Weekly Clean Energy Roundup:March 10, 2004

Fifty-Seven Energy Efficiency Leaders Win Energy Star Awards

On March 2nd, DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized 57 businesses and organizations as winners of the Energy Star Partner of the Year Awards. DOE and EPA sponsor these awards each year to recognize energy efficiency investments made by Energy Star partners. These investments save energy while also saving consumers money and avoiding greenhouse gas emissions. The award winners are businesses and organizations that have achieved energy efficiency in new homes and consumer products, as well as firms that have achieved excellence in energy management and in energy efficiency and environmental education.

Companies that earned special mention from DOE include General Electric Consumer Products, a leading manufacturer of Energy Star products; Whirlpool Corporation, which manufactured the largest number of Energy Star appliances; Osram Sylvania, for producing an innovative line of compact fluorescent lamps, 65 percent of which qualify for the Energy Star label; Gorell Enterprises, Inc., for manufacturing and marketing Energy Star windows; Maytag Corporation, for a national campaign to promote its Energy Star appliances; and Sears, Roebuck and Company, for boosting its retail sales of Energy Star appliances by 30 percent in 2003. See the DOE and EPA press releases, and see the Energy Star Web site for a complete list of winners as well as profiles of the award winners.

Last year alone, the DOE/EPA Energy Star program helped Americans save enough energy to power 20 million homes, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that of 18 million cars and saving consumers $9 billion. More than 200,000 new homes have earned the Energy Star distinction. And on March 1st, the Energy Star program set its sights on a new target: county courthouses and office buildings. In cooperation with the National Association of Counties, the new Energy Star County Courthouse Campaign sets standards by which counties can rate the energy performance of their courthouses and office buildings and win recognition by EPA for superior energy performance. See the Energy Star Web site.

New Mexico Passes Laws to Promote Clean Energy and Hybrid Cars

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed three energy bills into law last week, including a “Renewable Energy Act” that sets minimum requirements for renewable energy use by the state’s public utilities. Governor Richardson also signed a bill for the state to invest in hydrogen and other cutting-edge energy sources, and to provide “clean energy grants” to state agencies and local governments; public schools and other educational institutions; and tribal entities. The third bill exempts from excise taxes any purchase of a new hybrid-electric car that achieves a fuel economy rating of at least 27.5 miles per gallon. See the governor’s press release (PDF 131 KB). Download Acrobat Reader.

The state’s new “Renewable Energy Act” requires public utilities to draw on renewable energy resources for 5 percent of the electricity they sell starting in 2006, increasing by 1 percent each year until 2011, when the renewable requirement will hold steady at 10 percent of retail sales. The utilities can meet their renewable energy requirement using solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, and select biomass energy resources, as well as by using fuel cells powered with something other than fossil fuels. However, the law allows the New Mexico Public Service Commission to set a “reasonable cost threshold” for renewable energy, and allows utilities to fall short of their requirements if meeting them would result in exceeding the cost threshold. The law also allows the Commission to give utilities extra credit for using some types of renewable energy, and allows the Commission to reduce the renewable energy requirement for commercial and industrial customers. The law codifies rules established by the Commission in late 2002. See the New Mexico Legislature Web site for the full text of Senate Bill 43, House Bill 251, and Senate Bill 86, and for background on the Commission’s 2002 rules, see the ar
ticle from the January 8th, 2003, edition of this newsletter.

Massachusetts to Build a 500-Kilowatt Solar Power Plant

The largest solar power plant in the northeastern United States is slated to be built in Brockton, Massachusetts, with construction starting this fall. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) announced last week that it will provide $1.04 million to help fund the 500-kilowatt solar power installation, with additional funding provided by the City of Brockton. The MTC has also pledged to spend nearly $650,000 to buy renewable energy certificates from the project once it is producing power. The project will be built on a “brownfield”a blighted former industrial siteand will help to revitalize downtown Brockton. See the MTC press release.

The MTC has been busy in recent months, providing $2 million for four demonstration projects in October 2003 and $32 million for five commercial renewable energy projects in November 2003. The demonstration projects include a new hydroelectric turbine, a biomass gasifier, a biomass pyrolysis project, and an ocean wave energy device. The five commercial projects will generate about 100 megawatts of electricity from wind power, hydroelectric power, and power systems fueled with biomass and landfill gas. See the MTC press releases from October 1st and November 13th.

Large Wind Power Plants Planned for Maine and Pennsylvania

Three new wind power projects aim to boost wind energy production in the eastern United States, including the first large commercial wind power facility in the state of Maine. Evergreen Wind Power, LLC and the Town of Mars Hill have applied to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to build a 40- to 50-megawatt wind power plant in Mars Hill, located near Presque Isle in northern Maine. Meanwhile, Generation Resources Holding Company LLC (GRHC) is planning to build a 30-megawatt and a 45-megawatt wind power project, both in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The larger of the two projects gained momentum on February 5th, as FirstEnergy Corporation agreed to buy 20 years of power output from the facility, called StonyCreek WindPower. GRHC expects StonyCreek to be complete late this year, and the smaller facility to be complete by early 2005. See the Evergreen Wind Power and GRHC Web sites.

Note that the StonyCreek facility will have enough wind turbines to generate 64.8 megawatts of power, but GRHC is only building a 45-megawatt connection to the power grid, since it’s rare that all the turbines would be generating full power at the same time. For this reason, FirstEnergy refers to the facility as a 65-megawatt wind plant, but GRHC refers to it as a 45-megawatt wind plant. See the FirstEnergy press release.

Indian Tribes and Cities Teaming Up to Deploy Renewable Energy

Organizations representing Indian tribes and U.S. cities announced last week that they will team up to promote tribal-owned renewable energy projects. More than 150 U.S. cities are working with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, and renewable energy projects on tribal lands could help those cities meet their pledges. The new “Energy Independence Day Campaign” brings together the ICLEI with the Intertribal Council on Utility Policies, which represents federally recognized Indian tribes in the Dakotas and Nebraska and other tribes throughout the West. The Intertribal Council on Utility Policy has proposed a collaborative intertribal project for some 3,000 megawatts of tribally owned wind power, built on 24 Indian reservations across the Great Plains by 2010. The Energy Independence Day Campaign is open to any tribe, city or local government willing to commit to producing or promoting the purchase of utility-scale renewable energy. See the press release on the NativeEnergy, LLC Web site.

Interested city and tribal representatives plan to convene during the Denver March Pow-Wow in Colorado on March 19th. The 30th Annual Denver March Pow-Wow is an intertribal gathering that runs from March 19th through the 21st. For more information, see the Energy Independence Day Campaign Web site and the Denver March Pow-Wow Web site.

DOE’s Tribal Energy Program provides technical and financial assistance to tribes to help implement renewable energy installations on tribal lands. See the Tribal Energy Program Web site.

Texas and Iowa Utilities Top NREL’s List of Green Power Programs

Texas’ Austin Energy sold the most renewable energy of any utility green power program in 2003, according to the latest ranking from DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). According to NREL’s “Top 10” list of utility green power programsalso called “green pricing” programsAustin Energy is currently selling 289 million kilowatt-hours of green power per year, about 50 percent more than the second-place finisher, Oregon’s Portland General Electric. Austin Energy also weighs in with the lowest price premium for its green power, which might explain its success.

In terms of the percentage of customers who buy green power, however, a small municipal utility in Iowa takes first place. Iowa’s Lenox Municipal Utilities started its green power
program in 2003, but 11.1 percent of its customers have already signed up. And Xcel Energy, which runs a green power program that spans several states, is the current leader for total number of customers, with more than 43,000 participants. Altogether, more than 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy were sold through green pricing programs in 2003, a 30 percent increase from 2002. See the NREL press release.

Both NREL and DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have been churning out green power reports in recent months. NREL produced the sixth edition of its status report on U.S. green power marketing in October 2003, and last month, both NREL and LBNL issued reports on the effectiveness of utility green pricing programs. See the reports under the “Reports & Articles” heading on the Green Power Network Web site.

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