardman coal plant open through 2040. That included spending between $520 million and $560 million on pollution-control technology in 2011, 2014 and 2017 as called for under a haze-reduction plan approved in June by the state Environmental Quality Commission.

Since then, the utility — at the urging of environmental groups and some stakeholders — has met with officials from the state Department of Environmental Quality, which has signaled a willingness to let PGE submit a rule change to the regional haze plan.

In its letter to regulators, PGE said preliminary data suggests a 2020 closure could be done “at a favorable cost and reduced risk to customers.”

PGE asked state utility commissioners to delay a public hearing scheduled for Jan. 19 so it can make a presentation about its 2020 plan.

Erik Siemers, Portland Business Journal – http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2010/01/11/daily52.html

Montana’s Electric City power faces $23,260 fine by Public Service Commission November 30, 2009

The city of Great Falls’ electric utility arm, Electric City Power, may be required to cough up a fine of $23,260, the state Public Service Commission ruled last week.

Electric City Power was supposed to obtain renewable energy credits equal to at least 5 percent of its power portfolio for 2008, but failed to so do, the PSC ruled..

The city asked the PSC to grant a waiver, but the state commission refused.

Coleen Balzarini, executive director of Electric City Power, said she expects the City Commission and power board to discuss the matter. But she said the difference between buying the extra renewable energy credits for 2008 or accepting the fine is less than $6,000. The costs of legal fees to appeal the issue will also be an issue, she said.

The city will comply in 2009 after purchasing renewable energy credits and using its sewage treatment plant to generate power, Balzarini said.

One city critic, Travis Kavulla, contended Monday that the PSC moves “bring into question whether the city really possesses the requisite experience and knowledge to run a power company in the 21st century.” Richard Liebert, chairman of Citizens for Clean Energy, said city officials should “keep their eye on the ball.”

For more, read the Tribune online or grab a copy of Tuesday’s print edition.

Great Falls Tribune – http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20091130/NEWS01/91130009/1002/Electric+City+power+faces++23+260+fine+by+Public+Service+Commission

Pullman will be ‘smart grid’ model city November 29, 2009

Avista will lead a smart grid demonstration project that will create the first “smart community” in the Pacific Northwest. Matching funds for the $38 million project are part of a U.S. Department of Energy grant for a larger $178 million regional project which is administered by Battelle.

According to an Avista news release, the company will team up with several regional entities for the Pullman project. Participants include the City of Pullman, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Washington State University, Itron, Hewlett Packard and Spirae. Avista’s portion of the matching funds will be $12.9 million.

According to Avista, the project involves automation of many parts of the electric distribution system using advanced metering, enhanced utility communication and other elements of smart grid technologies. Once the work is completed, customers in the City of Pullman and nearby Albion are expected to experience greater reliability, shorter outage times and access to their own energy use information, allowing them to better manage energy expenses.

“This project will demonstrate the viability of modernizing our electric system with proven technology, and it will prepare us for things to come in the future,” said Scott Morris, Avista chairman, president and CEO.

“I have to especially thank Senator Maria Cantwell for her outstanding leadership in making smart grid a national priority,” Morris added. “I would also like to express my appreciation to the rest of our congressional delegation and to Governor Chris Gregoire for their support on this initiative.”

The project is expected to help move the region and the nation closer to establishing a more efficient and effective electricity infrastructure that is intended to help contain costs, reduce emissions, incorporate more wind power and other types of renewable energy, increase power grid reliability and provide greater flexibility for consumers.

A group of Washington State University researchers will be working with Avista on the project.

As part of the project, WSU along with Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories are set to serve as ‘micro-grids,’ locally-based, electricity producing power grids, says Anjan Bose, Regents Professor in the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). Serving as a micro-grid, WSU will communicate with Avista to improve electric power efficiency throughout the community.

WSU has its own generating plant, which runs on natural gas and diesel fuel. The generating plant is used primarily to produce steam to heat buildings on campus, but it also includes back-up generators which produce electricity. The campus back-up generators are used to provide power to critical facilities and systems in the event a utility power outage occurs. As part of the smart grid project, WSU will be communicating with Avista for the first time to optimize power generation throughout the community, so that the WSU power-producing facilities might be called upon to provide electricity if the Avista power grid should become unstable or over-loaded.

WSU will also identify loads which could be temporarily shed in response to Avista signals to assist with stabilizing the power grid. The EECS power engineering researchers and students will be involved in research, development, design, testing, and data analysis of the ‘micro-grid’ system.

“The micro-grid provides a local way of controlling electricity production and distribution and should make the whole system more responsive to people’s needs,’’ says Bose. “This is a good demonstration project of one of the ways that we can make the grid smarter.’’

“This Smart Grid project allows WSU to take a important role in addressing our nation’s most critical challenges in energy and the environment,’’ says Candis Claiborn, dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture. “I look forward to a future in which these smart grid innovations being studied here at WSU will lead to cleaner and more efficient energy use for all of us.’’

In addition to Bose, other EECS researchers on the project include Mani Venkatasubramanian, Dave Bakken, and Carl Hauser. Terry Ryan, director of WSU’s energy systems operations, has also taken a leading role on the project. In addition to WSU and Avista, other team members on the Pullman project include Schweitzer Engineering, Itron, Hewlett Packard, and Spirae.

Work is expected to begin by the end of 2009 and should be completed in 2014.

KLEW (TV) – http://www.klewtv.com/news/local/73024247.html

Ellensburg to join in ‘smart grid’ effort November 29, 2009

The city of Ellensburg will more than triple the size of its renewable energy park under a unique grant that taps a team from around the Northwest to build a “smart-grid” demonstration project.

The city will receive about $600,000 from the project, which
was announced this week by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The larger project is called the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project and includes utilities and energy companies from Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Wyoming.

Estimated to be a $178 million project, it will be managed by Battelle, which operates Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

Smart grid is the general concept of applying technological innovations to improve power delivery and enable such communications as real-time monitoring of electric use.

“Smart grid really has a lot of definitions,” said Bob Titus, Ellensburg’s energy services director. “Our focus is on distributed energy, which is expected to be much more prevalent in the future.”

Through the city utility company, customers can invest in renewable energy and receive a credit on their power bill. The city started the renewable energy park in 2006 on the west edge of Rotary Park, adjacent to Interstate 90. It is composed of about 60 kilowatts of solar panels.

With the grant, the city will add another 72 kilowatts of solar energy from different types of panel technology and 80 kilowatts worth of small wind systems.

Titus said that by expanding the park, more residents will be able to reap the benefits of solar and wind power.

“We’re making it so individuals can recognize same benefits as if the installation was on their own property,” he said.

Titus hopes to have all the paperwork associated with the project completed this spring so the installations can start in the summer, with a targeted completion date of 2011. Central Washington University will be involved in analyzing data from the project.

Leah Beth Ward, Yakima Herald-Republic – http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2009/11/26/ellensburg-to-join-in-smart-grid-effort

Let PSE manage your thermostat and get paid November 26, 2009

Puget Sound Energy wants to take control of hundreds of thermostats so it can decide when to heat homes and when to cool off.

And homeowners don’t seem to mind the plan.

Under the plan, an Internet-powered system will adjust the temperature inside 700 homes according to the utility’s needs across the grid.

“Customers who volunteer will see their water heater turned back a bit and their furnace turned back a bit to better manage energy on the coldest days of the year,” said PSE spokesman Andy Wappler.

The PSE is giving smart grid technology a trial run. If power use can be balanced, the need to build a new substation could be delayed. PSE says its Bainbridge Island is near its limit.

Theresa Torseth volunteered for the two-year trial. In exchange, she’ll get a $50 check at the end of each year.

“I don’t want my rates hiked up again and hopefully, this will help,” she said.

A device at Torseth’s home is hooked up to the PSE’s Internet-based system, and her furnace and water heater take the system’s cues. Torseth says she doesn’t mind giving up control of her own thermostat.

“I didn’t feel so much like it was giving control as it was letting somebody see where the peaks were across the island. So we could even it out and spread it across everybody, so nobody was having to have some spike and therefore be out of power,” she said.

PSE says the temperature will drop only a few degrees for participating customers. The utility hopes the little changes go a long way.

And ultimately, the volunteers do have control. There’s an override switch they can flip any time to turn up the heat.

Sabra Gertsch, KOMO News – http://www.komonews.com/news/local/73372437.html

Energy Storage: Utility to store air underground to generate power November 23, 2009

An Ohio electric company has bought the rights to an abandoned limestone mine so it can pump the cavern full of compressed air and let it out to generate power during peak-use times.

The 600-acre cavern will allow Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to store energy generated by wind and solar technology for use when customers need it most, the company said.

“The wind doesn’t always blow when customers need electricity,” said FirstEnergy spokeswoman Ellen Raines.

The utility, which has 4.5 million customers in Northern Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has no timetable to begin using the mine, located in the Akron suburb of Norton.

But FirstEnergy says once operational, the commercial-scale compressed-air generating station would be the second in the U.S. and only the third in the world. Other compressed-air generating stations are working in McIntosh, Ala., and Bremen, Germany, the company said.

Other power companies are investing in the technology.

PSEG Energy Holdings, of New Jersey, is investing about $20 million in similar power storage research and plans to market and license the technology.

During off-peak hours mainly at night, FirstEnergy would generate electricity to run pumps that would fill the cavern with compressed air, Raines aid. The utility would release the air during peak daytime use hours, and it would turn turbines that generate electricity.

Even though there would be a net energy loss from the original electricity used to run the pumps, the system would still benefit the environment because it would cut the need to run power plants during peak use times, and it would store renewable energy, Raines said.

The company would start small with about 268 megawatts of generating capacity, but the mine has the potential to generate 2,700 megawatts, FirstEnergy said.

The purchase price for use of the mine plus 92 acres above it was not disclosed. FirstEnergy’s generating subsidiary bought rights to the mine from CAES Development Co. LLC.

Shares of FirstEnergy rose 16 cents to $42.11 on Monday.

An Ohio electric company has bought the rights to an abandoned limestone mine so it can pump the cavern full of compressed air and let it out to generate power during peak-use times.

The 600-acre cavern will allow Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to store energy generated by wind and solar technology for use when customers need it most, the company said.

“The wind doesn’t always blow when customers need electricity,” said FirstEnergy spokeswoman Ellen Raines.

The utility, which has 4.5 million customers in Northern Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has no timetable to begin using the mine, located in the Akron suburb of Norton.

But FirstEnergy says once operational, the commercial-scale compressed-air generating station would be the second in the U.S. and only the third in the world. Other compressed-air generating stations are working in McIntosh, Ala., and Bremen, Germany, the company said.

Other power companies are investing in the technology.

PSEG Energy Holdings, of New Jersey, is investing about $20 million in similar power storage research and plans to market and license the technology.

During off-peak hours mainly at night, FirstEnergy would generate electricity to run pumps that would fill the cavern with compressed air, Raines aid. The utility would release the air during peak daytime use hours, and it would turn turbines that generate electricity.

Even though there would be a net energy loss from the original electricity used to run the pumps, the system would still benefit the environment because it would cut the need to run power plants during peak use times, and it would store renewable energy, Raines said.

The company would start small with about 268 megawatts of generating capacity, but the mine has the potential to generate 2,700 megawatts, FirstEnergy said.

The purchase price for use of the mine plus 92 acres above it was not disclosed. FirstEnergy’s generating subsidiary bought rights to the mine from CAES Development Co. LLC.

Shares of FirstEnergy rose 16 cents to $42.11 on Monday.

Associated Press – http://www.thenewstribune.com/apheadlines/business/story/966287.html

Gig Harbor-based Peninsula Light Company To Enter Power-generating Business November 14, 2009

On Dec.15, if all goes as planned, Gig Harbor’s Peninsula Light Company will start generating electricity for the first time in its 85-year history.

That’s the date Harvest Wind, PenLight’s wind project, will officially begin commercial operation.

The project, a collaboration between PenLight, Lakeview Light and Power, Cowlitz PUD and Eugene, Ore., Water and Electric Board, will generate 98.9 megawatts (MW) of “green,” environmentally friendly power.

It required a $50 million investment by PenLight, funded in part by an 8.5 percent rate increase earlier this year.

“That was the first increase we’ve had in eight years,” said Jonathan White, Penlight marketing manager. “There was virtually no complaint about it from our customers.”

That’s probably because there seems to be widespread support for renewable energy among PenLight customers, White added, citing the fact that more than 400 customers have chosen to pay extra on their monthly power bills to support “green power” projects.

“The electricity from Harvest Wind won’t actually turn on the lights in Gig Harbor homes,” White said. “It will go into the Northwest power grid and be distributed throughout the region.”

He explained that “you can’t separate the ‘green’ electrons generated by renewable energy sources like wind, from those generated by non-renewable sources” like natural gas or coal.

But even though electricity generated by Harvest Wind won’t come directly to Gig Harbor, it will help PenLight meet its I-937 requirements, according to Ray Grinberg, PenLight’s power resources director.

The I-937 initiative passed by Washington voters in 2006, requires utilities with 25,000 or more customers to obtain 15 percent of its power from renewable resources by 2020.

The initiative outlined a three-step process for meeting renewable requirements, Grinberg said.

“We have to have three percent renewable in 2012, nine percent in 2016 and by 2020, 15 percent of our sales must be met by renewables,” he said. “Harvest Wind takes us to our 2016 requirements, so now we need to be planning for 2016 and beyond.”

White said that one of the possibilities the utility is considering to meet its renewable requirements in the future is a project in which “the green electrons would go directly into our own system.”

He mentioned a solar project in central Washington that generates power for a nearby community as an example.

“In a community-based system, you might find a piece of land, like a local park, and build a solar-powered system that would generate power for the whole community,” he explained.

Of all the renewable-energy options, White said, solar seems the most promising at this time.

“The problem is cost. Right now solar costs about $8 per watt. That’s about a $32,000 investment for the average local home that uses 4MW a year,” he said.

“When the cost gets down to two or three dollars per watt, that same 4MW system would cost about $12,000, which seems much more doable for people.”

Grinberg said that in order to anticipate its future needs, PenLight must be ‘”nimble enough to forecast and see the trends coming. In the future, we may just buy our renewable power from somewhere instead of building our own generating system. But it’s always better to own our own system.”

For information on Harvest Wind, go to peninlight.org/harvestwind.

Kitsap Sun – http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/nov/13/gig-harbor-based-peninsula-light-company-enter-pow/

Wash. state wind facility adds another 22 turbines November 11, 2009

Puget Sound Energy says its Wild Horse wind farm in the hills of Central Washington has added another 22 turbines producing power.

The new turbines went online Monday and joins the 127 turbines that entered service in December 2006. The new turbines are expected to produce another 44 megawatts of power at the facility.

Initial development of the expanded wind farm began in 2008 and construction was completed earlier this year. Testing and commissioning of the new turbines finished in October.

The wind farm is located atop Whiskey Dick Mountain about 16 miles east of Ellensburg at an elevation of 3,500 feet.

Associated Press – http://www.theolympian.com/business/wire/story/1031381.html

Efficiency Program in Portland sets the standard October 31, 2009

Clean Energy Works Portland is a groundbreaking new program that enables Portland residents to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and pay for the improvements over time through their utility bills.

A contractor performing a blower door test to identify air infiltration and leakage throughout a home. But the most exciting and unique aspect of the program is the Community Workforce Agreement that was developed by representatives of labor unions, community groups, businesses, community colleges, and other stakeholders. It is a comprehensive plan to make sure that new jobs created by Clean Energy Works Portland are high quality, career-track jobs that offer family-supporting wages and benefits, and that they go to local residents from diverse backgrounds.

“We wanted to have this project reflect some higher set of goals beyond just retrofitting homes and reducing carbon emissions,” said Derek Smith of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, the city’s go-to person on the Clean Energy Works Portland program.

The program uses $2.5 million in Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds the city received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as seed money to start a revolving loan fund that will enable Portland homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes at no up-front cost. The energy improvements that will be available to homeowners during the pilot phase of the program, which will cover 500 homes, include insulation, air sealing, duct sealing, and improvements to space heating and water heating systems.

The Energy Trust of Oregon will schedule home energy assessments for interested homeowners and help them choose the energy saving options that best meet their needs. To pay for the improvements, homeowners will receive low-interest, long-term loans and will pay them off via their monthly utility bills.

Once the pilot phase is completed next summer, some 100,000 homes in Multnomah County, which encompasses the city of Portland, could qualify for the program.

A state law, Oregon’s Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act of 2009 (HB 2626), made the Portland financing mechanism possible. “Portland is the first pilot project for this new statewide, low-interest loan program for weatherization work that you can pay back on your utility bill. That’s how we’re going to spread this idea around the state,” said Barbara Byrd, who wears many hats in Oregon, including secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO and coordinator of the Oregon Apollo Alliance, which strongly supported passage of HB 2626.

Fifty-five direct jobs will be created by the pilot program, but many more are expected to be created after the pilot phase. In order to make sure those jobs will have good wages and benefits and be accessible to community members with previous barriers to employment, the city pulled together approximately 60 stakeholders to develop a Community Workforce Agreement that would complement Clean Energy Works.

Smith of the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability said he got the idea to bring labor and training standards and community benefits into the program from being part of the Green For All “community of practice.” The community of practice connects people throughout the United States who are working on green jobs programs and helps them share their learning experiences with others in the field. Green For All is a partner in Clean Energy Works Portland, along with the Energy Trust of Oregon, Portland General Electric and others.

Maurice Rahming, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon, participated in the Clean Energy Works Portland stakeholder meetings that culminated in the Community Workforce Agreement. “I think it’s a tribute to the mayor that he got minority contractors involved early on, rather than having them involved at the very tail end. It shows he’s looking to diversify the contracting pool,” Rahming said.

“Construction isn’t always the most diverse workforce that’s out there, and we wanted to set up an understanding that let’s have the workforce and the contractors reflect the city of Portland,” he added.

In addition to minority contractors, the stakeholder meetings included many groups that offer pre-apprenticeship training to prepare people in basic work skills so that they can then enter training programs that teach skills specific to an occupation. These groups included the Native American Youth and Family Center, which offers employment training courses to Native Americans; and Oregon Tradeswomen, which offers women training courses to prepare them to enter the building and construction trades. Pre-apprenticeship training programs like these will funnel participants into weatherization technician training courses linked to Clean Energy Works Portland.

Many labor unions also participated in the development of the Community Workforce Agreement, including the Laborers union, which is about to begin offering training courses in weatherization that will be available to graduates of the pre-apprenticeship programs described above. “A part of what we wanted to see [in the Community Workforce Agreement] was that people were going to get quality training, because then they’re going to come into the market with better skills, and that’s a chance for them to get their wages up,” said Al Davita, the training director of the Laborers Training Program in Oregon and southern Idaho.

Davita said the Laborers will be providing three levels of training in weatherization-an 80-hour entry-level class for weatherization installers/technicians that will require 80 hours in general residential construction to get into the class; a 40-hour weatherization supervisor training; and a 40-hour energy auditor training. This means that trainees who become weatherization technicians through Clean Energy Works Portland will be able to move into other careers with additional training.

“Our plan is to recruit people who are out of work, give them quality training so they can go out and do this work, but also give them a career pathway so that they can potentially stay in weatherization for the next 20 years or may be able to move into commercial building construction or demolition, where the wages are higher. So we’re looking to give people the chance to change their lives,” Davita said.

After five weeks of meetings, the stakeholders came to consensus on a Community Workforce Agreement for the Clean Energy Works Portland pilot program that lays out requirements for worker training, wages and benefits, local hiring, contractor standards and more. Key goals and targets of the agreement, which was passed by the Portland City Council on September 30, include:

Local hire: at least 80 percent of employees used in the pilot program will be hired from the local workforce.

Family-supporting jobs: workers will earn no less than 180 percent of the state minimum wage.

Diverse workforce: historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people, including people of color, women, and low-income city residents, will perform at least 30 percent of total trades and technical project hours.

Diverse business participation: twenty percent of the dollars that flow through the project will go to businesses owned by historically disadvantaged or underrepresented people.

Prevailing wage: contractors will pay wages that are at least 180 percent of Oregon state minimum wage or the prevailing wage for weatherization work, whichever is higher.

Worker training: contractors will hire 100 percent of new weatherization employees from designated training programs until 50 percent of the contractor’s non-supervisory work hours are performed by these training program graduates.

Labor peace: contractors will sign a labor peace agreement that includes a majority sign-up provision (meaning that contractors will respect the will of the workers if a majority of them signs up to form a labor union).

The Community Workforce Agreement also sets up a system of “best value contracting,” which means that contractors wishing to join the pool of qualified contractors for the Clean Energy Works Portland program will be scored on a range of attributes. They will earn points for having a successful track record of hiring and retaining historically disadvantaged people; having a plan for establishing sub-contracting relationships with businesses owned by people of color and women; and hiring graduates of pre-apprenticeship training programs, among other criteria.

Clean Energy Works Portland’s criteria for qualified training programs requires the programs to have at least three defined partnerships with state recognized pre-apprenticeship programs or signatory community organizations that service underrepresented populations, and to make sure a majority of trainees are women, people of color, low-income people or people from disadvantaged communities.

“In Oregon, a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Clean Energy Works Portland stands to provide a scalable national model by leveraging federal recovery dollars to put people back to work and achieve significant carbon reductions,” said Portland Mayor Sam Adams. “With our community workforce agreement, we have the ability to promote social equity in a measurable way, providing an opportunity for under-employed youth and adults to gain career training in the sustainable building industry, and ensure that Portland stays at the forefront of the green economy.”

For other cities that are considering designing programs similar to Portland’s, several of the people who participated in the process that created the Community Workforce Agreement emphasized the importance of involving stakeholders early in the process. “My bottom line advice is that if you want to do this, you have to involve the stakeholders from the very beginning of the process,” said Barbara Byrd. “It’s not something the city can put together and ask people to sign on to. It was the involvement of the stakeholders that not only created the workforce agreement, but will also make sure it works.”

Rahming said that the early involvement of minority contractors will help them be able to participate in the program. “In contracting, time is everything,” Rahming said. “A lot of times, larger companies can put proposals together more quickly, because they have more staff. This time, because the project was presented to my contractors at the front end, it will allow them to be able to meet the wage and benefits and training requirements.”

Now that the Community Workforce Agreement is in place and the pilot program has already begun converting loans for homeowners, some of the same people who were involved in the stakeholder process will oversee how the program is run.

“The side benefit of this whole effort is energizing a community,” Smith told Oregon Live in a recent interview. “People are really interested in this. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for their home energy bills and (the environment). It seems like one of the promises of the new clean economy could be realized here.”

For more information about Clean Energy Works Portland, go to www.cleanenergyworksportland.org.

Read the Community Workforce Agreement.

by Andrea Buffa, Grist - http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-28-portland-weatherization-program-gives-top-billing-to-labor-stand/

Public comment periods wind down on wind farm October 29, 2009

The public comment process is moving forward on several fronts toward determining whether the 1,432-megawatt Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project will be approved for Columbia and Garfield counties.

Puget Sound Energy Inc. proposes to independently build, own and operate the project, which includes approximately 795 turbine locations in an area of approximately 124,000 acres in Garfield and Columbia counties.

If permits are approved, construction on infrastructure in Garfield County is projected to begin in 2010, with towers installed in 2011.

A separate conditional use permit application is expected to be filed in Columbia County before the end of the year, with turbines expected to be installed in 2012, according to Anne Walsh, senior environmental/communications manager at PSE’s Dayton office.

The conditional use permit is the land use permit, and there are other permits to be obtained before construction can begin, Walsh said.

An open record public record hearing on the conditional use application will begin Nov. 5 at 9:30 a.m. in the main building at the Garfield County Fairgrounds.

Deadline for written comments on the project’s application is Friday at 5 p.m. Comments should be submitted to Garfield County Planning at the county auditor’s office, P.O. Box 278, Pomeroy, WA 99347.

Written and oral comments may also be submitted at the hearing.

The hearing examiner will also hear an appeal of the final environmental impact statement filed by Tucannon River Valley landowners Richard and Vicki Ducharme.

The appeal is based on failure to consider reasonable alternatives, deferred environmental analysis, visual impacts, noise, mule deer habitat, project impacts area larger than project specific area, turbine setback, and failure to consider cumulative impacts.

To view documents related to the environmental impact statement and the conditional use permit, go to: co.garfield.wa.us/landservices, and click on “Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project — CUP #012609.”

In a related matter, comments on the proposal by Bonneville Power Administration to build a new 500/230 kilovolt substation along its two existing Little Goose-Lower Granite 500-kV transmission lines will be accepted through Nov. 16.

The new facility, called Central Ferry Substation, would require approximately 25 acres of land in Garfield County, west of State Route 127 and south of the Snake River. The substation would be located adjacent to the existing transmission line rights-of-way.

The proposal is in response by a request by Puget Sound Energy Inc. to interconnect up to 1,250 megawatts of electricity generated from PSE’s proposed Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project in Garfield and Columbia counties.

Comments on the proposal may be submitted to BPA online at bpa.gov/comment, via mail to Bonneville Power Administration, Public Affairs — DKE-7, P.O. Box 14428, Portland, OR 97293-4428 or by fax to 503-230-3285.

More information about BPA’s proposed interconnection of the wind project is available by calling 800-622-4519, or visiting the BPA Web site: transmission.bpa.gov/PlanProj/Wind/

By CARRIE CHICKEN, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin – http://www.union-bulletin.com/articles/2009/10/29/local_news/091029local05wind%20power.txt

Power from Nothing: Northwest’s 20-year energy plan stresses conservation October 26, 2009

The Bonneville Power Administration paid Woody Guthrie $266.66 to write 26 songs in 30 days in 1941 to promote what the BPA was selling, hydroelectricity. The songs celebrated the Columbia River, Grand Coulee Dam and “electricity runnin’ all around, cheaper than rainwater.” One of Guthrie’s best, Roll on, Columbia, Roll on, became Washington’s official folk song.

If Guthrie hired on today, he might warble about efficient washing machines, compact fluorescent bulbs and ductless heat pumps. Roll on, conservation measures, roll on.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, created by Congress in 1980 when the region was suffering from ill-fated investments in unneeded nuclear plants, will soon adopt a plan intended to guide energy development in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana for the next 20 years.

In Guthrie’s day, electricity was not only as cheap as rainwater, but as plentiful as well. Today, power generation is suppose to be easy on the environment, too. With the dam-building era over and the climate-change epoch beginning, the power council says conservation will be the No. 1 way the region will keep up with the demand for electricity.

According to a draft of the 20-year plan, conservation measures will not only cost a fraction of new power plants, it will reduce the release of greenhouse gases.

Besides conservation, the council says the region can meet its energy needs with more wind turbines and natural gas-fired power plants, though the council doesn’t rule out emerging forms of green energy and even the re-emergence of nuclear plants.

Environmental groups praise the council’s emphasis on conservation and wind power.

“This is the best plan they’ve ever put out,” Northwest Energy Coalition spokesman Marc Krasnowsky, whose organization nevertheless complains the council didn’t take a strong enough stand against coal plants, the electricity sector’s top emitter of greenhouse gases.

The council estimates that between 2010 and 2030, the four-state region will need enough new electricity to power five cities the size of Seattle. Four of those cities, according to the council, could be energized by simply using less electricity to run everything from traffic lights to irrigation systems.

By conservation, the council does not mean turning down the thermostat and putting on a sweater. Energy savings will come as businesses and homes gradually switch to energy-stingy lights, appliances, electronics, motors, pumps, fans, etc. “There is nothing pie-in-the-sky here,” council spokesman John Harrison said. “We’re not assuming any unusual consumer behavior.”

Regionwide, according to the council, the greatest savings will come in homes. In Guthrie’s day, aluminum smelters drove up the demand for electricity. Now, lifestyles push up consumption. Televisions per household (2.73) outnumber people (2.6). Nursing homes and assisted-living centers will become massive users of electricity as baby boomers age. An increasing number of air conditioners will make the region’s summertime use of power nearly as high as in the winter.

In industry-heavy Cowlitz County, though, energy savings primarily will come from 27 industrial customers, which consume three-quarters of the electricity supplied by Cowlitz PUD.

Over the next decade, the PUD hopes to do its part and conserve enough electricity for 13,000 households. Some 80 percent of the savings are expected to come in the industrial sector, PUD energy conservation manager Jim Wellcome said.

“We’re going to have to look more to industries. We can’t get the kind of numbers we’re looking at just from the residential and commercial sectors. Not even close,” he said. “That’s the difference between our utility and other utilities.”

The PUD already spends $2 million a year to reward ratepayers who take energy-saving measures such as insulating attics, installing weather-tight windows and buying efficient appliances. The utility plans to approximately double the amount it spends on incentives to help industries pay for energy-saving projects and to give rebates to industries that cut energy consumption.

“They need these incentives because they’re businesses concerned about the bottom line,” Wellcome said.

The PUD says ratepayers will benefit by subsidies to businesses because lower industrial consumption will hold down residential rates. “It’s cheaper to conserve than to build a plant to generate power,” PUD spokesman Dave Andrew said.

Conservation will become all the more important to PUD and it’s customers in 2011. That’s when BPA will limit the amount of low-cost federal hydropower it will sell utilities such as Cowlitz PUD. The more customers conserve, the less the PUD will have to shop around for expensive non-BPA power, Andrew said.

Even if utilities meet conservation goals, however, the Northwest still will need new sources of electricity.

In assessing where that electricity will come from, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council concluded that it’s unlikely more coal plants will be built in the region unless greenhouse gases can be permanently stored underground rather than released into the air. So far, the technology is unproven on a large scale.

Critics complain the council should be bolder in charting how the region can retire its existing coal plants.

“It’s become clear we have to reduce carbon emissions and holding them steady is not enough,” Krasnowsky said. “There’s no way to do it without dealing with coal.”

Coal plants emit 85 percent of the carbon dioxide from the region’s energy generators while supplying 18 percent of the electricity.

In comments to the council, Kennecott Energy, which operates coal mines in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, argued the coal industry is becoming less damaging to the environment and that there is no cheaper or more reliable source of energy than coal. Coal should play a greater role in the Northwest, according to Kennecott.

The council’s power plan, however, observes that even the cleanest new coal plants can’t meet carbon-emission limits set by Washington, Oregon and Montana.

Washington’s law scuttled plans to build a coal plant in Kalama. Before that happened, the plant’s proponent, Energy Northwest, distanced itself from coal by saying the plant would probably use primarily petroleum coke, a byproduct from refining oil that actually emits more carbon, sulfur and metals than coal.

Harrison, the council spokesman, said the council has no authority to regulate coal plants, but it foresees the possibility that a carbon tax or federal cap on emissions will curtail output from those plants and help states meet their goals to roll back carbon emissions.

“I think we can assume there will be some control of carbon emissions,” he said.

Main sources of Northwest energy in the next 20 years

Conservation

Conservation measures, such as installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, will meet 85 percent of the Northwest’s demand for more electricity over the next 20 years.

Wind

Laws mandating investments in renewable energy guarantee wind farms will continue to sprout in the Northwest.

Natural gas

The region may need to build more natural gas-fired plants to reduce the use of coal and pick up the slack when calm weather cuts the output of wind turbines.

Green energy

Small-scale renewable energy plants, such as ones that burn wood debris, could supplement and back up wind turbines.

Coal

It’s unlikely more coal-fired power plants will be built unless technology can be perfected that will allow carbon emissions to be stored permanently underground instead of released into the air.

Nuclear

The Trojan cooling tower (above) was imploded in 2006, and only one Northwest nuclear plant remains. A new-generation of nuclear plants could be a source of energy that doesn’t contribute to climate change.

Hydroelectricity

Hydroelectricity supplies nearly half of the energy used in the Northwest. Additional large hydro projects appear unlikely, but there could be new small-scale development.

Rates

BPA hearing on new transmission line is Thursday

Higher natural gas prices, carbon taxes on coal plants and mandates to invest in renewable energy likely will gradually push electric rates up.

The Bonneville Power Administration is holding a public meeting from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, at Mark Morris High School to discuss a proposed new transmission line extending from Castle Rock to Troutdale, Ore.

The federal agency says it’s seeking to build the line between two new power substations to meet growing power demand along the Interstate 5 corridor.

The transmission system in Southwest Washington and Northwest Oregon is approaching capacity, according to the BPA.

For more information on the proposal, visit www.bpa.gov/go/i5

The Daily News – http://www.tdn.com/articles/2009/10/25/top_story/doc4ae3a64bb9449039452097.txt

Idaho Power to buy wind power from Boise firm October 18, 2009

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission has approved three energy sales agreements between the company and a wind developer that will build three wind farms in the Hagerman area.

The sales agreements are with Exergy Development Group of Idaho, which plans to build all three projects under the provisions of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978. The act requires electric utilities to offer to buy power produced by qualifying small-power producers or co-generators.

The three projects – Camp Reed (22.5 megawatts), Payne’s Ferry (21 MW) and Yahoo Creek (21 MW) – are scheduled to begin operating Sept. 30, 2010.

For more information about the agreement, visit www.puc.idaho.gov.

Idaho Statesman – http://www.idahostatesman.com/business/story/937902.html

Garbage to power McMinnville, Ore. homes September 26, 2009

Waste Management Inc. on Wednesday broke ground on a $10 million plant in McMinnville that will create enough electricity from garbage to power 2,500 homes.

The plant will be located in the company’s Riverbend Landfill west of McMinnville and is expected to be operational in mid-2010.

As waste decomposes naturally, the new energy plant will collect the resultant methane gas and use it to power engines to generate electricity. The power will then be sold to McMinnville Power & Light.

Waste Management said the volume of electricity it generates could increase if the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners approves an expansion of the landfill.

Houston-based Waste Management Inc., the world’s largest solid waste company with annual revenue of $13.4 billion, developed the landfill-to-energy technology more than 20 years ago and now operates 111 landfill energy facilities in North America.

It has plans to develop another 160 by 2012, including one under way at its Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, Ore., which will go online later this year.

The company in May formed a joint venture with Bend-based InEnTec LLC called S4 Energy Solutions LLC that will market, operate and develop InEnTec’s technology turns waste-created gas into multiple fuel types.

Portland Business Journal - http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/09/21/daily41.html

Pressure grows for PGE to shutter Boardman, Ore. coal plant September 26, 2009

After more than a year of analysis and public feedback, Oregon’s largest utility unveiled a draft plan earlier this month. The company held a final public meeting Friday, mostly to discuss a few tweaks to its analysis and review a plan to build a new high-capacity transmission line across the Cascades.

But what attendees came to discuss was Boardman.

PGE’s controversial proposal includes two new gas-fired power plants and the installation of more than a half billion dollars worth of pollution control equipment to keep the company’s workhorse coal plant in northeast Oregon compliant with federal haze reduction rules while cranking out cheap electricity for the next three decades.

While required to keep the plant running, the pollution controls do nothing to reduce the plant’s output of carbon dioxide, the main man-made culprit in global warming. Boardman, the state’s only coal plant, is the largest stationary source of pollution and CO2 in Oregon.

Ratepayer and environmental advocates think the utility is squandering a golden opportunity to shut down the plant, while underestimating the risks of future carbon taxes on the plant’s viability. PGE’s analysis, they insist, shows that the utility could replace Boardman’s output without a meaningful difference in reliability or cost.

Bottom line, the advocates believe it’s too risky to invest $560 million in pollution controls and still face a possible early closure of the plant.

“It would normally be very difficult to justify shutting down a coal plant,” said Steve Weiss, a policy analyst with the NW Energy Coalition, which represents renewable energy and conservation groups in the Pacific Northwest. “But when you’re talking about having to put a half billion into it, it changes the equation. If they go forward and put all this money into the plant, they’ll never close it down, and if they’re forced to, it will cause a huge economic hardship.”

In its draft analysis, PGE considered 15 different mixes of energy sources and tested them against a number of “what-if scenarios. Each portfolio garnered a weighted score. The company’s preferred portfolio, which includes the investment to keep Boardman operating, is the one PGE deems to have the least combination of cost and risk.

On Wednesday, a coalition of ratepayer advocates and environmental groups sent PGE a letter urging the utility to evaluate shutting Boardman in 2020 rather than installing the pollution controls. A 2020 shutdown was the least-cost option that PGE presented to the Department of Environmental Quality last year when the agency was evaluating what controls PGE should be required to install.

The rules that DEQ eventually adopted, however, require PGE to either install successively higher levels of controls or shut the plant by 2011, 2014 or 2017. If it installs all the recommended controls, it can run the plant until 2040.

Jim Lobdell,  PGE’s vice president of power operations and resources strategy, said Friday that because the 2020 shutdown isn’t allowed under the DEQ rules, the utility can’t build that scenario into any recommendation to state regulators. But Lobdell said PGE would go ahead and run the analysis to see what it showed.

He cautioned, however, that it may not deliver the same result this time.

When PGE was evaluating the pollution controls, it was testing the projected cost of Boardman’s output — as a stand-alone plant — against the price of power on the wholesale market. In a resource planning scenario, Lobdell said, Boardman would be part of a mix of resources until 2020, then would have to be replaced by a failsafe option like a natural gas plant, the price of which is likely to be higher than wholesale power prices.

Ratepayer groups believe PGE is overestimating the risk of natural-gas price volatility and underestimating the risk of stiffer carbon-emission taxes in the future. And they think there’s still time to ask the DEQ to consider the 2020 shutdown option.

“If that’s the least-cost future, we ought to see if we can get the EPA and the DEQ to reconsider their rules,” said Bob Jenks, director of the Citizen’s Utility Board of Oregon. “The worst outcome is to make the Boardman upgrades, then have to shut it down.”

PGE’s draft resource plan is open to public comment until Oct. 5. In early November, the company will submit a final copy of the plan to the Oregon Public Utility Commission, which will then conduct its evaluation of the plan.

Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/09/pressure_grows_for_pge_to_shut.html

small wind producers still waiting for enforcement of the law in Montana September 20, 2009

Since 2004, Idaho has seen 21 new small wind power projects and a half-dozen other small independent power projects gain contracts to sell their output to local utilities, boosting rural development in the state.

In Montana, it’s a different picture: During that same time, only a few small, renewable power projects have been able to obtain contracts with local utilities and get off the ground.

State and federal laws require utilities like NorthWestern Energy to buy power from qualifying small independent projects that churn out renewable power, like wind, hydro, geothermal or solar. The power becomes part of the electricity that NorthWestern sells to its 320,000 retail customers.

But the state Public Service Commission must enforce those laws and set prices the utilities pay for the power. Developers say that isn’t happening with any consistency in Montana.

“It all comes down to what the rates are set at by the PSC,” says Ted Sorenson, who has developed small hydroelectric projects in Idaho and Montana. “It’s price driven. The rates have been too low in Montana to have any significant development.”

Potential developers also are frustrated by having to wait months or years for the PSC to resolve price-related issues on these small projects, and say they’re now looking to other states for opportunities.

“I really think the banks are going elsewhere,” says Brett Kenfield, a Vancouver, Wash., accountant who’s trying to develop a small wind power project in north-central Montana. “They’re not going to wait around and spend their time and money to get the information when they can go elsewhere – where they actually have the numbers and are able to finance a project.”

Some Montana PSC members talk tough and say the five-member commission should be more aggressive on the issue.

“We need a consistent and standard policy, so that anyone who does a (qualifying small) project has a pretty good idea of what they’re going to get paid,” says Commissioner Ken Toole, D-Helena. “And I don’t think they have that right now.”

Yet they also say the PSC must be cautious and not set prices that overcharge consumers.

“We’re worried about paying too much for power,” says Commissioner Gail Gutsche, D-Missoula. “We want to get the most reasonable fair price.”

Regardless of what individual commissioners think and say, the PSC’s action on setting rates and settling other issues for these projects has been notoriously slow.

The price that NorthWestern Energy pays for this power is based on something called the “avoided cost” for utilities, which means the cost of other power it would have to acquire if the small-project power wasn’t available.

The PSC last set a rate for Montana small power developers in mid-2007 – six months after it had initially decided the issue and five years since it last updated the rate. Federal and state rules intend the rate to be updated at least every two years.

The commission has yet to set a hearing to update the 2007 rate, which probably won’t be revised until sometime in 2010. Developers say the current rate is already inadequate, and are frustrated by having to wait longer to get a new one.

They say the PSC allows NorthWestern to fall behind on submitting documents for the rate-setting procedure, causing other delays without penalty.

The PSC also has not set a universal “wind integration” charge, which is a per-megawatt-hour fee wind power developers must pay to offset costs of adding their intermittent power to NorthWestern’s grid.

After lengthy proceedings before the commission, the PSC set wind integration charges for two individual projects in the past three years, but has left it to NorthWestern and the developers to work out charges for each project.

The end result is that NorthWestern can extend negotiations as long as it chooses, costing small projects thousands of dollars in legal fees and delaying development of independent projects, developers say.

“The PSC acts as though (the small developers) and NorthWestern are equal forces,” says Mike Uda, a Helena attorney representing some of the developers. “They’re not. These little guys need the commission to level the playing field and be looking out for them, and (the PSC) is not. Developers need a clear set of rules that are enforced consistently.”

John Hines, supply officer for NorthWestern Energy, says the small projects have “a legitimate set of rate alternatives” that they can choose, as set by the PSC in 2007, and a wind integration fee as determined in the two cases that can serve as a model.

“We’ve (offered) contracts for more than 15 of those projects, but have yet to sign one,” he said last week. “(Developers) might not like what the integration rate is or the price … but those have gone through the commission.”

Hines also noted that NorthWestern has initiated meetings with wind developers and others to outline a study that could help set wind integration fees for all projects. Yet that process could take at least a year, he said.

PSC chairman Greg Jergeson, D-Chinook, says he’d like to settle the issues more quickly, but they’re usually part of a contested case, which proceeds like a court case with disputes over evidence, written arguments, requests for more time and other potential delays.

“We can’t just arbitrarily dictate stuff; we can’t sit here and say, ‘Here’s how you calculate the (rate),’ ” Jergeson says. “It seems like whenever we issue an order here on these things, everybody contests it. I’d like to have this be pretty much routine.”

In Washington, Oregon and Idaho, such cases tend to be routine. Utilities are required to file their “avoided costs” every two years, after which the commission sets rates for each utility to buy power from many small renewable power projects. Some rates for larger projects are negotiated.

In Idaho, the Public Utilities Commission updates the rates periodically, tied to general rate cases or price forecasts or by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. The Idaho commission also set wind integration fees that apply to all projects, in a case that concluded in February 2008, after nearly three years of deliberation.

The latter decision came after the commission ordered small wind project developers and the utilities to work out the problems as best they could, after which the commission settled the wind integration fee.

“Most of the (wind developers) think they are fairly attractive rates,” says Gene Fadness, spokesman for the Idaho commission. “We’ve worked out the major issues so we’re waiting to see who has projects to submit.”

Idaho Power Co. now has 20-year contracts to buy power from 21 small wind power projects, most ranging in size from 10 megawatts to 20 megawatts and totaling 301 megawatts – enough to power 100,000 homes, if the projects run at about 40 percent capacity.

By comparison, NorthWestern Energy has contracts with a half-dozen small wind projects in Montana totaling 13 megawatts. The largest project, at 9 megawatts, sells most of its power to none other than Idaho Power Co.

Developers believe if the PSC would enforce the laws designed to help them gain contracts, Montana could see small power projects springing up across the state.

“There may never be large (wind and renewable power) projects in most counties, but there can be small projects in most counties,” says Dave Healow of Billings, whose company, Two Dot Wind, has some contracts with NorthWestern but would like to have more. “Either you care about small business, or you think it’s irrelevant. … We’re not making any money right now.”

Mike Dennison, The Missoulian – http://www.missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_24bf46d0-a5a2-11de-aa22-001cc4c03286.html

Public Forum to explore tidal energy issues in Wash. September 9, 2009

Scientists from the Pacific Northwest National Labs at Sequim Bay will speak at the meeting of the Island County Marine Resources Committee at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, in the Island County Commissioners’ hearing room, 6th and Main streets, Coupeville. The public is invited.

Speakers will be Dr. Andrea Copping and Simon Geerlofs.

Snohomish Public Utility District is preparing to test several tidal energy generators within the next two years in deep waters about half- mile offshore from Fort Casey.

Tidal and wave energy are known to be far more predictable than wind or solar power, officials agree. They might one day provide an important part of the Northwest’s portfolio of clean, renewable energy, bringing green jobs and economic development to Washington. But questions remain about the potential effects on marine mammals, salmon and fragile ecosystems.

The Pacific Northwest National Lab is engaged in research to avoid and mitigate environmental effects in Puget Sound and the outer coast. It is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratory system. The Marine Sciences Laboratory at Sequim Bay is the DOE’s only marine laboratory.

Whidbey Examiner - http://www.whidbeyexaminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=2948

PGE seeks input on future power plan September 5, 2009

Portland General Electric Corp. on Friday proposed building a new natural gas-fired power plant while upgrading its coal-fired plant in Boardman in an effort to serve the growing regional power demands over the next 20 years.

The Portland-based electric utility (NYSE: POR) filed its 2020 integrated resource plan with state regulators Friday, a document highly-anticipated by watchdog groups and environmentalists to see what the company would do with the Boardman plant.

The 374-megawatt plant, while a reliable source of low-cost power, is also a heavy polluter. The state Department of Environmental Quality in June endorsed a plan to retrofit Boardman with upgraded technology that would reduce its emissions by 80 percent.

But the plan is also estimated to cost PGE as much as $600 million, while pushing electricity rates up between 3 percent and 4 percent by 2018.

While PGE could have chosen to close down the Boardman plant, it is instead electing to install the retrofits, retaining the lower-cost baseload power at least through 2040.

It will meet new demand with as much as 500 megawatts of baseload capacity from a new natural gas plant to be in service by 2015 — a comparatively cleaner fuel source, but one that is often at risk of volatile price fluctuations.

PGE anticipates that its customers’ demand for electricity will increase by an average of 2.3 percent per year, or 20 percent by 2020.

In addition to Boardman and the new natural gas plants, it is calling for adding another 122 mw of renewable energy on top of the 550 mw it will have in its portfolio by the end of 2010. It will also seek an increased emphasis on energy efficiency measures, and plans on installing a 500-kilovolt transmission line connecting the southern portion of the utility’s service territory near Salem with the Boardman and Coyote Springs plants near Boardman.

PGE, which has been working on the draft plan for 18 months, is seeking public input on the resource proposal.

More information is available on www.PortlandGeneral.com. Public comments on the plan can be sent by e-mail to PGE.IRP@pgn.com.

Portland Business Journal - http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/08/31/daily57.html

Navy, Snohomish Co. PUD discuss tidal energy projects September 3, 2009

Local residents last week had their first opportunity to ask questions about two renewable-energy pilot projects planned for the waters of Admiralty Inlet.

Officials from the Snohomish County Public Utility District and the Navy discussed their plans to harness tidal energy off Whidbey and Marrowstone islands at an event hosted by the Island County Economic Development Council, the Island County Marine Resources Committee and Rep. Norma Smith, R-Clinton.

The two projects have very different goals.

The Navy’s purpose is to comply with a renewable-energy mandate from Congress with a research project that will end with the removal of the underwater turbines after one year. Snohomish PUD is hoping its exploration of the potential of tidal energy in Admiralty Inlet will lead to a long-term – and lucrative – power-generation project.

“These are the ‘Kitty Hawk’ days of tidal energy,” said Craig Collar, the PUD’s senior energy resource development manager.

The PUD is studying how well the turbines perform, the economic feasibility of tidal power and how the turbines might affect the marine environment.

Snohomish PUD plans to install two turbines made by Ireland-based OpenHydro about 220 feet below the surface about a half-mile southwest of Admiralty Head. At peak performance, each unit is expected to produce about 600 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power about 500 homes.

Collar said the OpenHydro turbine is considered one of the most environmentally friendly designs on the market, as it is lubricated with salt water rather than a petroleum-based product, has a closed-fin design that prevents marine life from being harmed by spinning blades, and at 400 tons, the turbine’s weight anchors it to the sea floor, so no underwater drilling would be required.

“They are designed to be completely removable,” he said.

Island County Commissioner Angie Homola asked Collar how many turbines would be needed to match the approximately 100 megawatts produced by their Henry Jackson Dam facility in Snohomish County’s Sultan River basin.

Collar said the current tidal-energy project involves just two OpenHydro turbines. The PUD would need to install between 150 and 200 turbines to produce the same amount of power generated by the dam, he said.

In an interview after the meeting, Collar said that even if the pilot project yields promising results, he doubted the PUD would install any more than 100 turbines in Admiralty Inlet. And if it did, it would be done gradually, in phases, with the first batch of about 20 turbines installed no sooner than 2019.

“This could never be done any way but incrementally,” he said.

Howard Garrett, president of Orca Network, asked the presenters how much underwater noise the turbines would generate and whether a large number of turbines could slow tidal flow.

Scientists at the University of Washington’s Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center are trying to answer some of those questions.

Brian Polagye, a tidal expert and research assistant professor, said that while the impact of just a few machines would be unnoticeable, models have suggested that 100 machines could slow tidal flow by up to 1 percent.

“That’s measurable, but it’s not clear what the effects will be,” he said.

Another unidentified questioner asked what kind of land-based infrastructure would be needed to support the turbines. Collar said there wouldn’t be much as far as the pilot project is concerned, but if a major build-out takes place, the story might be different. He did not offer specifics.

As for the Navy’s plans, Brian Cable, a mechanical engineer at Naval Facilities Engineering Command, said Navy officials have focused their attention on two locations just off the east shore of Marrowstone Island.

Congress provided $5.6 million for the Navy research project. Research gathered could yield information about tidal energy that could eventually allow some bases to generate their own power.

“Energy independence on a Navy base is a security factor that is important,” Cable said.

The Navy will also be installing a different type of turbine than the OpenHydro design. Instead, they will be using turbines built by U.S. based Verdant Power. Closely resembling wind turbines, Verdant Power’s design uses a tri-frame platform. Like the OpenHydro model, it uses weight to anchor it to the sea floor.

The Navy plans to install two platforms and a total of six turbines that will power one building and the lights in a parking lot at the Navy’s ammunition depot on Indian Island, which is just southeast of Port Townsend. Each turbine supplies up 40 kilowatts of electricity.

Before either pilot project can move forward, the agencies need to complete an extensive permitting process.

The Navy must adhere to the requirements outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act, while Snohomish PUD must obtain federal, state and local permits. Both agencies hope to have their projects under way by 2011.

Justin Burnett, Whidbey Examiner – http://www.whidbeyexaminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=2905&TM=58546.66

NW power panel: Save juice, build fewer plants September 3, 2009

A committee that guides the Bonneville Power Administration has called for buying more compact fluorescent light bulbs and building fewer carbon-emitting power plants in the Pacific Northwest.

The panel said energy efficiency in homes, businesses and factories could offset most of the demand for increased power supplies in the four-state region for two decades.

The plan submitted Thursday by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council said natural gas plants and wind energy could take care of the rest of the demand, and it did not envision new coal-fired plants.

The council said demand is expected to rise at a rate of 1.2 percent a year for the two decades beginning next year.

It said it had identified enough potential in efficient use of power to account for 85 percent of that increased demand.

An aggressive plan for efficiency is the “most cost-effective and least-risky resource available,” the council said in a statement.

“The average cost of the efficiency is half the cost of new power plants,” it said.

The council of eight members from Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington sets policy for the federal Bonneville Power Administration.

Using hydropower and a nuclear plant, the BPA is the region’s largest supplier of electricity, and its executives are required to act consistently with the council’s 20-year plans.

The plans aren’t binding on investor-owned utilities, but “I think you will find that they look at it as a bit of a blueprint,” said Bill Booth of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, chairman of the council.

Conservation groups said the council had exercised leadership in setting high goals for energy efficiency but fallen short of what it could have done: outline a plan to wean the region off coal-fired electricity.

Associated Press – http://www.theolympian.com/northwest/story/959662.html

PGE completes second phase of Ore. wind farm August 21, 2009

Portland General Electric Co. on Thursday said it has completed the second phase of its nearly $1 billion Biglow Canyon Wind Farm in Sherman County.

The Portland-based electric utility (NYSE: POR) said the second phase’s 65 wind turbines — all manufactured by Siemens Energy — are erect and available to supply power to the electricity grid.

CEO Jim Piro said the second phase of the project near Wasco, Ore., finished on time and within budget.

The project’s first $255 million phase was completed in 2007 with 76 turbines and an installed capacity of 125 megawatts of electricity. Phase two brings the project’s total capacity to 275 megawatts. A third phase with 76 turbines is scheduled to be operating next year.

The second and third phases have a combined cost of between $700 million and $800 million.

If the plant were able to generate constantly at capacity, it would be capable of producing 450mw of electricity. But because wind is variable, PGE estimates it will produce an average of 150 mw at any given time, or enough to power about 125,000 of the utility’s average residential customers.

The Biglow Canyon project was developed by Orion Energy LLC, but is being built by PGE, which will also own and operate it. The electrical infrastructure for the project was constructed by Avon, Minn.-based D.H. Blattner and Sons Inc.

Portland Business Journal – http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/08/17/daily51.html

Gov. Schweitzer (Mont.) nixes changes to renewable energy quotas May 9, 2009

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has vetoed two bills that critics say would have weakened state-mandated renewable energy quotas.Senate Bills 257 and 403 both passed the Legislature easily and were supported by some of the state’s major utilities.Schweitzer vetoed the bills late Friday afternoon.

One would have allowed hydroelectric dam upgrades done since 2004 to qualify as renewable energy, a change that opponents said would destroy state requirements to purchase wind or solar energy.

The other is a complex measure that would have made it easier for companies, such as NorthWestern Energy, to meet renewable quotas.

The state’s two leading wind producers, Invenergy and NaturEner USA, recently sent the governor a letter opposing the bills.

Associated Press - http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20090508/NEWS01/90508017/1002

Clean-Energy initiative changes not done yet in Wash. April 18, 2009

OLYMPIA, Wash. Environmentalists will have to reboot their compromise on changes to a voter-approved clean energy initiative, after a deal struck in the Legislature’s waning days fell apart Friday night.

The agreed-to bill would have eased some of the requirements of Initiative 937, which directs utilities with more than 25,000 customers to get 15 percent of their power from new sources like wind or solar by 2020.

But that deal began to fall apart Friday, prompting environmentalist Democrats to scrap their plans and use some legislative maneuvering to keep the compromise bill in play for another possible vote.

“The agreed-upon bill should be approved. I see that as the path forward,” said Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines.

“We have another week of session remaining to work with the House and the Senate to make it more suitable,” said Pearse Edwards, spokesman for Gov. Chris Gregoire.

I-937 was approved by voters in 2006. But Senate Democrats have pushed this year for changes that would give utilities more flexibility.

The compromise plan debated Friday in the House would have given electric utilities some wiggle room to meet the initiative’s green energy requirements, while also raising slightly the final power target in 2020.

But once it became clear that changes to the compromise plan might be approved by the House, a group of environmentalist Democrats unexpectedly lined up with Republicans to add a “poison pill” amendment that allowed vast amounts of hydropower to count toward green-energy targets.

The measure eventually passed the House on a 57-40 vote. But with the bill now amended so drastically, the greens could be assured the Senate and governor won’t go along with the changes.

That means the bill is likely to head to a conference committee, where the House and Senate could restore the agreed-to bill and send it back for a final, yes-or-no vote.

Washington Public Utility Districts Association spokesman Dean Boyer said the compromise bill, while not ideal, still allows utilities some flexibility.

“It opens up alternatives,” he said, in part by letting utilities purchase eligible renewable power from anywhere on the Western power grid, instead of just Northwest states.

Clifford Traisman, a lobbyist for Washington Conservation Voters and the Washington Environmental Council, said environmentalists’ support is tied a separate bill that gives sales tax breaks for renewable energy projects.

“The sales tax exemption is the carrot that has brought this industry to Washington state, and we don’t want to lose that carrot or the industry,” Traisman said Friday.

Even though altering I-937 is “kind of a dicey proposition” for environmentalists, they felt the additional tax breaks would strengthen renewable power development in Washington.

“In balance, it’s a deal that we can live with,” Traisman said.

—

The renewable energy bill is Senate Bill 5840.

—

AP writers Phuong Le in Seattle and Curt Woodward in Olympia contributed to this report.

By RACHEL LA CORTE, TriCity Herald – http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/state/story/547752.html

Wash. House re-Writes voters renewable energy standard April 17, 2009

The House got into a scramble this evening in a floor fight over Initiative 937’s renewable energy standards.

In the end, the House voted on a 57-40 to send Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5840 in a form that, in effect, guts the original initiative, which voters adopted in 2006 by a narrow margin.

The new bill lets all hydropower from dams, which most utilities use as their major power source, to be counted toward utilities’ renewable energy portfolio. Under I-937, utilities were supposed to begin adding new renewable power sources such as wind, solar and energy conservation.

Environmentalists and conservative Republicans teamed up to add the “hydro” language, which House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt of Chehalis offered in an amendment. But a number of Democrats hoping to kill the bill jumped in to vote for the amendment. Their goal: Make the bill totally unacceptable to the Senate and maybe keep it off the governor’s desk.

“We put a poison pill in it,” said Rep. Zack Hudgins, D-Tukwila, who voted for the amendment and then voted against the final bill. “Some people think that’s a poison pill.’’

Democratic Reps. Brendan Williams of Olympia, Hans Dunshee of Snohomish and Dave Upthegrove of Des Moines were among those who voted for the amendment but not the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, is among Democrats who have wanted to revise the initiative, which can be done by a simple majority vote two years after voters pass an initiative into law. In this column, Brown explains her reasons, including concerns about rising costs for consumers and a desire to give utilities some flexibility in meeting goals by buying power from out of state or using hydro.

But environmentalists see the revision of the initiative before its terms take effect in 2012 as an attempt to gut the voter’s goal. See this Olympian story.

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said she doesn’t expect the amended measure to go anywhere in the Senate, which has to concur on any amendments. “Adding the hydro has really gutted the initiative,” she said. “I thought it was a way to kill this bill. … It was a good strategy, if that killed the bill.’’

Hudgins and Dunshee said in floor speeches there should be no hurry to change I-937 because key requirements do not take effect until 2012.

UPDATE: I just got an email from Rep. Williams, in which he expressed “his astonishment” at the House vote to, in effect, repeal the initiative.

“If the Senate concurs, Washington will become the first state to actually repeal renewable energy portfolio standards,” he wrote, noting that he and fellow 22nd district Rep. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, also voted against the bill on final passage. Democratic Rep. Fred Finn of Thurston County also voted against it.

And Sen. Karen Fraser, D-Thurston County, has opposed a rewrite of I-937.

But Republicans from South Sound supported the new bill, including DeBolt, Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Thurston County, and Rep. Jim McCune of Graham; Rep. Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, also voted for the amended bill along with several Pierce County lawmakers.

Kessler said there appeared to be interest from Pierce County in helping Tacoma’s utility meet its portfolio goals with hydro.

Brad Shannon, The Politics Blog, The Olympian - http://www.theolympian.com/politicsblog/story/823590.html

Mont. Gov. signs bill monopolizing renewable development April 17, 2009

Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Thursday signed a bill allowing NorthWestern Energy or other utilities to own a so-called “community renewable energy project.”

House Bill 343, sponsored by Rep. Art Noonan, D-Butte, essentially allows NorthWestern Energy to pursue its own green-energy project to meet state quotas for green-energy sales.

The law says NorthWestern must purchase a minimum amount of green power from community projects by 2012.

Prior law also said community projects must be independently and locally owned, and be no larger than 5 megawatts. It intended to encourage development of small, independent projects across the state, such as small wind farms.

With HB343 becoming law, NorthWestern or other utilities can own a community project, rather than having to buy power from an independent source. The 2009 Legislature also redefined community projects as anything up to 25 megawatts in size.

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/04/17/news/mtregional/news20.txt

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For more on NorthWestern Energy’s renewable energy wrangling check out these previous posts:

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/northwestern-energys-bills-reach-gov-desk-in-mont/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/bill-introduced-in-montana-aimed-at-killing-off-renewable-energy-projects/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/mont-wind-producers-push-bill-to-press-utility-to-incorporate-their-power/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/northwestern-energy-still-trying-to-squash-wind-power-in-mont/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/mont-senate-endorses-renewable-status-for-hydroelectric-dams/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/new-northwestern-energy-bill-could-outlaw-renewable-development-in-mont/

NorthWestern Energy’s bills reach Gov. Desk in Mont. March 25, 2009

The state’s largest electric-and-gas utility is rolling its agenda through the Legislature — an agenda it says will lead to lower energy bills and more “green” power for consumers.

“What we’re trying to do is protect ratepayers from big costs,” says John Fitzpatrick, NorthWestern Energy’s lead lobbyist in the halls of the Capitol. “(And) we’re not looking at any coal. It’s all renewable power.”

Yet critics of the company say NorthWestern’s agenda is more about ensuring it owns the means of power production, which is a new revenue stream for the company, and undercutting competing, independent generators.

“They want to kill any generation capacity that they don’t own,” says Rep. Brady Wiseman, D-Bozeman. “They don’t speak for consumers. They speak for their stockholders.”

Developers of small, independent power projects, particularly wind, also say NorthWestern wants to cut them out of the picture, by changing laws encouraging the purchase of renewable power from these types of projects.

“If they want to be honest about it, they should just seek a repeal of the (renewable-power standards), because that’s what we’ll have in practice if they get their way,” says Suzanne Bessette, a Helena attorney representing small power producers.

Two bills changing Montana’s renewable-power requirements for utilities have passed the Legislature and await Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s signature, and another is before the Senate, having passed the House.

Current law requires NorthWestern to buy a minimum amount of power from small “community” green-power projects by 2010. The two laws that have passed extend the deadline to 2012 and increase the size of projects that would qualify.

The third measure, House Bill 343, says NorthWestern can own the community projects. Together, the three bills would allow NorthWestern to develop or purchase a 25-megawatt renewable project, rather than buying the power from smaller, independent projects. The company says the larger project would produce cheaper power.

Rep. Art Noonan, D-Butte, is sponsoring HB343 and chairing the House Federal Relations, Energy and Telecommunications Committee. He’s supportive of NorthWestern, whose Montana headquarters are in Butte.

Noonan said he wants NorthWestern to be successful in rebuilding itself as a utility that owns its power plants and sells to consumers, like the old Montana Power Co. In the wake of the 1997 deregulation law, MPC sold off its assets and became NorthWestern, which owned no power production and must buy most power on the open market for consumers.

“I would rather have a solid company in Butte that I could look at and regulate, than a thousand little rancher-corporations all owning a few windmills,” he said. “I just won’t apologize in this session for wanting to assist NorthWestern in becoming a strong, viable corporation in our economy.

“I believe that this company wants to provide good, cheap power to the state of Montana and rebuild what once was the glory of Montana Power Co.”

Noonan supports another bill that is bitterly opposed by renewable-power producers.

Senate Bill 403, which faces a vote in Noonan’s committee Wednesday, would allow NorthWestern to get renewable power “credit” by purchasing power from the small producers, but without buying the producers’ green-power credits that certify the purchase.

Fitzpatrick says SB403 would save consumers money, because those credits may cost as much as 50 percent more than the power itself.

Bessette says those numbers are wildly inflated, and even if NorthWestern must buy the credits from her clients, the price for their power would be no more than what the utility’s customers now pay.

Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad and a member of the House Energy Committee, says some of NorthWestern’s initiatives make sense. He says allowing the company to own larger, renewable projects could cut costs for consumers as well as help NorthWestern’s bottom line.

He has voted for most of NorthWestern’s initiatives, but says he worries that the company may make it too difficult for independent projects to provide power to NW customers — power that sometimes may be cheaper than a company development.

“(Their bills) are always framed as being good for the consumer,” he said. “But you have to make sure that when NorthWestern makes that argument, that the consumer interests and shareholder interests really are aligned.”

Fitzpatrick says the more NorthWestern can build its own plants and get them in the “rate base,” which means consumers pay the costs of projects but get first dibs on the power, the more customers will see cheaper costs in the long run.

“The full advantage of rate-basing is you lock in the capital cost over the life of the entity,” he said. “The capital cost of the project remains stable, and it stabilizes rates long-term.”

Wiseman says that argument doesn’t apply to every project, and that NorthWestern wants to squash anything that gets in its way of owning and producing as much generation as possible.

“We voted to let them own generation (in 2007), but we did not vote to give them the power to squeeze everybody else out, which is what they’re doing,” he said. “They’ve got everything they’ve asked for. They’ve rolled us on everything.”

By MIKE DENNISON, IR State Bureau – http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/03/25/state/80st_090325_energy.txt

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Below are links from previous NW Renewable News posts related to Northwestern Energy’s and their ‘campaign’ to destroy small/medium scale renewable energy development in Montana:

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/bill-introduced-in-montana-aimed-at-killing-off-renewable-energy-projects/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/mont-wind-producers-push-bill-to-press-utility-to-incorporate-their-power/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/northwestern-energy-still-trying-to-squash-wind-power-in-mont/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/mont-senate-endorses-renewable-status-for-hydroelectric-dams/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/new-northwestern-energy-bill-could-outlaw-renewable-development-in-mont/

Solar Powers Freeway Lights at I-5/I-205 Interchange in Ore. March 25, 2009

The nation’s first solar highway installation is up and running in Tualatin. The solar photovoltaic demonstration project is a collaboration between Portland General Electric, US Bank and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

The $1.3 million project helps light the Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 interchange in Tualatin. The project also provides PGE with data on how well such a generation site can perform in its service area.

The 104-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system covers about 8,000 square feet and is about the length of two football fields.

It is producing about 112,000 kilowatt hours a year, or 28 percent of the 400,000 kilowatt hours used to light the interchange.

The solar panels produce electricity during the day, supplying power onto the PGE grid, and PGE returns an equivalent amount of power at night to light the interchange.

SolarWorld AG of Hillsboro supplied the solar panels, and PV Powered of Bend supplied the inverter that converts the solar power for use on PGE’s grid.

For more information about the project, go to: www.oregonsolarhighway.com.

The Register Guard - http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/business/10331261-41/story.csp

Regulators rethinking Idaho Power’s green tag strategy March 16, 2009

State utility regulators say they will reconsider an order allowing Idaho Power Co., to hold on to its renewable energy credits.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission announced the decision Monday after some of the utility’s biggest industrial customers filed objections. Those customers say Idaho Power should sell the so-called green tags and use the proceeds to benefit customers.

The commission ruled in January that Idaho Power could hold on to the credits, valued late last year at $1.9 million.

Idaho Power is awarded the credits annually for the renewable power generated at its geothermal power plant in southern Idaho and its wind farm in eastern Oregon.

The utility sought to hold on to the credits to help offset future state or federal mandates requiring utilities to expand renewable energy portfolios.

The Associated Press – http://www.theolympian.com/northwest/story/789331.html

New NorthWestern Energy Bill may crush Renewable development in Mont. March 15, 2009

Transforming Montana’s renewable energy law is the focus of two bills before lawmakers that have utilities lining up to counter claims that the changes will stall renewable project development in the state.

Senate Bill 403 aims to soften Montana’s renewable portfolio requirements for utilities. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Kelly Gebhardt, R-Roundup, is stoking deep-seated rancor between NorthWestern Energy and small power producers, with both sides claiming the other seeks unfair benefits.

At issue is an existing Montana law that requires public utilities to buy an increasing amount of electricity from renewable sources, such as wind, solar or geothermal, stopping at a cap of 15 percent in 2015.

The battle being pitched between the utilities and small wind developers, such as Horseshoe Bend Wind Park near Great Falls, is playing out over what are known as renewable energy credits — often called RECs or ‘wrecks’ — which are certificates granted to developers for each megawatt of clean power generated.

To meet state rules, NorthWestern Energy and other utilities must purchase these RECs from developers in amounts matching the renewable energy they acquire to meet mandated portfolio requirements. They can also meet state standards just by buying RECs.

But under Gebhardt’s proposed measure, which has already passed the Senate, they could use renewable energy purchases alone to satisfy their quotas.

“The bill the way it’s written lets NorthWestern Energy take credit for the RECs that belong to the developers without paying for them and basically taints them in the process,” said Bill Pascoe, spokesman for Horseshoe Bend, during a Friday House committee hearing for the bill.

RECs can be sold in regional markets, but their popularity turns on confidence in their value. Opponents, including Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, say the proposed change to the state’s 2005 renewables law would erode the value of Montana RECs, since the credits could be tied to energy that has already been used by someone to meet portfolio requirements.

“Our concern is that by basically double-counting the RECs for both in-state use and out-of-state use you compromise the value of the REC,” said Paul Cartwright, energy adviser for the governor.

NorthWestern Energy, however, argues that a different kind of doubling up is going on.

“Essentially there is a double dipping,” said John Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the electric company. “The utility has to buy the qualifying facility power and then it has to buy the equivalent power to meet the renewable standard.”

Under federal law, NorthWestern and other utilities are required to purchase power from small renewable power producers, also known as qualifying facilities.

Since those purchases already required by the federal law cannot be used to meet the state standards, Fitzpatrick said, rate-payers are stuck holding a check of about $13.3 million a year. Under Gebhardt’s measure, the utility would be able to tally those purchases against the state quota.

“If this bill is defeated, those of you who vote against it can go out and say to your constituents ‘I voted for a lot higher rates for you’,” Fitzpatrick told the members of the House Federal Relations, Energy and Telecommunications Committee.

Along with changing the quota standards, lawmakers in the same committee are considering allowing hydroelectric dam upgrades to generate the same renewable energy credits as wind or solar energy.

Under Senate Bill 257, those credits would be available for upgrades completed since the end of 2004, including those at Kerr Dam southwest of Polson, and could be used by PPL Montana to meet its state-mandated renewable purchases.

“What could be more environmentally friendly than an upgrade at an existing facility that poses no environmental impacts?” David Hoffmann, spokesman for PPL said to the committee. A portion of the RECs generated — 22 percent — would also be donated to the low-income energy assistance fund by the utility.

But opponents argue that the measure sponsored by Sen. Jim Keane, D-Butte, sets unfair rules for doling out the credits, even if hydroelectric should be included on the state’s renewables list. Since it would grant RECs for all of the power generated post-upgrade by a dam, instead of just the power associated with the upgrade, they say it would flood the state’s REC market.

“Passing this bill could very well mean that not a single additional new megawatt of renewable energy could be built in Montana,” said Chuck Magraw, of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

According to the governor’s office, if the state’s renewable portfolio standards were left alone, they would generate demand for about 11,000 credits between now and 2014, but under the change proposed by Senate Bill 257, roughly 600,000 new RECs would be created immediately, all belonging to PPL Montana.

Both Senate Bills 403 and 257 have passed the Senate. If they pass out of the House energy committee, they will move to the full House for consideration.

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Below are links from previous NW Renewable News posts related to Northwestern Energy’s and their ‘campaign’ to destroy renewable energy development in Montana:

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/bill-introduced-in-montana-aimed-at-killing-off-renewable-energy-projects/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/mont-wind-producers-push-bill-to-press-utility-to-incorporate-their-power/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/northwestern-energy-still-trying-to-squash-wind-power-in-mont/

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/mont-senate-endorses-renewable-status-for-hydroelectric-dams/

Puget Sound Energy plans wind farm in Idaho March 13, 2009

The company looking to create wind farms in Garfield County takes another step forward. Puget Sound Energy has signed a lease to open an office in Pomeroy.

PSE expects to occupy the office space, formerly used by the Associated Agency Group, later this spring. The facility is being refurbished in part with support from local Pomeroy businesses including Herres Enterprises LLC as general contractor and Flynn’s Electric, LLC as electrical subcontractor.

The company already has an office in Dayton.

The move is to help facilitate what is being called the Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project. The new office will oversee project planning, permitting and community relations in support of the project.

Last month the Southeast Washington Economic Development Association and Pomeroy Chamber of Commerce hosted am open house to talk about wind potential in the area.

PSE officials said the new office in Pomeroy will create new “green” jobs. The company already has a wind farm in Columbia County, the Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility.

The project proposed for Garfield County calls for approximately 800 Megawatts of wind energy generated by approximately 444 wind turbines.

“PSE’s new Pomeroy office is what ‘green jobs’ are all about, with Garfield County being at the forefront of greater energy independence for America and new economic opportunities,” said Stephanie Newberg, president of the Pomeroy Chamber of Commerce. “Opening an office, hiring people and producing clean energy are all good for the community, local businesses and the environment.”

“This is an exciting time for PSE and Pomeroy, with wind projects bringing a new source of income that is a great fit with agriculture,” said Jay Takemura, the utility’s newly named Project Coordinator. “As a long-time farmer myself, I know how important the revenue from wind power will be to local families and businesses, and how that cash-flow will help the community as a whole.”

Takemura will manage the utility’s Pomeroy office, and expects to be hiring an office assistant. Additionally, the office will be the workplace for other employees of PSE and of RES Americas involved in the Lower Snake River project.

In February 2009, the Southeast Washington Economic Development Association and Pomeroy Chamber of Commerce held a wind energy open house at the Pomeroy High School attended by some 150 area residents interested in learning about the economic impact of wind power.

The Lower Snake River project is designed to be built in phases, with construction on support infrastructure targeted to begin in 2010.

KlewTV.com – http://www.klewtv.com/news/local/41120167.html

PGE Succesfully Raises Funds for Wind Farm Expansion March 12, 2009

It only took Portland General Electric a week to raise $175.9 million.

The Portland-based electric utility (NYSE: POR) on Wednesday announced that it had completed its public offering of 12.4775 million shares of common stock at $14.10 per share. That included a 30-day option given to underwriters to buy up to an additional 1.6275 million shares to cover any over-allotments, all of which was exercised in full, the company said.

PGE announced March 4 that it would issue the shares. It set the price two days later.

Gross proceeds of the offering reached $175.9 million before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses.

The money will be used to repay most of its outstanding short-term debt and finance capital projects, such as the Biglow Canyon Wind Farm in Sherman County. The company had $203 million in short-term debt and $142 million in long-term debt as of Dec. 31, according to a regulatory filing. It has more than $5 billion in assets.

“We’re pursuing investment opportunities that support our core, vertically-integrated utility business and help meet the growing energy needs of our customers,” CEO Jim Piro said in a news release. “The economic environment is challenging and there is considerable uncertainty with respect to the capital markets. This equity issuance helps to ensure that we can continue our capital programs and maintain our strong credit ratings.”

PGE shares closed Wednesday down 2.5 percent to $16.41 per share. They rose slightly to $16.55 per share in after-hours trading.

Portland Business Journal – http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/03/09/daily30.html

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Click the link below for a previous NW Renewable News post on this subject:

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/pge-raising-cash-for-wind-farm-expansion/

PGE raising cash for wind farm expansion March 5, 2009

If you can avoid it, you don’t go to the floundering equity markets right now to raise capital.

But Portland General Electric Co. needs the cash to fund the expansion of a wind farm. And after watching its share price dip to an all-time low on Wednesday, the state’s largest electric utility announced plans to issue 10.85 million new shares of its common stock.

PGE also expects to grant its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.6275 million shares to cover any over-allotments.

The company said the proceeds would be used to reduce short term debt and fund the ongoing expansion of its Biglow Canyon wind farm in Sherman County. It expects to price the transaction tomorrow.

Depending on the size of the overallotment, the offering will expand PGE’s share base by between 17 and 20 percent, substantially diluting the company’s current share owners at a time when they have already seen the value of the company’s stock plummet by more than 40 percent since the beginning of September.

PGE’s shares finished regular trading Wednesday at 15.21, up 21 cents. But the stock dropped 9 percent to $13.79 in after-hours trading as investors discounted the dilution from the share offering.

At $13.79, PGE’s stock is trading at a 36 percent discount to its book value of $21.64 per share, which is a measure of the companies net asset value. Many companies are in similar situations as investors batter their share prices, but it makes an inopportune time to raise money.

PGE chief executive Jim Piro said its impossible to time the market, and given that the company had just announced its fourth quarter earnings and telegraphed its intention to issue shares, the timing was as good as could be expected.

“Given that economic times could get worse or better, we felt like this was the right time to go and pulled the trigger,” Piro said.

PGE has a capital expenditure plan of some $720 million this year, the largest in the company’s history, Piro said. The Biglow Canyon wind farm expansion will cost $750 million over the next two years, as PGE pushes to meet the state’s new renewable energy mandates.

PGE will fund a portion of those capital needs internally, but it also plans to issue additional debt this year. The company sold $130 million in bonds earlier this year, and intend to issue another $170 million in the second or third quarter depending on market conditions.

Piro said the company had adequate cash flow to continue paying its quarterly dividend of 24.5 cent per share.

PGE said the offering would be jointly managed by J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., Barclays Capital Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC.

Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/03/pge_raising_cash_for_wind_farm.html

NorthWestern Energy still trying to squash Wind Power in Mont. February 22, 2009

Named after the tiny community in Northcentral Montana, the company specializes in small wind projects. Really small. The amount of electricity one of Two Dot’s wind farms produces is comparable to what a single large house uses in a year.

But small wind producers are facing big problems in Montana, Dogerom says, having to do with a big company – NorthWestern Energy.

The utility is required by federal law to buy electricity from providers like Two Dot Wind, but has some freedom when it comes to negotiating the terms of those sales. While the Public Service Commission mediates the negotiations, small companies like Two Dot Wind “are just getting stomped on,” Dogerom said, being forced into contracts that unfairly squeeze Two Dot’s bottom line. Or, in some cases, they are not getting contracts at all.

It seems NorthWestern doesn’t want their wind, he said.

Now, Dogerom is lobbying for lawmakers to find a fix for the problem. He has an ally in Rep. Brady Wiseman, a Bozeman Democrat who is sponsoring a couple of pieces of legislation that would ramp up small-scale energy production in the state.

Dogerom also has an ally in Public Service Commissioner John Vincent of Gallatin Gateway, who wants to know why there isn’t more wind being harnessed in Montana.

But he has one serious adversary: NorthWestern Energy, which is pushing back against legislative efforts to bolster small-scale energy production.

Which side wins will have serious implications for the profile of Montana’s energy future.

The bills

Wiseman is sponsoring two bills that would expand small-scale energy production in the state of Montana.

One would allow local governments to give residents loans for energy-efficiency improvements, including the addition of solar panels and wind turbines.

The other bill is aimed at helping out wind producers like Dogerom by having the government set a fixed price for how much the utility will pay for electricity generated by small producers.

Wiseman pitches the bills as steps toward giving Montana ownership of its power.

“It’s what people expect,” Wiseman said. “Because it is renewable and because it is distributed, not just in generation, but in ownership. We the people are going to have access to owning our own power generation.”

The lobby

John Fitzpatrick is NorthWestern Energy’s executive director of government affairs in Helena, and he is lobbying against both of Wiseman’s bills.

Wiseman’s loan idea, Fitzpatrick said, highlights the problem with small-scale production: It’s not economical for the average homeowner.

“Small-scale electric generation technology is not cost effective,” he said. “When individuals install it, it either has to be subsidized by the government or by the utility, or the individual has to be sufficiently wealthy to afford payback as long as 50 years.”

And he doesn’t mince words when describing Two Dot’s product.

“If this was a quality electric product, it should be able to be sold into the market to utility buyers. It is not quality electricity, so the utility is forced to buy it,” he said this week in an interview in the Capitol.

Both state and federal law require utilities like NorthWestern to buy power from small “qualified facilities” that produce renewable energy. That regulation is burdensome enough, Fitzpatrick said.

The problem with “QF” juice is that it is more expensive, he said. One of the reasons is the cost of keeping the electric grid stable as wind generators fire up and slow down with the gusts.

Every time NorthWestern buys “QF” power, it eats part of the extra cost and passes the rest onto its customers. Firtzgerald, who carries a photocopy of his own home energy bill to prove his point, said the extra cost to him in December was $2.39. Over the year, that surcharge n the difference between the price of “qualified” electricity and market price n costs Montanans more than $14 million.

So, when NorthWestern goes into negotiations with QF suppliers, it demands a price that won’t hurt customers, Fitzpatrick said.

Wiseman’s bill would make it so they can’t even do that, he said.

“Customers want cheap electricity. They want it there on a reliable basis,” he said.

Furthermore, Fitzpatrick said, the 2007 Legislature told the energy company to start producing its own electricity at a large scale, not to start buying piecemeal from tiny wind farms. (When Montana Power Co. was deregulated in the 1990s, it sold off its energy production assets; NorthWestern Energy is the restructured Montana Power).

The way to return Montana to the low prices it enjoyed before deregulation, Fitzpatrick said, is to move forward with large-scale projects, not subsidized small ones.

“A small group of legislators is trying to promote politically correct supply contracts to the detriment of the state policy that looks forward to a vertically integrated system,” he said.

The questions

Proponents of the Wiseman’s bills say NorthWestern isn’t being forthright with why it opposes the legislation.

Suzanne Bessette, a lobbyist for small wind producers like Two Dot, said what people’s energy bills don’t show is how much individual “qualified” producers are selling their energy for. Older contracts are expensive for the customer, but new contracts like the one Two Dot finally got from NorthWestern are on par with other sources of power.

As for stability concerns, Fitzpatrick is exaggerating the problem, Dogerom saidd. One of Two Dot’s projects puts as much power on the grid as a large house takes off it.

But to accept these critics’ arguments demands alternative motives for NorthWestern’s opposition to small-source energy production.

Vincent suggests NorthWestern is just bad at wind.

While the state is fifth in wind potential, it is 16th in how much wind energy is actually produced. The other two states where NorthWestern operations, Nebraska and South Dakota, also have far more wind potential than what is harnessed. Nebraska is sixth in potential and 18th in production. South Dakota is fourth in potential and 22nd in production.

“Something doesn’t pass the smell test here,” Vincent said.

But Wiseman says NorthWestern Energy’s opposition is less about wind energy and more about who is producing it.

“They will forbid anybody having energy production,” he said. “They are using all their political clout to stop distribution of energy they don’t run.”

Whatever the reason, for now, small energy producers are slow to get onto the grid. There are 45 contracts pending between small producers and NorthWestern Energy.

Dogerom said he doesn’t expect the bill to help the small producers to pass, but said he and the others had to do something.

“We had to introduce HB 491. We don’t think it’s going to pass, but we’re just getting stomped on,” he said.

Daniel Person, Bozeman Daily Chronicle – http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2009/02/22/news/70econ%20ii.txt