Madison residents concerned about MG&E's green energy future

Madison residents discuss MG&E’s Community Energy Report and the company’s sustainability and green energy initiatives at a RePower Madison meeting on Monday, February 22. (Mitch Brey)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is Madison Gas and Electric living up to their slogan: “Your community energy company”?

That was one of the questions behind local green energy group RePower Madison’s open forum at Goodman Community Center at the end of February. Prompted by the release of MG&E’s report on their community conversations, 30 Madison residents gathered at Goodman Community Center to discuss the company’s current and future policies.

MG&E recently collaborated with Justice and Sustainability Associates to put together a four-phase plan to help MG&E better understand what their customers want from them in the future. The community conversations were phase two of that plan. JSA recently released their report on MG&E’s community conversations.

The report showed that MG&E customers were strongly in favor of increased investment in renewable energy, as well as energy conservation support and education and greater transparency and affordability. 

The discussion addressed each of these issues and more. 

According to Mitch Brey, the campaign organizer for RePower Madison, this means forging a partnership with Madison residents so that they can be more involved with MG&E in regard to where their energy comes from and what it will cost the consumer. He envisions an arrangement that allows consumers to have decision-making power rather than advisory roles. 

“Basically, we’re asking that the partnership be designed and operated with strong community representation and transparency, and accountability and real power to get things done,” he said. 

Don Ferber, Chair of RePower Madison, believes that this kind of arrangement might be attainable if Madison residents come together in favor of it and begin setting standards that they think MG&E should live up to.

“Look at all the energy they put into proving—or at least PR-ing—that they are your energy company. That is their identity that is what they care about. They live in this community, unlike a lot of other utilities where the people aren’t there and couldn’t care less about the community,” he said.

The group also discussed MG&E’s Energy 2030 framework, which Brey said seems like more of a goal than a plan at this point.

“There are a lot of good initiatives in there, but they’re quite generic and too vague to really measure whether they could be completed or not. So that needs more development, and frankly, I think it needs to be more ambitious as well,” he said. 

More than 30 people attended the discussion, and Brey was impressed with the turnout.

“Folks want to do something about MG&E. People showed up, and they all want to put their own time towards making sure MG&E follows through on becoming a community energy company,” he said.

Madison residents concerned about MG&E"s green energy future

LETTER: Renewable energy key to state's future

Wind turbines.(Photo: ~File photo)

The Senate recently passed a bill that establishes renewable energy portfolio standards and requires a percentage of our electricity to come from class I renewable energy. This percentage will increase every five years from 2015 to 2050 with the ultimate goal to reach 80 percent renewable by 2050.

This is an important bill to move New Jersey forward with renewable energy and a big victory in our fight against climate change. It sends a clear message after Paris that New Jersey is ready for more renewable energy and a greener economy. The bill needs to be posted by Jan. 11 to pass the Assembly.

There are plenty of new technologies that we can use to reach these goals. New Jersey can be a leader for solar and wind power. We can also use geothermal power, microgrids and wave technologies. Renewable energy creates jobs and promotes economic growth while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fighting climate change and the effects of it including storm events and sea level rise. This will help us meet goals of the Global Warming Response Act.

This bill the first real step for the state to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, grow our economy, and create green jobs. This legislation is a game changer; the Senate is standing up for clean energy and against fossil fuels. This is an important step for New Jersey. This bill will put New Jersey on the path towards 80 percent clean energy by 2050. We need to move the state forward to cleaner energy with this bill by requiring us to switch to more renewable energy and away from dirty fossil fuels.

Greg Gorman

Conservation Chair

New Jersey Sierra Club

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LETTER: Renewable energy key to state"s future

MLA Report: With the right leadership, we can build the energy future we want

There are few places in British Columbia that are more connected to power generation than Columbia River–Revelstoke. Home to considerable power projects like Revelstoke Dam, and part of the affected area of the Columbia River Basin, we understand this industry, and live daily with its benefits and consequences.

British Columbians have long benefitted from being owners of much of the power generated within this province, and through BC Hydro, a Crown Corporation that has traditionally provided significant dividends to the public purse, we have received access to consistent, low cost power.

Unfortunately, over the last 14 years under the BC Liberals, British Columbians have watched the cost of hydro skyrocket as government forced our Crown Corporation to make decisions that were not in the best interest of either BC Hydro or BC ratepayers.

It is time for British Columbians to make a new choice; a choice for better management of this precious resource, and better energy policy that protects rate payers, manages for sustainability, protects farmland, and moves us toward a green energy future.

Put forward by the BC NDP, PowerBC is a better plan for a brighter future for British Columbia. I believe that BC’s energy policy must be bold and progressive. We can protect BC Hydro customers from rising rates, produce good-paying jobs close to home, respect First Nations land title, and launch careers in clean energy and retrofit construction, maintenance, manufacturing and high-tech engineering.

PowerBC is about retrofitting public buildings, homes and businesses for energy efficiency, resulting in reduced energy costs and community-based jobs.

PowerBC is about maximizing current capacity in existing dams such as the Revelstoke Dam. Forward-thinking engineering built this structure for future capacity. We can still add one more turbine in Revelstoke Dam which would generate 500 megawatts of new capacity and create 390 person-years of skilled trades employment.

PowerBC is about making significant investments in clean energy. British Columbia is particularly well suited to produce renewable energy and could be an exporter of not only renewable energy, but of renewable energy technology.

Columbia River–Revelstoke has already embraced a diversity of energy production options that range from the SunMine in Kimberley to the bioenergy facility in Skookumchuk. Across British Columbia, there are tremendous opportunities for geothermal, wind, tidal and solar generation.

With the right leadership, we can build the energy future we want. If you want to learn more about PowerBC, go to bcndpcaucus.ca/powerbc.

Norm Macdonald is the MLA for Columbia River–Revelstoke. He can be reached at 1-866-870-4188 and norm.macdonald.mla@leg.bc.ca.

MLA Report: With the right leadership, we can build the energy future we want

Grid shouts it from the rooftops: the future belongs to solar power

Advances in solar power are happening so quickly that they could herald the end of the era of large coal-fired or nuclear power stations in Britain, according to senior executives at National Grid.

“From a consumer’s point of view, the solar on the rooftop is going to be the baseload,” Steve Holliday, the transmission network’s chief executive, said. “Centralised power stations will be increasingly used to provide peak demand.”

His finance chief went even further. Andrew Bonfield said that solar panel costs were falling so rapidly that energy from the Sun was expected to be one of the most cost-effective

Grid shouts it from the rooftops: the future belongs to solar power

With more work, solar is the future

When the Wright brothers began their experiments with flight, no one could have imagined that years later air travel would become thoroughly routine. To be successful, the brothers had to overcome numerous hurdles. When no manufacturer could supply them with an engine light and powerful enough to propel them into the air, they built their own. By doing so, they changed history.

Now, with the record-breaking Solar Impulse 2, history is being written once more. As The National reported yesterday, the aircraft completed the most difficult leg of its journey around the world on Friday when it successfully landed in Hawaii after crossing much of the Pacific. Swiss explorers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, the driving forces behind the project, have effectively succeeded in creating the first plane capable of perpetual flight.

The flight was made possible after years of hard work, research and development. However, it’s also important to note that this is just the start of a much longer journey. More work needs to be undertaken to develop solar flights that are currently impractical due to the slow travel time, unpredictable weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.

The focus should now be on reducing the weight of solar-powered aircraft and improving speed in the air. Another area to improve is the power storage system. Batteries are not yet efficient enough to allow solar power to compete with fossil fuels. Their cost remains relatively high and they store limited amounts of energy.

But the good news is that research is already underway at Masdar Institute and, indeed, elsewhere to develop more advanced solar energy storage. While this research may not yet have yielded any new advances for solar aviation, the Institute’s focus on sustainable energy systems is likely to throw up new lines of development to pursue.

The history of flight tells us that there are always new technologies that can lead to the next “big thing”. Solar Impulse 2’s journey around the globe will end soon, but the journey towards universal fuel-less flights continues apace.

With more work, solar is the future

Future looks green as cost of renewables falls

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Costs of renewable energy have fallen by as much as 75 per cent in the last five years, especially for solar and wind energy. “Onshore wind power …

Future looks green as cost of renewables falls

Renewable Energy: Power for a Sustainable Future

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The underlying physical and technological principles behind deriving power from direct solar (solar thermal and photovoltaics), indirect solar (biomass, hydro, wind, and wave) and non-solar (tidal and geothermal) energy sources are explained, within the context of their environmental impacts, their economics, and their future prospects.

Together with its companion volume, Energy Systems and Sustainability, Second Edition (OUP, 2012, 9780199593743), this book provides both perspective and detail on the relative merits and state of progress of technologies for utilizing the various “renewables.” The analysis considers emissions, sustainability, cost implications, and energy security, as political and economic pressures move society towards a low-carbon future.

From an overview of basic energy conversion processes to a discussion of the individual renewable sources to a concluding examination of the prospects for their integration into national and international networks, Renewable Energy: Power for a Sustainable Future, Third Edition, provides a valuable insight into prospects for the renewables.

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Uses an interdisciplinary approach in considering economic, social, environmental, and policy issues

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Renewable Energy: Power for a Sustainable Future

UK large-scale solar faces uncertain future, says IEA

By John Parnell

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29 August 2014, 10:04 Updated: 29 August 2014, 10:59

The IEA has warned that the UK’s large-scale solar sector faces an uncertain future once the renewable obligation (RO) scheme closes at the end of March next year.

Speaking at the launch of the energy watchdog’s annual ‘Medium Term Renewable Energy Market Report’, it said predicting utility-scale solar’s prospects beyond the immediate future was difficult.

“The UK is right now the fastest growing utility-scale PV market in Europe due to the strength of the short-term incentives under the RO. We see that playing out in the next year but we see significant uncertainty over how durable that utility-scale forecast is,” said Greg Frost, head of public affairs at IEA during a conference call with journalists. Frost added that the cost of solar was slightly higher than in other parts of Europe.

Projects over 5MW seeking connection after 1 April 2015 will have to apply for the contracts for difference (CfDs) scheme. The competitive system pits solar against onshore wind and the first auction takes place in the Autumn, despite some details of the policy remaining unknown.

“It remains to be seen how the implementation details of the CfD will be adapted through the state aid guidelines of the EU and the higher political decisions made on the 2030 [EU climate and energy] framework,” said Paulo Frankl, head of renewable energy, IEA.

“At the moment I would say it is clearly an important incentive in the UK…but, it is not the sunniest place in the world. I see an upside potential for distributed UK but limited potential for utility-scale,” added Frankl.

Leonie Greene, head of external affairs at the Solar Trade Association (STA) said there was still work to be done to improve the new policy.

“It seems the IEA share our serious concerns about the suitability of CfDs for utility solar. The renewables industry has wider concerns about their suitability for SMEs in general. This is clearly a mechanism that favours big utilities that can shoulder big risks,” said Greene.

“The STA is continuing to engage DECC officials and ministers on a series of fixes, including more regular auctions and legal clarity on the requirement for a grid ‘agreement’, which is in fact just a grid offer. It is in all our interests for government to provide effective support for solar – we need just one final push to achieve subsidy-free solar and total solar independence. But we will only get there if we are given stable and effective support,” she added.

The government has signalled a preference to drive growth in the commercial rooftop sector. The UK’s largest developer, Lightsource Renewable Energy, has established a commercial-scale unit.
 

Additional reporting by Andy Colthorpe.

UK large-scale solar faces uncertain future, says IEA

Wind energy—past, present, and future

Barry Butler brings Hawkeye Lunch and Learn series to Iowa City

By: 

Lin Larson | 2014.03.18 | 01:50 PM

P. Barry Butler, University of Iowa executive vice president and provost, will outline how wind energy became a vital part of Iowa’s energy economy—and the locus for university partnerships with industry and communities—during a March 24 event in Iowa City.

Butler’s talk marks the expansion of the university’s popular Hawkeye Lunch and Learn series to Iowa City. The events have been drawing capacity crowds in Des Moines since January.

Butler will speak Monday, March 24, from noon to 1 p.m. in room 2520D of the University Capitol Centre, 200 South Capitol St. in Iowa City. Guests are invited to bring their lunch.

The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited. RSVP online.

“We want to highlight ways the university is working with partners across the state, strengthening existing relationships and creating new ones,” said Linda Snetselaar, associate provost for outreach and engagement, in introducing the series.

In February, former congressman and National Endowment for the Humanities chair Jim Leach discussed Nazi seizures of art and property with a Des Moines crowd. This month, UI space scientist Don Gurnett offers a firsthand account of the Voyager I spacecraft’s journey to interstellar space.

Plans call for new talks by UI faculty to debut in Des Moines before being reprised in Iowa City the next month. Live video streams of the Des Moines talks will be available via now.uiowa.edu. The UI Office of the Provost sponsors the series.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation to participate in this program, contact the Office of the Provost in advance at 319-335-3565.

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Wind energy—past, present, and future