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What does cheap solar mean for electric cooperatives?

11/30/2017

By Joe Smyth | joe@cleancooperative.com | @joesmyth

A look at two Colorado electric cooperatives navigating the implications of solar power’s declining costs

Emily Bowie at San Juan Citizens Alliance writes about how the La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) board of directors is discussing the implications of the declining costs of solar energy. Bowie describes how the “board’s touchiest topic is how the declining costs of renewable energy (and rising costs of coal) should impact LPEA’s future.”

Some board directors are concerned about how declining solar power costs could encourage more customers to install their own rooftop solar arrays, and what that might mean for the electric cooperative.

Other board members are more focused on the opportunity for LPEA to take advantage of falling solar power prices, by pursuing its own solar projects. As LPEA director Bob Lynch put it, “I want to be part of a plan that figures out how to use solar to help all our members.”

San Juan Citizens Alliance graphic outlining distributed and centralized power generation

Colorado towns and cities are helping push utilities to embrace renewable energy

11/20/2017

By Joe Smyth | joe@cleancooperative.com | @joesmyth

The town of Breckenridge passed a resolution last week establishing a goal to power the community with 100% renewable electricity by 2035. Breckenridge joins other Colorado towns and cities that are pursuing 100% renewable energy, including Pueblo, Boulder, and Nederland. Aspen achieved its 100% renewable energy goal in 2015, while other towns and cities including Denver and Durango are also considering renewable energy goals.

The responses from the utilities that serve those Colorado towns and cities show that these 100% renewable energy goals are helping push the region toward a cleaner electricity grid, achieving a broader impact than sustainability goals that remain within the boundaries of a municipality. That’s consistent with a new report by global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which argues that cities should focus their sustainability efforts on four strategic areas for maximum impact. First among those four strategic areas is using their position as major electricity consumers to help decarbonize the electricity grid:

While cities may believe they have little influence over the grid mix, in fact, they often represent a major portion of any local electric utility’s customers, potentially giving them significant leverage to shape the emissions profile of the electricity consumed within their metropolitan area. Still, capturing this opportunity will not be easy, and cities cannot do it alone. Utilities and regulators must play a central role in ensuring the overall mix of renewables is appropriately balanced at a system level and that critical components such as energy storage are in place to ensure grid reliability. Nevertheless, cities have an essential role to play by setting clear decarbonization goals, aggregating demand for renewables, promoting energy efficiency, and shifting more urban energy consumption to electricity (especially in transportation and heating).

Lowering the emissions intensity of the electricity grid is an especially impactful way that municipalities in the Rocky Mountain region can advance their sustainability goals, because the region’s grid is more dependent on coal, and therefore more carbon intensive, than other parts of the US. But as these Colorado towns and cities seek to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, they face varying challenges in working with the different utilities and electric cooperatives that sell electricity in Colorado. Colorado towns and cities are served by two investor owned utilities, 29 municipal utilities, and 22 rural electric cooperatives, according to the Colorado Energy Office

Let’s look at four Colorado municipalities pursuing renewable energy goals, each with a different electricity provider: Breckenridge, Pueblo, Aspen, and Durango.

How are electric cooperatives navigating the transition from coal to cheap clean energy?

11/13/2017

By Joe Smyth | joe@cleancooperative.com | @joesmyth

At the recent 21st Century Energy Transitions Symposium, former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter asked the governors of Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming: How do you ensure that the residents of your state aren’t left out of the energy transition underway that Amory Lovins presented in his keynote remarks?

It was the final question that Ritter asked during the Governors’ Panel, and the only one he posed to all three members of the panel: Montana Governor Steve Bullock, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, and Wyoming Governor Matt Mead. Amory Lovins, chief scientist and co-founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, had earlier delivered the Symposium’s keynote address, showing that rapidly changing technologies, business models, and price trends are driving the energy transition from “the obsolete age of carbon” to “the modern age of silicon.”

It’s worth watching Amory Lovins' full presentation

Transcript of Bill Ritter’s energy transition question to the Governors of Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming

11/13/2017

By Joe Smyth | joe@cleancooperative.com | @joesmyth

At the 2017 21st Century Energy Transitions Symposium, former Colorado Governor and Director of the Center for the New Energy Economy Bill Ritter asked the governors of Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming: How do you ensure that the residents of your state aren’t left out of the energy transition underway that Amory Lovins presented in his keynote remarks? I summarized and wrote about the governors’ responses, and how we might ask similar questions of electric cooperatives. To help provide a more complete record, I’ve also transcribed the governors’ full responses below, lightly edited for clarity. Thanks to the 21st Century Energy Transition Symposium and Colorado State University for hosting the event and providing videos of the Governors’ keynote lunch panel and all the other sessions.

Blocked from building more solar, United Power shifts to community batteries

11/8/2017

By Joe Smyth | joe@cleancooperative.com | @joesmyth

Next week, United Power will switch on its biggest solar project yet. At 16 megawatts, the SR Platte solar array will produce enough electricity to power 2,700 homes, and help the electric cooperative save money on its electricity purchases.

But because of its contract with its electricity supplier, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, United Power is unlikely to build more solar arrays any time soon, so it's shifting its focus to energy storage.

Mavericks solar array provides electricity for United Power, an electric cooperative in Colorado

United Power's Mavericks solar array near Mead, Colorado

What does cheap solar mean for electric cooperatives?

Colorado towns and cities are helping push utilities to embrace renewable energy

How are electric cooperatives navigating the transition from coal to cheap clean energy?

Transcript of Bill Ritter’s energy transition question to the Governors of Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming

Blocked from building more solar, United Power shifts to community batteries

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