Why should a city seeking 100% renewable energy focus on local generation? ILSR’s Director of Energy Democracy, John Farrell, provided a short presentation to a University of Minnesota forum in Rochester, MN, with three reasons to buy energy locally.
In March, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Community Power released a video that tells Minnesotans the truth about the bill Xcel is attempting to jam through the Legislature. The video is being released ahead of the impending Senate Energy Committee hearing where members will vote on the bill Xcel drafted to give itself a blank check for upkeep costs of its Prairie Island nuclear plant.
Sprouting from southeastern Minnesota farm country, the city of Rochester is an unassuming mini-metropolis best known for its world-famous Mayo Clinic. But the city is also home to the state’s largest municipal utility and an ambitious plan to ramp up renewable generation.
In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews John Farrell, the director of our Energy Democracy initiative about the concept of energy democracy and about his latest report, Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy?
On June 17, John Farrell delivered a keynote address to the annual Midwest Energy Fair in Custer, Wisconsin. In this presentation, John detailed the growth of renewable energy and how new technologies and smart policies can lead to the downfall of the monopoly electric utility.
Originally published on Cost of Solar. When it comes to residential solar, we live in exciting times, as the price of solar panels keeps dropping, while other energy costs keep rising, and advances in solar technology are increasing panel efficiencies all the time. Given that we don’t often see a … [continued]
Originally published on Renew Economy. By Sophie Vorrath How did solar get to where it is today? And how will the solar future pan out? John Farrell at the Institute for Self-Reliant States has written a neat history of solar economics which, along with some interesting charts, illustrates that a key part … [continued]
Originally published on PV Solar Report. By Rosana Francescato Solar advocates around the country express varying views on the Value of Solar Tariff. Being proposed as an alternative to net metering, the policy has its pros and cons — but some worry that it imposes a tax on solar customers … [continued]
In this week’s TalkSolar/CleanTechnica podcast, Beth Bond chatted with John Farrell, Director of Democratic Energy at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Regular readers are very familiar with John’s work, as he has been contributing on CleanTechnica since 2011. Nonetheless, it was great listening to John talk about distributed renewable energy benefits, net metering, … [continued]
Roger Willhite recently started up the Disruption! solar energy podcast on Second Silicon. He has been interviewing quite a selection of solar rock stars, such as: Billy Parish of Mosaic Danny Kennedy of Sungevity and SfunCube Bob Tregilus of This Week in Energy and Plug In America Felix Krause of Milk The Sun … [continued]
