Category Archives: Wind

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Protesters : “Don’t Put the Brakes on Solar”

Today outside the Arizona Corporation Commission, environmentalists, faith organizations and business leaders from around the state gathered in opposition to major cuts in solar power and spoke out against a proposal set forth by Commissioner Gary Pierce that would reduce the state’s renewable energy standard.

Solar Rooftop installation, Arizona State University

Solar Rooftop installation, Arizona State University

“Arizona should be the solar capital of the world,” stated Katie Radosevic, Field Associate with Environment Arizona. “Arizonans know it, the governor knows it, but it doesn’t seem like the Corporation Commissioners are getting the message. We are disappointed with the recent cuts to key solar programs and ask the commission to reverse their decision and move forward on a plan to build more solar roofs, not less.”

This business is creating many local, well-paid jobs, but now, all of it may be in jeopardy. Deals we had in place no longer work.”

The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) is a five member, publicly elected body that regulates the state’s investor-owned utility companies.

Last week, the ACC voted to eliminate commercial solar incentives for Arizona Public Service (APS) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) customers – a program that had encouraged businesses to go solar. The Commission also voted to drastically reduce residential solar incentives, making it tougher for homeowners to put solar up on their roofs.

“Now is not the time to put the brakes on solar,” said Randy Dunton of the Hawkins Design Group, a Mesa-based commercial solar company. “This business is creating many local, well-paid jobs, but now, all of it may be in jeopardy. Deals we had in place no longer work.”

The amendment to cut these programs, submitted by Commissioner Pierce, was introduced the morning of the open meeting exactly one week ago today and voted on during that same day – leaving solar advocates little time to analyze or defend against the decision. Commissioner Pierce also introduced an amendment that effectively reduces Arizona’s renewable energy standard (RES) by allowing APS and TEP to apply the standard to less of their total energy.

Jennifer Martin from Arizona Interfaith Power and Light said, “We are deeply concerned about Commissioner Pierce’s proposal to reduce Arizona’s Renewable Energy Standard by excluding electricity sales to large retail customers. Our state has unparalleled capacity to generate solar power, which would contribute to our national security by reducing dependence on foreign oil, boost Arizona’s economy and contribute to the well-being of the planet for generations to come.”

Environment Arizona has been working toward a goal of 250,000 solar roofs in Arizona by 2020, which would allow for 10% of Arizona’s power to come from solar rooftops.

“Solar is the present and future for Arizona,” concluded Radosevic. “We should be powering our homes, cars and businesses with this clean and virtually limitless energy. As the nation’s sunniest state, we should be harnessing this great potential, not falling further behind.”

[Note from the editor: I’m recuperating from a trip to the dentist so the information above is taken verbatim from a press release issued by Environment Arizona.]

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Arizona Solar Advocates to Protest Renewable Energy Cuts

Arizona solar supporters will rally tomorrow, January 30th, in front of the Arizona Corporation Commission headquarters to oppose cuts to state renewable energy programs made by the ACC.

Katie Radosevic, an organizer with Environment Arizona, one of the event sponsors, hopes the rally will draw attention to recent actions by the ACC, including a cut made last week to Arizona’s commercial solar program.

“That was bad enough,” says Radosevic. “But now they’re planning on lowering Arizona’s renewable energy standard. Arizona should be the nation’s solar leader, but we won’t be if the ACC cuts the programs that have built the industry in Arizona.”

The rally will begin at 9 AM at 1200 West Washington Street (two blocks east of the State Capitol Building). After the rally, the ACC will have a regularly scheduled meeting that is open to the public.

Speakers at the rally will include:

 

 

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Germany’s renewable energy problems - brought to you by Big Oil

Perhaps we should thank Canada’s Financial Post newspaper. The media’s Whack-a-Mole attacks on Germany’s ambitious renewable energy program are usually passed off as objective reporting, analysis sans bias.

At least the piece below sports red flags all over the page.

FinancialPost

Note the rectangular banner with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers‘ (CAPP) logo and the tagline: Energy at work for all Canadians. This, and other similar ads along the right border, feature the quote, “The oil sands are tremendous for Ontario.”

You’ll find an even more telling (if much smaller) note in the page’s ENERGY section heading, where the fine print indicates that the page is brought to you “in association with” CAPP.

Well, now. According to a recent study, the Canadian oil sands program is one of the most dangerous fossil-fuel projects currently being planned, primarily because of the 420 tons of CO2 that oil sand-combustion would pump into the atmosphere.

To be fair, the article under the headline “Germany grapples with switch to renewables,” comes from Reuters news service. Still, the piece contains several errors about the German energy program, mistakes that are common in the Schlagen-ein-Maulwurf genre.

  • “Renewables are currently not competitive against conventional forms of energy…” Renewables are already competitive with electricity produced by coal, natural gas or nuclear power in many areas. And the price of power produced by renewables continues to drop, even as the price of fossil-fuel and nuclear power rises.
  • “Subsidies mean renewable technologies have not necessarily been installed in the most efficient places…” A lot to unpack here. For starters, the German energy transition, or Energiewende, is not based on subsidies. On the contrary, the author of the German Renewable Energy Act, Hans-Josef Fell, told me in an interview last April that subsidies would have doomed the project.

“Money to pay [for renewable energy] must come from electricity consumers,” said Fell. “It must not come from the government. If you pay it with tax money, when the [Energiewende] is successful you need a lot of money and the finance minister will say, ‘Oh, my budget!’ and he will have no money for you. No public budget is high enough to finance the transition to renewable energies. Only private money can do this.” (From Clean Break)

The mechanism used, the Feed-in Tariff, pays producers of renewable energy a premium only for the power actually produced and sent onto the grid. Renewable power generators located in sub-optimal locations are money-losers. People want to make money, so they work to maximize electrical production.

  • The situation in Germany “is getting ever nearer to destroying the business model of companies meant to invest in renewables, namely the big sector leaders…” So very, very wrong. One of the key goals of the German Energiewende is to increase distributed generation of electricity by individuals, small groups, and cooperatives. Which is why over 50 percent of renewable power production is in the hands of citizens. Sure, the “big sector leaders” (read: giant utilities) aren’t happy with these changes. But millions of Germans are smiling.

It is true that the German energy transition faces many challenges. Its leaders understand that.

But the project has already cleared many hurdles on its way to becoming the most successful program of its kind on the planet. And, for all its real problems (as opposed to the specious ones raised by the fossil-fuel industry), the German energy program is succeeding.

For more, read Misreporting of Energiewende, by Craig Morris.