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SMUD Offers Unusual Feed-in Tariff; But Not as Good as Gainesville's

August 17, 2009 By 9 Comments
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The limit of 1.5 MW on project size in the California FIT has hampered development, cutting into the economies of scale needed. The SMUD program makes no differentiation between technologies, size, application, or resource intensity, but does pay more for greener power.

SMUD FIT summary:

Program Cap: 100 MW

Project Cap: 5 MW

Contract Terms: 10, 15, 20 years

Time Differentiated Tariffs

No Technology Differentiation

Tariffs based on avoided cost, value-based tariffs

Effective January, 2010

Applications available November, 2009

Includes tariffs for Combined Heat & Power

SMUD is trying to move the policy needle in California, according to Craig Lewis, a founding member of the California FIT Coalition. “The fact that SMUD raised the project size limit to 5MW is indicative that they believe distributed generation projects can be seamlessly integrated into the distribution grid in California,” says Lewis.

SMUD’s much larger target:

With an overall ceiling of 100 MW and project limits up to 5 MW; SMUD’s ambitious program scales to a statewide equivalent of roughly 3,000 MW – providing an informative example for the California legislature and the PUC. Currently California’s FIT for 36 million customers is under 500 MW. SMUD serves only 1.4 million but offers a program ceiling of 100 MW.

In a recent NREL analysis of the both the new SMUD and California feed-in tariff, Toby Couture of E3Analytics cites the uncertainty of financial return relative to European FIT policy design.

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Filed Under: Carbon Emissions, Clean Energy, Fossil Fuels Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
About Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, Earthtechling, and GreenProphet and has been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow and Scientific American.

As a former serial entrepreneur in product design she brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention: solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. 

Follow Susan @dotcommodity on twitter.

  • Percy Gordon

    Kevin,

    I think it is time you disclosed your financial stake in these matters. I have noticed your trolling on every FIT I have come across in my news research.

    Percy Gordon

  • Percy Gordon

    Kevin,

    I think it is time you disclosed your financial stake in these matters. I have noticed your trolling on every FIT I have come across in my news research.

    Percy Gordon

  • Pingback: Hawaii Follows California with a Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff : CleanTechnica

  • http://greenoptions.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer

    @Kevin: Do tell. What do you know? I take it you tried to work under it. Are you a solar installer or a homeowner – or in what capacity did you experience this? Tell us the problem.

  • http://greenoptions.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer

    @Kevin: Do tell. What do you know? I take it you tried to work under it. Are you a solar installer or a homeowner – or in what capacity did you experience this? Tell us the problem.

  • Kevin Murphy

    I don’t understand what makes you think there is anything good about the Gainesville Feed in Tariff. It is one of the most mismanaged incentives in the US. Ed Regan should lose his job and the Cty Commissioners who allowed him to ruin the potential the program had should be fired as well. Don’t try to talk about Gainesville having a good program if you have never tried to work under it.

  • Kevin Murphy

    I don’t understand what makes you think there is anything good about the Gainesville Feed in Tariff. It is one of the most mismanaged incentives in the US. Ed Regan should lose his job and the Cty Commissioners who allowed him to ruin the potential the program had should be fired as well. Don’t try to talk about Gainesville having a good program if you have never tried to work under it.

  • http://recycled-energy.com miggs

    Nice little plug for CHP there. Whether it’s technically renewable is less important than the main issue: it’s clean. I’m associated with Recycled Energy Development, which does this work. And the potential nationwide is truly massive: an estimated 20% reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions available RIGHT NOW if we did more CHP and its sister technology, waste energy recovery. Meanwhile, costs would fall due to increased efficiency. We should be doing a lot more of this!

  • http://recycled-energy.com miggs

    Nice little plug for CHP there. Whether it’s technically renewable is less important than the main issue: it’s clean. I’m associated with Recycled Energy Development, which does this work. And the potential nationwide is truly massive: an estimated 20% reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions available RIGHT NOW if we did more CHP and its sister technology, waste energy recovery. Meanwhile, costs would fall due to increased efficiency. We should be doing a lot more of this!

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