JEA board, staff discuss revamping solar plan

JEA staff shared options for its board to consider later this month as leaders at the publicly owned utility look to revamp how it handles solar power, a proposal unpopular with advocates of rooftop solar panels.

Staff members briefed the board of directors on Thursday to share their rationale for a reduction in the rate it compensates rooftop solar customers for energy they send back to the grid while simultaneously tripling the solar power in JEA’s portfolio.

The proposal has been criticized by environmental activists and those who install rooftop solar panels.

The JEA chief executive officer and chief financial officer recommended two implementation options to the board for changing how the utility compensates current rooftop solar customers who return unused power to the grid in exchange for credits from JEA:

n Grandfathering in existing net metering customers, giving them the current rate (about 11 cents per kilowatt hour) while changing the rate for new net metering customers to 7.5 cents

n Phasing in a new rate for all net metering customers beginning Dec. 31 with the current rate being gradually reduced to 7.5 cents.

“We’ll charge our customers what it actually costs us to buy that solar energy,” said CFO Melissa Dykes.

Board chairman Tom Petway said he believes either proposal is fair to current customers.

“Nobody was guaranteed a solar rate forever because they have solar on their rooftop,” he said.

JEA’s stated goal with solar rates is to treat all solar providers the same, to pay 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour, regardless of whether it is from a large solar farm or an individual customer.

Opponents of the proposal argue it is regressive and discourages people from installing rooftop solar by significantly reducing the economic return. Pete Wilking, owner of Jacksonville-based A1A Solar, said the premise of the JEA proposal is flawed. He questioned how the staff arrived at 7.5 cents to credit solar customers. He contends there are a number of factors that JEA did not consider, including the reduced need for capacity on the energy grid and green energy, which is needed as utilities are being required to move toward cleaner energy.

“The future of the grid is going to look so much different than it does today,” he said.

JEA is paying current net metering customers more than it will pay for solar through its new contracts. Rooftop solar advocates disagree those customers are being subsidized and point to the many benefits, stating the power is sent nearby to neighbors, not through the power grid, and that those customers – not JEA – funded the power source on their homes.

Petway said they must think about all 450,000 JEA customers when considering this proposed change that would affect about 500.

The current average electric bill for a JEA customer is $124 a month with average net metering customers paying $17. Under the proposal, that would increase to $33.

Also, as part of its proposed solar changes, JEA is entering into contracts that would add 38 megawatts of solar in the next 18 months at a cost of $5 million, adding enough power for 5,000 houses a year. JEA currently has 12 megawatts of solar available. Even with the expansion, solar would only be 1.4 percent of JEA’s energy portfolio. The board did not vote and did not allow public comment on Thursday, but Petway said the workshop was about education and board dialogue on the issue. Petway expects the board to vote on the proposal at its April 19 meeting, when there will be a public hearing.

Sebastian Kitchen: (904) 359-4161

JEA board, staff discuss revamping solar plan

COP21: saving energy 'triple win,' Ban says, as $5 billion Africa plan launched at climate summit

7 December 2015 – The United Nations and partners launched today a $5 billion initiative to expand renewable energy capacity in Africa today as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the UN climate change conference (COP21) in Paris that saving energy is a triple-win in the battle against global warming.

&#8220The production and use of energy is responsible for more than half of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. That means energy is also more than half of the solution. We need sustainable energy to reduce global greenhouse emissions and avert the risks of runaway climate change,&#8221 Mr. Ban said, stressing that clean energy is equally important for ending extreme poverty.

&#8220Saving energy is a triple-win solution. It can save money, reduce emissions, and provide additional energy capacity,&#8221 he added, noting that renewable energy technologies are becoming cheaper and more competitive, with many people accessing energy for the first time thanks to solar panels, wind turbines or small hydro power plant.

&#8220But, to replicate this experience for billions more people, we will need finance,&#8221 he declared.

&#8220Let us build on these bold initiatives. A global energy transformation must reduce heat-trapping emissions. It also needs to ensure that we leave no one behind. Those things can only be achieved if we tackle the issues of energy access, energy efficiency, and renewable energy together as a trinity.&#8221

COP21 held a thematic day on energy today, with the Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SE4All), a multi-stakeholder partnership backed by the UN and World Bank, urging Governments, businesses and financial institutions to act much faster and go much further to meet the ambitious goals of ensuring sustainable energy for all while keeping the global temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius.

SE4All is acting as a catalyst for a huge global movement for revolutionary change in the world’s energy systems, helping to build working alliances across the public sector, private sector and civil society and foster innovative policies, technologies and financing mechanisms.

Any rise of more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2050 will have an ever more dangerous impact on planet Earth with devastating droughts, floods and storms, and rising seas swallowing up ever more low-lying land.

The Africa Renewable Energy Initiative to expand renewable capacity by 2020 and achieve universal access was just one of several launched today.

The Initiative is led by the African Union’s NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) the African Group of Negotiators, the African Development Bank, the UN Environment Program (UNEP), and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

At least $5 billion in public and highly concessional finance between 2016 and 2020 from bilateral, multilateral and other sources, including the Green Climate Fund, will be needed to leverage a further $15 billion in other investments, for a total investment of at least $20 billion pre-2020.

Other initiatives launched today included efforts to improve access to electricity and energy efficiency, and promote renewable energy.

Hundreds of Governments, businesses and financial institutions pledged major action on energy efficiency, recognizing it as the basis of the energy transition.

More than 100 banks and a group of investors, managing close to $4 trillion in assets, committed to a major increase in energy efficiency lending in their portfolios. Led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the UNEP Finance Initiative, this is a major undertaking toward the four-fold increase needed to realize the full energy efficiency potential for climate change.

COP21: saving energy "triple win," Ban says, as $5 billion Africa plan launched at climate summit

Windlab, Eurus Plan $102 Million Australia Wind and Solar Farm

Windlab Ltd. and Eurus Energy Holdings Corp. plan to build a A$140 million ($102 million) wind and solar energy park in the Australian state of Queensland.

The Kennedy Energy Park plant will be the first large-scale hybrid solar and wind park in Australia, Canberra-based Windlab said in a statement posted on its website. Construction is expected to start after June next year.

The companies will install six wind turbines and 64,000 solar panels in the first stage of the project, according to the statement. Successful completion of the first stage may lead to adding 1,200 megawatts of clean-energy capacity, Windlab said in the statement.

The Kennedy Energy Park follows an announcement earlier this year of a 20-megawatt wind project in Victoria that Windlab and Eurus are building together. Eurus, a Tokyo-based clean-energy developer, is a venture between Toyota Tsusho Corp. and Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Windlab, Eurus Plan $102 Million Australia Wind and Solar Farm

Caernarfon giant wind turbine plan put forward

Plans have been drawn up for a giant wind turbine in Caernarfon of nearly 50m tall.

The planned 48m wind turbine in Pant Eithinog is being put forward by a farmer who intends to use it to generate his own electricity.

The structure would be bigger than the Marquess of Anglesey’s column, towering 21 metres above it.

Farmer Huw Jones agents’ Roger Parry & Partners said: “Pant Eithinog is a farm business run by Mr Huw Jones.

“The farm boundaries are extensive and include large areas of hillside above the main farmstead, where higher winds are generated.

“The wind turbine is located in the open countryside within a pasture field.

“The proposed use of the wind turbine is for the generation of electricity from a renewable source, the wind.

“The applicant intends to reduce reliance on imported electricity through the on-site generation of wind energy, which in turn will reduce costs to the farming operation and support the diversification activities of the business.”

The report added the proposal would not warrant the submission of an environmental statement as it “does not prevent unusually complex and potentially hazardous environmental effects.”

Last month, an application for a 45m wind turbine in Tanybryn, near Pwllheli, was withdrawn at the request of the applicant.

A report to Gwynedd Council’s planning committee recommended refusing the application as officials believed putting up the turbine would have a detrimental effect on the historic character of the landscape and on views across the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

A full application has also been made for a third 50kw wind turbine, at Derwin Fawr, Garndolbenmaen.

There are already two wind turbines which have been there since 2012.

Caernarfon giant wind turbine plan put forward

Utility Scale Solar Outshines GOP Energy Plan

Clean Power

Published on February 10th, 2015 | by Tina Casey

February 10th, 2015 by Tina Casey 

Last Friday, the Energy Department rolled out a new report that highlights the rapid growth of utility-scale solar power in the US, but somehow it seems to have slipped the attention of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Just yesterday, the Republican-led body unveiled its ambitious new “Architecture of Abundance” energy plan, and utility-scale solar gets nary a whisper.

Say, don’t we pay these guys to pay attention to these sorts of things?

The next question is, what are they paying attention to instead?

The Architecture Of Abundance Energy Plan

The Architecture of Abundance sketches out a legislative framework (and we use the word “sketch” lightly) for ensuring that 20th-century fossil fuels have a continued role in the energy landscape of the 21st century.

So yes, they are paying attention to fossil fuels.

Specifically, they are paying attention to the infrastructure needed to bring those fuels to market, and the fingerprints of the Keystone XL pipeline are very much in evidence here.

Of the four elements in the Architecture of Abundance plan, the first one deals with “modernizing” the US oil and gas pipeline network. If you think that means inspecting and upgrading the 2.3 million (yes, million) miles of aging oil, gas, and refined product pipelines in the US — which are badly in need of attention — guess again.

It simply means adding more pipelines, more quickly. Here’s a couple of snippets from “Section I: Modernizing Infrastructure:”

America faces different energy challenges today than it did a decade ago. Chief among them is a shortage of modern energy infrastructure to carry abundant new supplies of oil and gas to consumers. These challenges threat en energy reliability and affordability . For example, delays and red tape in the permitting process prevent America from constructing the safest, most reliable, and oftentimes more environmentally sound routes of energy delivery [note to readers: “safest” is shorthand for pipelines are more safe than railways].

…This draft to modernize the transmission, reliability, and security of energy distribution will address the permitting challenges for current domestic and cross – border pipelines and transmission lines [note to readers: Keystone is a cross-border pipeline requiring State Department approval].

Are we reading too much into this? Okay, so let’s skip over Section II, which looks like a pretty ambitious job training program except for the conspicuous lack of a funding stream, and go to “Section III: Energy Diplomacy for a Changing World” (break added for readability):

…This draft will seek to improve coordination and strengthen energy partnerships with our North American neighbors and to establish a process to evaluate how energy permitting decisions impact international energy security.

From a decision to allow the export of energy commodities to a decision on infrastructure, policymakers should assess our national interest with an eye toward our allies and our ability to leverage our resources to advance our foreign policy goals.

Once again deploying our special Keystone decoder ring, we figure that “North American neighbors” means Canada (unless we missed something), and “export of energy commodities” means the Keystone XL pipeline, which will enable the Canadian company TransCanada to transport tar sands oil from Canada down to Gulf Coast refineries in the US, and from there to overseas markets.

The Architecture Of The Koch Connection

Since the Architecture of Abundance plan is batting .500 when it comes to increasing the mileage of oil and gas pipelines in the US, we’re thinking that an equally accurate and equally alliterative title for the plan would be “The Plethora of Pipelines.”

That brings us right around to the Koch brothers. As we’ve previously noted, the wealthy industrialists (among the wealthiest persons in the world, according to our friends over at Fuel Fix) don’t have a direct stake in the pipeline, but apparently they do have a huge stake in Canadian tar sands.

More to the point, Koch Industries, its subsidiaries, and its indirect subsidiaries, are stakeholders in thousands of miles of US pipelines, including the Trans Alaska Pipeline and the massive Colonial Pipeline. If the company’s business is to grow in any direction, pipelines is a good guess.

To connect the dots, the formerly reclusive Koch brothers recently announced that they will be devoting about $1 billion of their combined $100 billion wealth to elect their favorite candidates to office in the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Let’s Pay Attention To US Utility-Scale Solar!

It sure looks like Koch Industries architects had a hand in the Architecture of Abundance, but maybe that’s just us.

Meanwhile, let’s turn our attention to that new utility-scale solar report from the fabulously successful Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office (LPO — and props to former President George W. Bush, who established the office during his tenure).

The report was announced in a February 6th Energy Department blog post featuring the new 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight project in Riverside County, California, which received a $1.46 billion loan guarantee from the LPO for its developer, First Solar.

To sum it up in a nutshell, the total installed US utility-scale solar capacity stood at only 22 megawatts before 2009, and there were no utility-scale solar projects clocking in at more than 100 megawatts at that time.

Twisting the knife, in 2008, the US Energy Information Administration predicted that the total installed utility-scale solar capacity in the US would only tote up to a paltry 140 megawatts.

Since 2009, aside from getting totally owned by the Desert Sun project alone, that official forecast has been eclipsed by more than a score of utility-scale projects each topping 100 megawatts.

As described by the Energy Department, the first five were kickstarted by LPO, and another 17 have been financed independently.

Speaking of abundance, since solar energy is by far the most abundant source of energy on Earth, we’re more than a little concerned that our hard-earned taxpayer dollars are paying off a House Committee that has studiously gone out of its way to ignore the obvious, but maybe that’s just us.

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Image credit (screenshot): Courtesy of US Department of Energy.

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Tags: Architecture Of Abundance, Desert Sunlight, First Solar, Loan Programs Office, utility-scale solar

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@TinaMCasey and Google+.

Utility Scale Solar Outshines GOP Energy Plan

Plan for giant wind turbine in Shropshire countryside is refused

Controversial plans to build a giant wind turbine in the Shropshire countryside, which had attracted almost 200 objections, have been refused.

Planning officers at Shropshire Council ruled the proposed 327ft (99.7m) turbine in Tetchill, near Ellesmere, would have a severe impact on the surrounding area, outweighing any potential benefits.

The news has been greeted with delight by Lincoln McMullan, chairman of Ellesmere Chamber of Commerce, who said he believed most of the town would be thrilled.

The plans were initially met with anger from local people who believed it would create an eyesore and a potential distraction for motorists.

Shropshire Council received 198 letters of objection to the plans submitted by Intech Clean Energy compared to 36 supporting them. Tim Rogers, planning officer at the council, said the harm caused by the turbine would outweigh the benefits of harnessing renewable energy.

He said that the proposed turbine would have a “detrimental impact upon the character and quality of this countryside location” and that it would become a “detrimental defining characteristic of the area”.

Mr McMullan said: “I am very pleased, and I am sure that the whole town is just as happy about it. They could go to appeal. But it is just too big to dominate the area.”

He had also raised concerns about its location close to a site earmarked for a development of 250 homes, a leisure complex and marina.

The application was submitted in April on behalf of local farming family firm Seven Sisters and claimed the turbine could generate 1,400MWh of energy each year – enough to power 280 homes a year.

Speaking earlier this year, Angela Williams, 62, who owns the cattle farming business with husband Robert, 70, said they would be forced to go to appeal because of the size of investment. The Williams family has 28 days to appeal.

Plan for giant wind turbine in Shropshire countryside is refused