Commentary: How Wisconsin regulators ‘tax’ renewable energy

Friday, December 07, 2012

Michael Vickerman's commentary in Midwest Energy News on the recent changes in WI renewable energy. Find the original post here.

Commentary: How Wisconsin regulators ‘tax’ renewable energy

RENEW Wisconsin's Michael Vickerman

Starting next January, the price of purchasing renewable energy voluntarily through monthly utility bills will spike to all-time highs, thanks to recent decisions rendered by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW) on two popular “green pricing” programs.

The thousands of Madison Gas & Electric (MGE) customers participating in the utility’s Green Power Tomorrow program will see their premiums jump from 2.5 cents/kWh to 4 cents/kWh. That’s an increase of 60 percent. To translate this into dollars and cents, an average MGE customer consuming 500 kWh of electricity per month and subscribing at the 100 percent level will pay $90 more in 2013 for the same amount of renewable kWh sold this year.

Residential customers of Milwaukee-based We Energies (WE) will see an even larger percentage increase next year. In that utility’s rate case, the PSCW jacked up the premium paid by Energy for Tomorrow subscribers by nearly 73 percent, from 1.39 cents to 2.4 cents/kWh. Energy for Tomorrow has more than 20,000 subscribers.

Back in 1999, the year both programs were launched, MGE and WE customers paid an extra 3.33 cents and 2.04 cents/kWh, respectively, for the renewable energy they sponsored. Come January 1st, MGE and WE will likely share the dubious distinction of being the only utilities in the country offering renewable energy at a higher rate than they did in the 1990’s. So much for progress.

Adding insult to injury, renewable program subscribers will be subject to general rate increases approved by the PSCW this November. The utilities sought higher rates to recover the costs of retrofitting older coal-fired power stations with modern pollution controls. The fact that the renewable generators leveraged by program participants will never need pollution control retrofits is wholly disregarded in determining the size of the premium.

This is unquestionably a subsidy that flows from program participants to all ratepayers.

How did this happen?
Since 1999, renewable generation costs have tumbled, while productivity has improved.
A frustrated program subscriber might well ask: If base utility rates are going up, and the cost of renewable electricity is declining, why are premiums going up instead of down?

The short answer is that wholesale electricity prices have sagged in recent years, owing to a combination of unsustainably low natural gas prices, stagnant demand, and rapid expansion of wind power displacing higher-cost generation. In contrast, the price of renewable energy procured under long-term contracts held steady. When prices dropped in the wholesale market beginning in late 2008, the gap between system energy and renewable sources widened.

Though accurate, the above explanation is deeply unsatisfying, because the wholesale “market” is concerned about one thing only: the marginal cost of producing electricity into the grid. Nothing else matters, including the expenditures approved by the PSCW to reduce emissions from older generators. Even though retail customers wind up footing the bill for those upgrades, the wholesale market does not treat pollution control retrofits as marginal costs. Not one cent paid by ratepayers for these expenditures is reflected in the prices that renewable generators compete against.

The net effect of this disconnect is to artificially suppress the price of electricity from older and dirtier generators relative to newer and cleaner electricity producers. Real markets factor in the cost of upgrading and replacing capital equipment that manufacture the product bought by customers. What we have instead is an artificial contrivance that sacrifices long-term considerations like clean air, resource diversity and regulatory risk for the short-term reward of low prices.

Indeed, it would be difficult to design a more punitive market structure for renewables than the one we have at present.

‘Swimming up a waterfall’
Pricing renewable energy against a market operating in real time also undermines a valuable attribute of renewable energy, namely its inherent price stability. In this environment, the only way a customer can directly benefit from a fixed-price energy source like solar is to self-generate at his or her premises to reduce consumption of grid-supplied electricity.

In setting the premium size, the PSCW relied on pricing data at a time when the regional wholesale market was near its cyclical bottom. Electricity prices are now edging upward as forward prices of natural gas have rebounded from historic lows earlier this year. It’s a safe bet that wholesale electricity prices will continue to increase in 2013.

This sets up the very real possibility that WE and MGE will collect more revenue than is necessary to cover the cost spread between system energy and the renewable energy supplies servicing their customers. Unfortunately, the next time the base premium for each utility can be adjusted is January 1, 2015.

For at least a century now, fossil fuels have been the default resource option for most utilities. Against this institutional bias, switching to renewable energy is akin to swimming upstream. But given how far backward the PSCW bent to accommodate utilities’ continued reliance on coal and natural gas, quite a few renewable energy subscribers may balk at the prospect of swimming up a waterfall.

In fairness to MGE and WE, the price hikes approved by the PSCW went well beyond the incremental increases proposed by the two utilities. That’s because the agency relies solely on the wholesale “market” metric described above that filters out all societal benefits from the equation. To the agency, renewables are another source of electrons that deserve no special consideration. And, in reaching its decision, the PSCW disregarded the potential impact that abrupt price hikes might have on customer participation.

Programs outliving their usefulness?
A significant loss in subscribership would be a regrettable outcome if the programs were still viable vehicles for leveraging new sources of renewable energy. Sadly, that is no longer the case.

Earlier this decade, WE and MGE pulled the plug on a popular feature of their programs, specifically the special solar energy buyback rates that were funded with participant dollars. This innovation, which spurred the installation of hundreds of solar electric systems in their territories, succeeded in elevating MGE and WE’s stature while achieving the aims of their participating customers. However, when the utilities eliminated their solar incentives, they also removed the principal rationale for subscribing to their programs.

It seems quite clear that the current crop of voluntary renewable energy programs have outlived their usefulness. They are stagnating under a market structure that distorts and amplifies their true costs as well as a regulatory climate that greatly discounts their benefits to ratepayers. What were once dynamic vehicles for increasing supplies of renewable energy are now little more than feel-good marketing exercises running on autopilot. The value proposition to customers just isn’t there anymore.

There is nothing out there to prevent utilities from revitalizing their green pricing programs and making them useful once again. Such an undertaking, however, would require them to do something they haven’t done before: present an affirmative case for adding more renewables into their energy mix.

To do that effectively, utilities would need to recognize that the fossil energy path leads to a dead-end and that renewables ought to be the default resource option going forward. From that starting point, designing a program in which modest customer premiums actually result in additional supplies of renewable energy should be a simple and straightforward exercise.

It’s the very least a responsible utility should do to reduce the impact of generating electricity on the one planet we are privileged to call home.

Michael Vickerman is program and policy director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization. RENEW Wisconsin is a member of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.

Find the original article post here.

Clean power for all (Offer not available in some areas)

Thursday, October 04, 2012

A great article from Erik Curren from Energy Bulletin. Here is an excerpt:

In this state, you’ll get coal. And you’ll like it too.

Some parts of the United States offer excellent incentives and support to help level the playing field with grid power and make renewables affordable. And this public policy makes all the difference.

California may be #1 in solar, but un-sunny New Jersey is #2. And that’s not because you need to slather on SPF 60 if you’re visiting Newark or Teaneck.

It’s because the Garden State supports solar power through excellent public policy — a combination of a robust renewable portfolio standard (RPS) and the ability for renewable energy companies to enter into power purchase agreements with their customers, allowing a customer to use solar power without having to invest tens of thousands of dollars upfront in solar panels.

Both policies are key to cutting costs for renewables and getting close to the holy grail of “grid parity,” where clean energy from an alternative source costs about as much as dirty power from the electric company.

But with the exception of California, Colorado and a handful of traditionally liberal states in the Northwest and Northeast that have enacted serious policies to support renewable power, the rest of America remains a clean energy backwater. As California solar developer Al Rosen writes in Renewable Energy World,

There’s no solar gold rush or windfall profit. Most solar developers and their projects are struggling. The failure rate is extraordinarily high. Financing and investment is hard to come by. There are few viable programs and they all have small capacity and difficult requirements and limitations. Interconnection processes are highly complex, costly, uncertain, and time consuming. Land use entitlements, environmental approvals, zoning, planning, building and safety issues all add additional barriers to solar development.

Such barriers, which add extra cost to solar power as they do to all renewables, are the reason why the United States, still the world’s largest economy, is lagging behind such nations as Italy, the U.K. and even Indonesia in the amount of electricity we get from renewables.

And even though California is America’s renewable energy leader, the Golden State is still no great shakes in Rosen’s book. “Germany, with the same sunshine as Anchorage, Alaska, installed far more solar in the fourth quarter of 2012 than California has installed in total.”

Again, don’t blame the sun or the wind. America is falling behind on renewables because of politics.

Read the full article here.

We Energies CEO Sees Investment Opportunity in State-Owned Plants

Friday, September 07, 2012

An excerpt of an article from energy writer Thomas Content in the Journal Sentinel.


Acquiring some of Wisconsin's state-owned heating plants could be a "significant investment opportunity" for We Energies, the utility's top executive said.

We Energies CEO Gale Klappa discussed the utility's interest in buying the state facilities during a presentation to Wall Street analysts in New York City this week.

He also discussed the company's transition away from massive engineering and building projects such as new power plants and environmental control systems toward a lower-risk strategy centered on renewing the company's aging utility poles, transformers and natural gas pipelines.

The final "megaproject" is about to be completed, he said. The addition of pollution controls is nearly finished at the original Oak Creek power plant, at a cost of nearly $900 million.

It's the second-biggest project in the company's history, after the construction of the new coal plant in Oak Creek, just to the south of the original plant.

Looking ahead, Klappa said, the utility is considering the purchase of state-owned heating and cooling plants, some of which are under pressure to reduce pollution linked to burning coal.

"That could be a significant investment opportunity for us, and a significant (additional) investment opportunity because of the modern environmental controls, or the conversion from coal to natural gas that would be necessary," Klappa said.

Read more...

India's Blackout Lesson: Coal Failed, Small Solar = Big Results

Monday, August 13, 2012

From a story by Justin Guay, Sierra Club International Program:

Of course they still have to face the problems they have inherited from trying to copy/paste a centralized grid from the West. So what can they do to solve peak problems with the grid they already have in place? Deploy lots and lots of distributed solar and efficiency.

That's because, unlike coal, solar for the most part is available when you need it - during peak hours. Which is why it's great to see States like Gujarat taking the lead in roof top solar programs with the support of the IFC. And efficiency makes the peaks smaller so you need less power in the first place.

The irony here of course is that distributed generation has always been ignored as trivial compared to the real need for a large scale 'modern grid.' That’s because policymakers and commentators lack the imagination to understand the fact that when aggregated, small can be very, very big.

Take the hidden truth behind India's modern grid (as my colleague Jigar Shah points out): it is actually already a distributed system that is largely powered by filthy, costly diesel gen sets. That’s because power outages are so frequent that businesses and wealthy individuals have been forced to pay for this backup generation to ensure power. This is a tremendous opportunity for companies seeking targeted diesel replacement strategies to save people and companies tremendous amounts of money, while providing reliable power.

Only 20, not 200, years of coal; we have to move "so fast" to get to 100% renewables

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Leslie Glustrom is the featured speaker at RENEW's Energy Policy Summit, January 13, Madison. Read the report that she mentions about 11 minutes into the interview. Get details and register for the Summit at the Summit Web page.

Coal’s liabilities to be a focus of RENEW’s Energy Policy Summit, Jan. 13, Madison

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

For immediate release:
January 4, 2012

More information
RENEW Wisconsin
Michael Vickerman
608.255.4044
mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org

Coal’s Liabilities to be a Focus of RENEW’s Energy Policy Summit

Long-considered an inexpensive and reliable fuel source, coal is rapidly becoming the Achilles’ heel of the national electric energy picture, according to Leslie Glustrom, Research Director for Clean Energy Action in Boulder, Colorado. Glustrom will be the featured speaker at the RENEW Energy Policy Summit on January 13, 2012, in Madison.

Clean Energy Action is spearheading a campaign to shut down Colorado’s coal-fired power plants and replace them with locally generated renewable electricity.

In a recent report, Glustrom wrote, “It appears that rather than having a ‘200 year supply of coal,’ the United States has a much shorter planning horizon for moving beyond coal-fired power plants. Depending on the resolution of geologic, economic, legal and transportation constraints facing future coal mine expansion, the planning horizon for moving beyond coal could be as short as 20-30 years.” (1)

“The expectation of less plentiful coal supplies and continued increases in coal prices reinforces the value of expanding our use of energy resources that we have in this state,” said Michael Vickerman, Executive Director of RENEW Wisconsin, a statewide, nonprofit renewable energy advocacy organization.

“People from businesses and households will meet at the RENEW Energy Summit, January 13, to forge an action plan for a renewable energy future that moves us away fuels with serious and well-documented liabilities,” said Vickerman.

The delivered price of coal for Wisconsin generation plants has increased by 17% over the last twelve months of available data, according to Vickerman. (2)

“This upward trajectory will continue this year when current supply contracts expired on December 31. The newer contracts that take effect January 1 of this year are certain to be more costly,” said Vickerman.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that coal consumption fell 2 percent this year and is likely to decline by an even larger 4 percent in 2012. Many observers predict that between 10 and 20 percent of coal-fired power in the United States will be shut down by 2016. (3)

More information on RENEW’s Energy Policy Summit can be found on the RENEW Wisconsin website: http://www.renewwisconsin.org.

- END -

RENEW Wisconsin is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that acts as a catalyst to advance a sustainable energy future through public policy and private sector initiatives. More information on RENEW’s Web site at www.renewwisconsin.org.

References and links

1. Coal: Cheap and Abundant…Or Is It? Why Americans Should Stop Assuming That The U.S. Has a 200-Year Supply of Coal by Leslie Glustrom

2. Energy Information Agency, Electric Power Monthly, Dec. 16, 2011, Table 4.10.A

3. The Coal Age Nears Its End, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 23, 2011

Beyond Coal - Organizing around Renewables, January 13

Monday, December 05, 2011

The RENEW Energy Policy Summit, January 13, 2012, Madison, will feature Leslie Glustrom, a founding member of Clean Energy Action. She is trained as a biochemist and has spent over 30 years working at the interface of science and society in a variety of roles, including science writer, policy analyst, college instructor and research lab manager.

In February 2009 she authored an extensively referenced report on US coal supplies entitled, “Coal—Cheap and Abundant—Or Is It? Why Americans Should Stop Assuming that the US Has a 200-Year Supply of Coal.” The report is available for free download from www.cleanenergyaction.org.

Leslie has traveled extensively and now works with regulatory staff and citizen activists in many states to raise awareness about US coal supply and cost issues.

Leslie is the recent recipient of the Colorado Solar Energy Society President’s Award, the Boulder County Audubon Community Conservation Award, the PLAN Boulder County Gilbert White award and the Colorado Renewable Energy Society Larson-Notari award.

Register here for the Summit.

Bluff collapse at power plant sends dirt, coal ash into lake

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

From an article by Meg Jones and Don Behm in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Oak Creek - A large section of bluff collapsed Monday next to the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant, sending dirt, coal ash and mud cascading into the shoreline next to Lake Michigan and dumping a pickup truck, dredging equipment, soil and other debris into the lake.

There were no injuries, and the incident did not affect power output from the plant.

When the section of bluff collapsed and slid from a terraced area at the top of a hill down to the lake, Oak Creek Acting Fire Chief Tom Rosandich said, it left behind a debris field that stretched 120 yards long and 50 to 80 yards wide at the bottom.

Aerial images show a trailer and storage units holding construction equipment tumbled like Tonka toy trucks and were swept along with the falling bluff in a river of dirt that ended in the water.

"This is definitely a freak accident," U.S. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Brian Dykenssaid.

As a company hired by We Energies began cleanup in Lake Michigan, the utility confirmed that coal ash was part of the debris.

"Based on our land use records it is probable that some of the material that washed into the lake is coal ash," We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said. "We believe that was something that was used to fill the ravine area in that site during the 1950s. That's a practice that was discontinued several decades ago."

The Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of developing stricter regulations of coal ash following a 2008 Tennessee coal ash pond washout that created a devastating environmental disaster.

Coal companies shape lessons in public schools

Friday, June 03, 2011

From an article by Kevin Sieff in The Washington Post:

In the mountains of southwestern Virginia, Gequetta Bright Laney taught public high school students this spring about a subject of keen interest to the region’s biggest employer: the economics of coal mining.

“Where there’s coal, there’s opportunity,” Bright Laney told her class at Coeburn High School in Wise County.

Her lessons, like others in dozens of public schools across the country, were approved and funded by the coal industry. Such efforts reflect a broader pattern of private-sector attempts to influence what gets taught in public schools.

Eager to burnish its reputation, the energy industry is spending significant sums of money on education in communities with sensitive coal, natural gas and oil exploration projects. The industry aims to teach students about its contributions to local economies and counter criticism from environmental groups.

These outreach efforts have drawn scrutiny after news in May that Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, distributed fourth-grade curriculum materials funded by the American Coal Foundation. The “United States of Energy” lesson plan, which the foundation paid $300,000 to develop, went to 66,000 fourth-grade teachers in 2009. After critics raised questions about potential bias, Scholastic announced that it will no longer publish the material in question.

Environmentalists and public education groups say the Scholastic example highlights the increasingly cozy relationship between industry groups and public schools. They also criticize what takes place in classrooms such as Bright Laney’s, where industries fund lessons that echo their interests.

“We’re talking about catering our public school curriculum to those who can pay for it,” said Josh Golin, program manager at the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, based in Boston. “It raises questions about the foundation of our public education system.”

How coal stacks up against wind

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Madison Peak Oil Group listserve subscribers are debating coal vs. wind. To join the debate, drop an email to madisonpeakoil-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

The Story of Coal from SunRunHome

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Wisconsin Cannot Afford to Ignore Rising Coal Prices

Thursday, December 02, 2010

For immediate release

More information
RENEW Wisconsin
Michael Vickerman
608.255.4044
mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org

Wisconsin Cannot Afford to Ignore Rising Coal Prices

Long-considered an inexpensive and reliable fuel source, coal has become subject to market and regulatory pressures that threaten to make it an expensive and risky way to generate electricity, according to national news reports and pertinent utility filings with the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC).

“The expectation of continued increases in coal prices reinforces the value of relying on Wisconsin’s own energy resources. If there’s an effort to find savings for utility customers, the logical move would be to shutter antiquated coal plants before they become more of a liability,” said Michael Vickerman, Executive Director of RENEW Wisconsin, a statewide, nonprofit renewable energy advocacy organization.

A key driver behind coal’s rising cost is China, which has moved from an exporter to an importer of coal. The New York Times (NYT) reported last week that Chinese coal imports will hit all-time highs for November and December of this year. Some of this coal is coming from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the coal field that also supplies many Wisconsin power plants.¹

In the New York Times story, an executive from Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal company, predicted that his company will send larger and larger quantities of coal to China in the coming years.

Further adding to the upward price pressure on coal is the rising cost of diesel fuel. The PSC has estimated that half of the delivered cost of coal in Wisconsin is attributable to rail shipment, that is highly sensitive to the price of diesel fuel, which sells for 38 cents more per gallon than it did a year ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.² Tom Whipple, editor of the Peak Oil Review, expects diesel fuel supplies to tighten in 2011 as a consequence of flat production volumes and increasing demand from Asia.³ This phenomenon could affect Wisconsin electric utility rates as early as January 2011, according to Vickerman.

We Energies’ coal costs have escalated by $57 million, of which transportation costs account for almost $33 million, according to the utility’s most recent rate filing with the PSC. On top of that, We Energies expects to pay an additional $8 million in oil surcharge costs.4

Click to continue

Governor Doyle breaks ground on coal plant conversion to biomass

Monday, October 25, 2010

From a news release issued by Governor Doyle:

MADISON – Governor Jim Doyle today broke ground on the Charter Street Biomass Heating Plant project. The $251 million project is one of the largest biomass projects in the nation and will create construction and clean energy jobs. The project follows Governor Doyle’s 2008 announcement that Wisconsin would stop burning coal at state-owned heating plants on Madison’s Isthmus.

“In 2008, I announced plans to stop burning coal at state-owned heating plants on Madison’s Isthmus,” Governor Doyle said. “Today, we are breaking ground on the Charter Street biomass plant and taking a major step forward to make this goal a reality. The Charter Street plant will turn a waste stream into clean energy, it will keep energy dollars in our communities, and it will help clean our air and water. This project will create great jobs in Wisconsin and will develop a new biomass market from our great fields and farms.”

The Governor’s 2009-2011 capital budget included $251 million for the Charter Street project and $25 million to convert the Capitol Heat and Power Plant to natural gas. The Charter Street plant will support local biomass providers and eliminate over 108,000 tons of coal burned every year. In March, the state stopped burning coal at the Capitol Heat and Power Plant – eliminating 4,500 tons of coal burned by the state each year. When the Charter Street project is completed in 2013, the Doyle Administration will have reduced State of Wisconsin coal use by 65 percent.

The Charter Street project is a joint effort between AMEC and Boldt Construction. The plant’s coal boilers will first be replaced by natural gas and biomass fuel. The plant will run completely on biomass by late 2013, with the capacity to burn wood chips, corn stalks and switch grass pellets and power 300 local buildings.

Utilities building dozens of old-style coal plants

Thursday, August 26, 2010

From an Associated Press article by Matthew Brown published in The Washington Post:

WYODAK, Wyo. -- Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come.

An Associated Press examination of U.S. Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade groups shows that more than 30 traditional coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction.

The construction wave stretches from Arizona to Illinois and South Carolina to Washington, and comes despite growing public wariness over the high environmental and social costs of fossil fuels, demonstrated by tragic mine disasters in West Virginia, the Gulf oil spill and wars in the Middle East.

The expansion, the industry's largest in two decades, represents an acknowledgment that highly touted "clean coal" technology is still a long ways from becoming a reality and underscores a renewed confidence among utilities that proposals to regulate carbon emissions will fail. The Senate last month scrapped the leading bill to curb carbon emissions following opposition from Republicans and coal-state Democrats.

"Building a coal-fired power plant today is betting that we are not going to put a serious financial cost on emitting carbon dioxide," said Severin Borenstein, director of the Energy Institute at the University of California-Berkeley. "That may be true, but unless most of the scientists are way off the mark, that's pretty bad public policy."

Federal officials have long struggled to balance coal's hidden costs against its more conspicuous role in providing half the nation's electricity.

Hoping for a technological solution, the Obama administration devoted $3.4 billion in stimulus spending to foster "clean-coal" plants that can capture and store greenhouse gases. Yet new investments in traditional coal plants total at least 10 times that amount - more than $35 billion.

UW-Madison's Charter Street coal plant embarks on its transition to cleaner fuels

Friday, August 06, 2010

From an article by Ron Seely in the Wisconsin State Journal:

It's not easy going green.

Just ask John Harrod Jr., who is helping guide the $250 million green makeover of UW-Madison's Charter Street Heating Plant.

The coal-burning plant will be converted so that it burns natural gas and cleaner, farm-grown fuels such as switchgrass. The changeover that has won praise from the plant's many critics, including the Sierra Club, which sued the university for violating the Clean Air Act. Gone will be the giant, dust-generating pile of coal that has become a symbol of the plant and its grimy history.

But Harrod, director of the UW-Madison Physical Plant, said getting rid of that coal pile and moving to cleaner biofuels has brought its own set of problems to solve — accommodating longer and more frequent trains, for example, or expanding the plant's footprint in its already squeezed urban setting, or figuring out new air standards for burning biofuels when even environmental regulators aren't quite sure what those final standards will be.

Those issues and others will be up for discussion Wednesday when UW-Madison hosts a hearing on the final version of the environmental impact statement for the project. The hearing is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in Room 1106 of the Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave.

Alliant says no more coal plants ... for now and no nukes

Friday, May 21, 2010

From an article by Judy Newman in the Wisconsin State Journal:

Alliant Energy is giving up on the idea of building more coal-fired power plants "for the time being," Alliant chairman, president and chief executive Bill Harvey said Thursday.

In an interview after the Madison utility holding company's annual shareholders meeting, Harvey said Alliant subsidiary Wisconsin Power & Light will not ask for a new coal-fueled power plant to replace one proposed for Cassville that state regulators rejected in late 2008.

"I think it's politically ... too risky to think about building coal plants until climate legislation gets in place," Harvey said. "There's got to be substantial technological improvements before the country returns to building coal plants. That's certainly true for us," he said.

Thanks to adequate power available to buy on the electric transmission grid, Harvey said it will likely be two or three years before Alliant proposes building another natural-gas-fired power plant. That could happen sooner, though, if the economy recovers quickly or if climate change rules force the company to abandon its older coal-fired power plants sooner than expected.

As for nuclear power, Harvey said Alliant is not big enough to consider spending up to $10 billion to build a nuclear plant but it might buy part of a new one, if one is built. "We have to consider that. We have to consider all possibilities," he said.

Wisconsin 5th most dependent state on imported coal

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

From a news release issued by Clean Wisconsin:

State Spends $853 Million Every Year on Imported Coal

MADISON -- Wisconsin is the fifth most dependent state on imported coal, spending $853 million to import the fuel in 2008, according to a national report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

"Despite having no in-state coal supplies, Wisconsin relies on coal for nearly two-thirds of the electricity it produces," reads Burning Coal, Burning Cash, a report released today by UCS that ranks the states that import the most coal. "Compared with other states, Wisconsin is the fifth most dependent on net imports as a share of total power use."

In 2008, Wisconsin spent $152 for every man, woman and child importing coal from nine different states. According to the report, the state spent $25 million on coal from Montana, $94 million on Colorado coal, and over $700 million on coal from Wyoming.

"Relying on coal in a non-coal-mining state is a costly and dangerous addiction," said Ryan Schryver, clean energy advocate at Clean Wisconsin. "We not only pay $152 for every man, woman and child to import coal into the state every year, we also pay the high price of coal polluting our waters, diminishing the quality of our air, and threatening our health."

Beyond showing the high costs of imported coal, the report also highlights solutions that will help Wisconsin reduce its heavy dependence on the fossil fuel. "Investing in energy efficiency is one of the quickest and most affordable ways to replace coal-fired power while boosting the local economy," it reads. It later continues, "The state has the technical potential to generate 4.2 times its 2008 electricity needs from renewable energy."

Replacing Charter St. coal plant not coming cheaply

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Coal at the UW-Madison’s Charter Street Heating Plant will soon be replaced by wood and natural gas.

From an article by Mike Ivey in The Capital Times:

Converting the aging coal-burning Charter Street Heating Plant into one of the greenest facilities of its kind is coming at a price.

The new facility, which received initial approval from the city Plan Commission Monday night, will have the capacity to burn wood chips, corn stalks, switchgrass pellets or other biomass.

But including biomass in the fuel mix has added at least $50 million in cost to the estimated $250 million power plant, the most expensive single project in UW-Madison history. . . .

Just one of four boilers in the new power plant will burn biomass as part of a demonstration project ordered by Gov. Doyle to help the state's fledgling bioenergy industry. The balance of the facility will be fired by natural gas, which is piped into the facility.

Using biomass at full capacity, however, could require bringing 2 to 3 freight trains each day into the heart of campus to deliver enough fuel. Currently, one train every other day is used to bring coal into the plant.

To accommodate that level of rail activity, the UW is proposing additional sidings along the corridor running behind the Kohl Center. It will also need to construct new RR bridges across North Park Street and East Campus Mall.

In addition, the work will require moving the so-called "Missing Link" bike trail to the south, closing one of the most-used bicycle routes on campus while the work is completed.

Renewable Energy Not Responsible for MGE Rate Increase

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2010

MORE INFORMATION
Michael Vickerman
RENEW Wisconsin
608.255.4044
mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org


Renewable Energy Not Responsible for MGE Rate Increase

Higher costs associated with fossil fuel generation are driving Madison Gas & Electric’s costs higher, according to testimony submitted by company witnesses. The utility filed an application last week with the Public Service Commission (PSC) to collect an additional $32.2 million through a 9% increase in electric rates starting January 2011.

The bulk of the rate increase can be attributed to expenses associated with burning coal to generate electricity. A 22% owner of the 1,020-megawatt (MW) Columbia Generating Station near Portage, Madison Gas & Electric (MGE) and the owner plant owners plan to retrofit the 35-year-old facility to reduce airborne emissions. The cost of Columbia’s environmental retrofit is expected to total $640 million, of which MGE’s share is about $140 million.

MGE also owns an 8% share of the state’s newest coal-fired station, the 1,230-MW Elm Road Generating Station located in Oak Creek. A portion of the proposed rate hike would cover lease payments and other expenses at that plant.

MGE’s application does not attribute any portion of its proposed rate hike to renewable energy sources. However, MGE plans to increase the premium associated with its voluntary Green Power Tomorrow program from 1.25 cents per kilowatt-hour to 2 cents. RENEW estimates that the premium hike will collect more than $1 million in 2011 from the approximately 10,000 customers participating in the program.

According to the utility’s web site, 10% of MGE's electric customers purchase some or all of their electricity from renewable resources. Moreover, Green Power Tomorrow has the second highest participation rate of all investor-owned utilities in the country according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Not surprisingly, MGE anticipates subscribership in Green Power Tomorrow to decrease if the PSC approves the higher premium. Currently, the program accounts for about 5% of total electric sales. Program subscribers include the City of Madison, State of Wisconsin, Dane County Regional Airport, Madison West High School, Goodman Community Center and Home Savings Bank.

According to MGE, sinking fossil fuel prices have widened the difference between wholesale power costs and the cost of supplying customers with renewable energy. However, it is worth remembering that the cost of supplying power from MGE’s renewable energy assets, such as its Rosiere installation in Kewaunee County and Top of Iowa project, did not increase last year and will not increase in the foreseeable future.

“Even though the cost of MGE’s windpower supplies is not going up, Green Power Tomorrow customers will take a double hit if the PSC approves this rate increase and request for higher premiums,” said RENEW Wisconsin executive Director Michael Vickerman. “It’s a ‘heads-I-win-tails-you-lose’ proposition that will wind up rewarding customers who drop out of the renewable energy program because coal is cheaper.”

“It would be short-sighted to penalize renewable energy purchasers just because fossil fuel prices are in a temporary slump,” Vickerman said. “But if MGE is allowed to institute this penalty at the same time it imposes the cost of cleaning up an older coal-fired generator on all of its customers, including its Green Power Tomorrow subscribers, it would have a profoundly negative impact on the renewable energy marketplace going forward.”

“This is the wrong time to be throwing up barriers to renewable energy development. We at RENEW will fight proposals that reward fossil fuel use and penalize renewable energy,” Vickerman added.

END

RENEW Wisconsin (www.renewwisconsin.org) is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that acts as a catalyst to advance a sustainable energy future through public policy and private sector initiatives.

Babies and cats want Clean Energy Jobs Act passed; 25% renewables by 2025

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The video is one of eight in Wisconsin Environment's Clean Energy Jobs Act Video Contest.

From a news release issued by Wisconsin Environment:

Vote for your favorite in the Clean Energy Jobs Act Video Contest

Madison – As the legislature considers the Clean Energy Jobs Act, citizens from across Wisconsin have created short videos to show why our state should pursue a clean energy future. The video submissions were entered into a contest sponsored by Wisconsin Environment.

“Wisconsin’s citizens know we can achieve a clean energy future,” said Dan Kohler, Wisconsin Environment Director. “Legislators should watch these videos to get a sense of the passion people have for getting off our dependence on fossil fuels and harnessing clean technologies to clean our air.”

The video contest will be decided through online voting happening through April 21st at the Wisconsin Environment website. The winner will be announced on Earth Day, April 22nd.

Vote now for the winner: http://www.wisconsinenvironment.org/action/clean-energy/video-voting