Under the auspices of the India Smart Grid Forum, the think tank founded as an umbrella organization over India’s 28 state utilities to provide thought leadership, share leading practices, and bring international insights to India, I’m delivering bi-weekly webinars framed by the Short List of Climate Actions That Will Work. With the … [continued]
So how do we get climate-friendly utilities? @xcelenergy is a leader among industry peers, but it was the visionary citizens and legislators in its markets who took the risk, made the map, built the roads, and gave them a push.
We’re inspired by the passage of the Portland Clean Energy Initiative this week, a ballot measure that will now provide $30 million per year for the city’s clean energy and climate work. Even better, the funds will target local energy deployment that lifts up low-income folks and people of color with energy savings and solar energy, as well as jobs installing these cost-saving measures.
Utility companies are undercutting state regulation with their legislative lobbyists. And utilities are also bringing their monopoly market power to bear in previously competitive markets.
We’ll detail examples of each of these three disturbing trends, and ways to fight back.
As state regulators restricted the ability of home and business owners in Nevada to receive sufficient compensation for solar on their rooftops, some large companies started looking towards other options.
On July 9th, John Farrell, Director of ILSR’s Energy Democracy Initiative, spoke to a group at the CommonBound 2016 Conference. The conference brought hundreds of leaders together to share “visionary strategies for achieving deep systemic change” in areas such as energy policy and economic justice.
In November 2015, Jon Wellinghoff, former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, spoke to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission about the grid of the future. In particular, he addressed the issue of giving customers meaningful choices within a monopoly grid model, present in Minnesota and 34 other states.
Incentives designed to make rooftop solar feasible for a wider range of consumers are under attack nationwide, threatening new solar development as well as the consumers that already have rooftop panels. The staunchest opponents? Utilities which say, despite a growing body of research to the contrary, that rooftop solar hurts other ratepayers and their bottom lines.
For the first time, anyone with an electric bill can subscribe to nationwide community solar and get solar credits deducted from their utility bill. Arcadia Power has rolled out the first nationwide community solar plan, regardless of where your electricity comes from, and which utility provides it.
Ten years ago, a North Dakota cooperative stopped charging customers a premium for getting energy from the wind, because they found it wasn’t costing anything extra. The cooperative, like many utilities, used a “green pricing” program that allowed customers to voluntarily pay more to get their energy solely from renewable resources.
