Energy Team

The Renewable Energy Team’s primary focus is reducing our dependence on foreign oil and promoting clean, renewable energy technology.  Our goal is to provide a forum to educate our community on the issues and to find solutions that both are good to our environment and promote clean, renewable energy sources.  Investing in Renewable Energy is investing in America's future. 

Interested in Bio-Fuels?

Colorado Citizen Lobby is currently working on a biofuels resolution.  This group holds regular meetings - the second Saturday of every month at Blueberry's Cafe at 1500 West Littleton Blvd, in the Woodlawn Shopping Center.  Please see their website for details:  www.ColoradoCitizenLobby.com and contact Betty Harris, founder of this group, directly, at cocitizenslobby@gmail.com, for any additional information. 

Colorado Session 2010

Listed here are the Colorado State Legislation that this group has decided to support.  Our focus is always on promoting Renewable Energy technology, and the jobs this technology can bring to our local communities.  With this lense, we choose legislation that will meet both of those goals.

Renewable Energy: Freedom-to-Choose Resolution 
This resolution is struggling to pass through the house.   You can contact me directly if you would like to find out more information on who to contact: donna.galassi@arapahope.org. 

• This first-in-the-nation state initiative encourages companies in Colorado with a 401(k), 403(b) or other employee-directed retirement plan to add a publicly traded renewable energy sector fund to its investment options.  Widespread adoption will provide 500,000 Coloradans with 401(k) plans the freedom and opportunity to easily invest in clean energy.
• This measure is expected to generate $1 billion in wind, solar and other renewable investment over 3 years.
• Investing in renewable energy funds through a 401(k) or other defined contribution plan benefits employers, employees, the economy, and the environment.  Expanding investment will fuel innovation and drive growth in the renewable energy industry . 
• Colorado will benefit from the increased investment and its role as a leader in economic growth and job creation in the field of renewable energy. 
• Employers, at a time of reduced income and benefits, can offer this benefit to their employees, contributing to employee retention and morale.  In addition, many companies’ corporate leaders are looking for opportunities that are both business and environmentally friendly. 

ACT Renewable Energy Team  - What We've Learned

Colorado's Current Electricity Mix
Colorado currently gets about 72% of its electricity from coal, about 22% from natural gas, 6% from hydro and only about 1% from renewable energy (wind and solar).  Renewable Energy Standards (RES) govern this mix, pushing towards more renewable energy generated electricity over time.

Colorado's Renewable Energy Standards (RES) requires municipal utilities and electric co-ops to generate 10% of their energy from renewable resources by 2020. Investor owned utilities (like Xcel) are required to generate 20% by 2020.  As shown by the figures above, (1% from renewable energy), we have a long way to go to meet these standards.

The Governor's Energy Office (GEO) has taken on the challenge of meeting our Renewable Energy Standards.  Their comprehensive study entitled  Connecting Colorado's Renewable Energy Sources to the Markets fully details how renewable energy can be best utilized in Colorado. 

Colorado's peak summer energy usage is about 12 GW (or 12,000 MW).  This is the measure used when analyzing renewable energy - to determine if it can reliably meet our peak energy usage.

Colorado's Renewable Energy Potential
Colorado has great potential in both wind and solar renewable energy resources.  A study has been done to determine the areas that have the most potential.  Eight geographic locations were found to be best suited within Colorado for wind power.  It was determined that these 8 areas have the potential for 96 GW of power - almost 8 times our current peak summer load.  With this huge potential, there is also a market for exporting Colorado's wind power to near-by states, such as sourthern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Also, according to NREL and the Governor's Energy Office, if only 2% of the most optimum geographical locations were developed for Solar energy, 5.5 GW of CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) could be made available. 

What Is Net Metering?
Net Metering allows customers to sell home-grown electricity back to the utility. Under net metering, a customer receives credit for the electricity generated using renewable energy technology.  Any electricity in excess of use will be fed back into the utility grid.  In Colorado, there are laws giving the consumer a choice of how this credit is given back to them. Any excess electricity generated each month can either be rolled over into the next month, or paid annually at an average hourly incremental cost at the end of the year.

A recent law, in 2009, just passed in Colorado allows customers the ability to net-meter a maximum size of no more than 120% of their current use.  This allows a typical residence to install PV or CSP to generate electricity for their own home, and feed any excess energy back into the utility grid.

Right now, there is a request by Xcel energy to add a surcharge to the utility bills of residences that have installed Solar PV.  This surcharge would unfairly target those customers that have already paid the price of RE installation, negating some of the cost effectiveness of the renewable energy.  The final decision on this request won't be known until possibly the end of this year. 

Governor Ritter's Colorado Climate Action Plan
The Colorado Climate Action Plan was announced and implemented by Governor Bill Ritter’s office.  The primary focus of his plan is as follows:

• Partner with research institutions and industry to expand research and development of clean coal technology, such as integrated gasification combined cycle and geologic sequestration.
• Partner with research institutions and industry to develop ways to prevent methane leakage from natural gas drilling.
• Promote the research and development of new energy resource technologies through the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory.
• Establish a goal for major electric utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and work with smaller electric utilities to set comparable goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Give utilities flexibility to meet the 2020 goal while encouraging broad implementation of energy efficiency measures that are cost effective, create jobs, and save consumers money.
• Expand renewable energy resources and make use of new clean coal technologies. 
   

As seen, the majority of this plan relies heavily on existing energy sources. More should be done to utilize renewable energy resources.  Colorado's potential for wind and solar are just now being put to use. 

Where can we go from here?
Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) help stimulate rapid development of massive amounts of renewable energy.  They allow a mechanism for governance of what energy technology to promote and where.  FITS foster local ownership by offering an open, transparent process that pays a modest profit.

Wherein FITs are a mechanism, Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) set the goals.  RPS requires the regulated utility to get a set percentage of electricity from renewable energy (RE) by a certain date; for example the Colorado RPS that requires utilities to generate 20% of electricity from renewable energy by 2020.

Net-Metering allows customers to connect to the power utility grid, feeding excess energy back into the system. Net-metering generally covers a person’s or business’ own use only.  Feed-in Tariffs extend net-metering by governing the rate paid of energy produced, promoting specific renewable energy technologies growth, and allowing small businesses, consumers, and farmers to potentially produce and sell energy.  These two ideas work together to create a system that values renewable energy and fosters growth in the renewable energy industry and manufacturing.

Feed-in Tariffs are distinguished by

• Long (15-20 year) contract term;
• Different price for different types of RE generation (example: small wind pays more than big wind; building-integrated solar PV pays more than ground-mounted);
• Tariff decreases over time; (example: 35 cents/kWh for solar PV year 1, drops to 20 cents/kWh by year 10).

Colorado does not currently have FIT, but it is certainly worth learning more about this topic!  Here's an article written by Paul Gipe describing the benefits of Feed-in Tariffs. Electricity Feed Laws: FAST TRACK to Renewable Energy Growth?   Here's another article, written by Michael Chang titled Fit for American: Best Practices in Feed-in Tariff Policies.