[amor de cosmos]

Nor’easter Raging Over Solar Power In Massachusetts

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is not beating around the bush when it comes to making his state the greenest in the nation. The Green Communities Act he pushed in 2008 started Massachusetts down the road of expanded conservation and investment in renewable energy. One of his current goals is to generate 1,600 megawatts of solar energy statewide by 2020.

In order to meet such an ambitious target, the Patrick plan requires utilities and other big energy consumers to get a certain amount of their power from solar producers, which can range from large-scale farms to single-family residences with rooftop installations. This would not only force utilities to diversify their entrenched transmission networks, but also would incentivize more homeowners and small businesses to become players in the solar market, further eroding the profits to which utilities have become accustomed.

As one might expect, the Massachusetts utility industry is none too pleased. And when we say “industry,” we’re really talking about Northeast Utilities System, far and away the state’s largest energy provider and among the largest in New England. With Patrick’s plan on the verge of achieving the critical mass needed to pass the state legislature, NU and others have begun to raise the familiar, unjustified spectre of increased consumer rates in order to halt solar progress.

Like the litany of laments heard from other investor-owned utilities in response to the rooftop solar movement, NU’s argument makes it sound like they care about ratepayers. In reality, they are trying to mask their true motivation: money.

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/01/...massachusetts/

Edison Electric Institute Really Does Not Want You to Go Solar
Adam Browning of Vote Solar dissects an anti-solar filing from the IOUs’ industry group.
Adam Browning
February 28, 2014

The Edison Electric Institute, the trade association representing U.S. investor-owned utilities, is at it again. Over the past year, this monopoly of monopolies has been working overtime -- taking extraordinary, unprecedented actions -- to rid the world of the scourge of people generating their own power with solar.

The latest: on February 18, EEI filed official comments (PDF) with regulators in Arizona on the subject of valuing distributed generation renewables, including rooftop solar.

It’s a remarkable document. EEI wants a fair and balanced evaluation of distributed renewable generation which specifically excludes both the distributed and the renewable values.

Some pertinent quotes:

• “Grid security and reliability values should not be considered in rates.”
• “Environmental and social externalities should not be included in DG rates.”
• “DG systems should not be compensated directly for reducing market prices.”
• “Even if it can be determined that DG systems may make known and measurable net contributions to the security and reliability of the system...they should not receive additional compensation.”
• “EEI believes that although avoided transmission and distribution may be theoretically relevant to determining adequate compensation for DG, the measurement of such components is too speculative at this time.”

EEI also makes the case that if a value can’t be determined with a level of precision sufficient to its liking, it should be assumed to be zero. You say five, someone else says six, and EEI meets you in the middle at zero. Or to offer another analogy, MIT researchers calculate that fossil-fueled power plants shorten the lives of 52,000 Americans a year. If you and EEI can’t agree on the value of Grandma’s life, they want to call it even at zero. Sorry, Grandma.

The group's arguments are not fooling anyone, including the Arizona regulators who were not impressed by the $500,000 in television ads that EEI ran attacking solar customers. Nor NRG, one of the largest utility companies in the country, which ended up running a full-page ad in the Arizona Republic calling out EEI for its anti-solar and anti-consumer efforts.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...lar-For-Arizon

FERC Affirms Support for Removing Market Barriers to Energy Storage
March 1, 2014 Frank Andorka : 0 Comments
By Allison Clements, Special to Solar Power World

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has once again demonstrated its commitment to removing unfair market barriers standing in the way of the grid flexibility necessary to incorporate high levels of renewable energy like wind and solar. It did so last week by issuing an order clarifying aspects of Order 784. Order 784, which FERC originally issued last year, tackled the tricky issue of whether and how to allow for competition in the sale of “ancillary services.” More about these services in a moment, but first some background:

The Changing Energy Markets’ Landscape

The 2013 Renewable Futures Study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) predicts that by 2050, 80% of the nation’s energy can come from wind and solar, and other renewable resources. To accommodate reliably so much clean energy, which can be variable due to unexpected weather, the study also predicts a need for significant, but feasible, increases in system flexibility. NREL writes that “system flexibility can be increased using a broad portfolio of supply- and demand-side options and will likely require technology advances, new operating procedures, evolved business models, and new market rules.”

The problem with existing energy market rules, in large part, is that they were designed around a generation portfolio consisting almost exclusively of central station, mostly fossil-fueled resources like coal and oil. Over time, the increasing presence of wind and solar power, demand response, distributed (onsite) generation and even energy efficiency have rendered the rules that govern energy markets outdated and, in some cases, discriminatory. The rules do not contemplate the operational characteristics of these emerging clean resources. As a result, these resources cannot compete to provide grid services even though they can often provide them more effectively and/or cheaper than traditional generators.

Under former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff’s tenure (he left his post last November), FERC issued a series of legacy orders (including Orders 719, 745, and 755) that made real progress in addressing these increasingly unjust rules in wholesale energy, capacity and ancillary service markets. Order 784 and last week’s Order on Clarification represent the most recent of those orders. So, now back to ancillary services.

http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com...nergy-storage/

02/28/2014 12:43 PM
Air Force Cuts Ribbon On Biggest Military Solar Array, Boon for Solar Contractors
SustainableBusiness.com News

The US Air Force cut the ribbon this month on the biggest solar array in the US military so far - a 16.4 megawatt (MW) system at Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Covering 170 acres of land, it's providing about 35% of the power for the base, and is expected to supply 100% during more temperate times of the year. A 20 MW project for the Army is under construction.

The military is using the same model for renewable energy installations across the US - they are built on military land by private contractors that own and maintain the systems and sell the electricity to the base under long term power purchase agreements.

In exchange, the base saves on energy bills - about $500,000 a year in the first few years - without having to spend a dime on upfront costs. The same is true for upgrading energy efficiency - they do that through energy saving performance contracts.

By moving to independent, on-site energy, the Department of Defense (DOD) is also getting much more reliable energy. Over the past few years, the military had to deal with 87 day-long power outages across the US, reports Pew.

"This is a win-win-win proposition: The military gets better energy infrastructure, taxpayer dollars are saved, and the clean energy industry is finding new market opportunities," says Phyllis Cuttino at Pew.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/i...splay/id/25551