It’s constant, it’s overwhelming, and it’s likely never to go away. What is it?  It’s information overload. We live in an age where everyone has an opinion, everyone wants a voice in the debate, and everyone thinks they’re right. With the Internet at our fingertips and the media hounding us with article upon article, it’s hard to know where to stand on hot topics like renewable energy.

We’ve probably all experienced that moment – eating our eggs and toast in our favorite diner, enjoying our cup of joe, and reading the morning paper – when we come across a letter to the editor arguing that wind power will improve energy security, energy prices, and climate change. Confusion sets in. You’re unsettled, perhaps even bothered. Didn’t yesterday’s article lambast wind power for its inefficiency, its price tag and its destructive scenic impact? Who has the facts right and who has the facts wrong? If wind is supposed to bring energy prices down, why is the electric bill creeping up month after month? If wind integration makes the grid more stable, why do you keep hearing that wind will only cause more power plants to be built? And if wind is so great, why are parts of the West disassembling their wind farms and halting project development? Why, wind proponents, why?

These are the right questions to be asking, and we’re glad you’re asking them.  These very same questions are being asked of wind project developers here in New England, most recently by the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) in connection with First Wind’s proposed Bowers Wind Project, a 27 turbine wind power project to be located in the Downeast Lakes area of Maine. Opposition to the Bowers Project stems almost exclusively from the visual impacts the project might have on a portion of the local economy, guided fishing. In all other respects, the project is commendable – Bowers will make use of existing logging roads and transmission lines and anticipated environmental impacts from the project’s construction are expected to be minimal.

CLF supports this project and, anticipating the confusion under which LURC might be working, submitted testimony from two experts to dispel some of the myths that the wind debate has generated. Specifically, Dr. Cameron Wake testified on the impacts of climate change on Maine and New England’s natural resources and how wind power is one tool to be used in addressing that challenge; and Abigail Krich testified on the systemic benefits of integrating wind power into the electric market.

After peppering Ms. Krich with questions, the Commission walked away with two major takeaways from her testimony:

• Wind power does result in cost-savings because it brings the costs of generating electricity down. Unfortunately, those savings are all but wiped out by the increasing cost of transmitting electricity.
• Increasing the amount of wind power generated and used in New England will not require the construction of additional power plants to balance wind’s variability. The New England Wind Integration Study, performed by ISO-NE, concluded that even if 12,000 MW of wind power were integrated into the system, no new power plants would be needed to balance wind’s variability.

While CLF appreciates that the scenic impacts of these projects are, at the end of the day, a highly personal matter (or as my Latin teacher would say, “de gustibus non est disputandum” or “taste is not a matter of debate”), it’s important that objective facts not be obscured by subjective, and ultimately misleading, ones.

A package of three major new renewable energy bills has just passed both houses of the Rhode Island General Assembly unanimously.  Taken together, the bills will give Rhode Island one of the best and one of the most coherent sets of renewable energy laws in the country.  Over the past three months, CLF staff have worked extensively with the leadership of both the RI House and the RI Senate on drafting the actual language of these major bills.

One bill addresses what is called “net metering.”  Net metering occurs when an electric customer’s meter can run not only forward but also backward.  Net metering is important to individuals and companies that have small renewable projects (like solar panels on the roof of a home) because net metering often makes the difference between those projects being economically viable and being non-viable.  Until now, net metering law in Rhode Island was a shambles:  for example, some renewable energy technologies qualified for net metering but (for no apparent reason) other did not qualify; moreover, many portions of the law were so vague (or incoherent) that no one was sure what they meant, and there was even litigation challenging net metering by alleging that Rhode Island net metering law conflicts with federal law.  The newly passed statutes fix all those problems.  The new law makes clear that net metering is available to all renewable technologies, gives a generous price to renewable energy generators, and outlines exactly the boundaries between Rhode Island and federal law.

Another of these bills addresses “distributed generation.”  The DG Bill seeks to fix an unforeseen problem in an earlier renewable energy law, the Long-Term Contracting Statute (LTC Statute) that the General Assembly enacted in 2009.  Long-term contracts are especially important to renewable energy developers because such long-term contracts enable the developers to get financing for their projects.  The LTC Statute turned out to have one unexpected problem.  It worked very well for large companies, like Deepwater Wind, that wanted to develop and build utility-scale projects.  But the LTC Statute was not so good at helping smaller developers that were unable to afford an army of lawyers to negotiate individual contracts with the utility.  The  DG Bill solves this problem.  The DG bill carves out a portion of the long-term contracting obligation created in the 2009 LTC Statute and sets that portion aside just for small, local projects (like a town that wants to put up a single wind mill at its Town Hall).  In order to obviate the need for that (expensive) army of lawyers, the DG Bill creates a very simple, standard contract for developers of small, local renewable energy projects.  Basically, the law says:  If you have a small, local renewable energy project, you do not need to negotiate your own contract with Grid; instead you can automatically get a standard, short, easy-to-understand two-page contract.  The DG Bill also sets a standard price for such small renewable energy projects — the price is set by a board and is designed to be high enough so that such small projects are economically viable, but low enough so that the public is not forced to over-pay for renewable energy.  The big, utility-scale projects can still be built; but the DG bill will now make it easier for smaller projects also to be built.

The third bill in the set makes it easier for renewable energy developers to connect to the electricity grid by setting a timetable and prices for such interconnections.

CLF worked long and hard on this package of renewable energy legislation, and we are very gratified to see its success in the General Assembly.  We were also pleased to see the package of bills highlighted in the lead editorial of the Providence Journal on June 21.

Photo credit: CLF

For those of you following Maine Governor Paul LePage’s assault on the state’s environmental protections, check out this op-ed by CLF Maine Director Sean Mahoney, which appeared June 3 in the Bangor Daily News. Here, Mahoney rebuffs LePage’s claim that generating more energy from renewable sources in Maine, as required by the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, means higher energy prices for Maine consumers, and rejects his so-called “solution,” a bill entitled “Act to Reduce Energy Prices for Maine Consumers.” Want to hear four reasons why LePage’s Act and attitude are bad for Maine? Mahoney has them here. Read more >

CLF applauds the balance regulators struck in approving the Kingdom Community Wind Project in Lowell, VT. The order allows the controversial project to move forward while protecting wildlife habitat and ensuring restoration of disturbed areas.  The decision addresses all the concerns that were raised and provides some innovative means to manage the impacts.

All power supplies – including wind – have environmental impacts.   While the environmental harms associated with wind are less than most sources of generation, they need to be minimized and mitigated, not ignored. The Vermont order includes specific requirements from an agreement with Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources that permanently protects significant habitat and requires re-vegetation and restoration of disturbed areas both after construction and when the project is no longer used.  These measures go a long way to reduce the environmental footprint of the project.  The decision also calls for minimizing lighting while still conforming to FAA requirements.  Overall, the decision can be a model for how projects can move forward while responsibly addressing impacts. 

The project’s benefits are significant and weighed in favor of approval.  Powering 20,000 homes from this project will help Vermont meet it renewable energy goals, create jobs and tax revenue, avoid greenhouse gas emissions, and provide long-term, stably priced power. In an interview with VPR, GMP’s President Mary Powell described the project as, “incredibly cost effective for premium renewable electricity.”

The project, consisting of 20-21 400-foot turbines along 3 miles of Lowell Mountain ridgeline, is expected to break ground in August of this year. The turbines will power an estimated 20,000 households, making it the largest wind site in the state. The project is moving forward with the approval of the Lowell community, who voted in favor of the turbines during Town Meeting Day in 2010.  CLF is excited to support wind projects that bring the community to the table, are responsibly cited, and mitigate the impacts on the environment in exchange for clean, locally produced energy.

CLF is a proud founding member of Renewable Energy New England (RENEW) – a group that brings together renewable energy developers and technology companies with environmental advocates.

In a major milestone in the life of RENEW (a relatively new organization) ISO New England (ISO-NE), the operator of the region’s “bulk” power system and wholesale electricity markets, has elected to perform a regional economic study requested by RENEW.

The RENEW economic study will evaluate how much of the approximately 4,000 megawatts of wind energy projects that have applied to connect to the New England system (the technical phrase is, “in the interconnection queue”) could be developed over the next five years without significant transmission upgrades (that is, building new power lines or supporting hardware) and what the economic impact of making those upgrades would be in order to develop the remaining wind power projects.

ISO-NE performs annual economic studies drawing from requests submitted by stakeholders.  In recent years ISO-NE has undertaken studies at the request of the Governors of the New England states that looked at long-term scenarios for building wind energy resources and transmission for supporting such resources. In the past two years ISO-NE has studied high penetration renewable resource scenarios for the year 2030 in the course of doing a New England Wind Integration Study (NEWIS). RENEW hopes the 2011 study will inform development and transmission upgrade decisions over the next few years as the states work to meet their renewable portfolio standard requirements, address the climate imperative to reduce emissions from the power sector and work to build a new clean economy.

More information on NEWIS and the economy study can be found at the ISO-NE section on the RENEW website.

Special mention and recognition is due to Abigail Krich, the President of Boreas Renewables, transmission consultant to RENEW who was the primary representative of RENEW in the NEWIS process and in the development of the economic study request (and whose material I have shamelessly borrowed from in crafting this blog post).

In response to a February 21 order by the Rhode Island Supreme Court, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) today filed a brief defending its legal standing in the Deepwater Wind case and issued the following statement:

Jerry Elmer, staff attorney at CLF Rhode Island, said, “If CLF and others are denied standing in this case, it will have the effect of shutting down the process for reviewing and appealing the PUC’s decisions on renewable energy contracts, not just in this case, but potentially on all future contracts as well.”

Tricia K. Jedele, director of CLF Rhode Island, said, “The need for a fair and open process to ensure that renewable energy development is done right in Rhode Island is at the heart of CLF’s case. That fair and open process begins with a finding by the Court that CLF has standing to pursue this appeal on behalf of its members and in the interest of Rhode Island’s clean energy future, which is in the public interest.”

CLF has intervened in proceedings regarding the proposed merger of Northeast Utilities (NU) and NSTAR, which combined would create the third largest utility in the country and the largest in New England. CLF has intervened in the proceedings before the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) to ensure that the merger will only be allowed to go forward if it is “consistent with the public interest.”  This will require a thoughtful analysis of the merged utility’s long-term strategies for delivering energy while fully meeting the greenhouse gas emission reductions, renewable energy and energy efficiency requirements of the MA Global Warming Solutions Act and Green Communities Act.  It also will require a close look at the economic and environmental risks posed by the energy generation assets that would be owned by the merged utility.

One of CLF’s concerns is that NU subsidiary Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) owns and depends upon outdated, inefficient coal- and oil-fired power plants. These plants – which are obsolete and increasingly more expensive and less economic to operate – present risks and liabilities that would be spread to NSTAR’s ratepayers if the merger goes forward.  Another concern is that the merged utility might seek to weaken Massachusetts’ renewable energy standards, as suggested in some of the utilities’ public statements, allowing large hydropower to “flood” the market (pun intended!) and chill development of other renewable energy sources such as small wind and solar facilities.

Currently, the procedural schedule for the merger proceeding pending before the Massachusetts DPU has been suspended while the DPU considers whether to modernize the legal standard it will apply.  CLF and other parties have asked that the legal standard be adapted to account for changes in relevant laws, including the Global Warming Solutions Act and Green Communities Act.

Stay tuned as we await the DPU’s ruling and further action in the merger proceeding!

Among the many questions CLF is asking about Northern Pass — the 180-mile transmission line proposed to transport 1,200 megawatts of hydro-generated power from HydroQuebec into New England — is what the project would mean for the development of local renewable energy in New Hampshire and New England.  With the recent introduction of HB 302 in the New Hampshire legislature — to be heard by the House Science, Technology & Energy Committee on February 8 — we soon may learn at least part of the answer to that question.

In 2007, New Hampshire passed its Renewable Portfolio Standards statute, or “RPS” — an important law to encourage the development of low-emission renewable energy sources in New Hampshire and New England.  The law requires that by 2025  nearly 25 percent of the electricity to be provided in New Hampshire must be generated by qualifying low-emission renewable sources — sources such as wind and small-scale hydro.

HB 302 seeks to change this important law by allowing large-scale hydropower — including large-scale hydropower from outside the region – to qualify as renewable.  Clearly intended to tilt the playing field in favor of the Northern Pass, HB 302 will greatly undermine one of the core purposes of New Hampshire’s RPS law: the stimulation of investment in renewable energy technologies in New England and, in particular, in New Hampshire.

The Northern Pass project developers have repeatedly claimed that they do not need and will not seek to change New Hampshire’s RPS law to benefit their project.  We intend to hold them to those claims.  The development of local renewable energy in New England is essential to building a clean energy economy for the region.  Join us in supporting a clean energy future for New Hampshire and New England by contacting members of the House Science, Technology & Environment Committee and voicing your opposition to HB 302.

NSTAR Green 100 customers got a rude shock last week when a notice from the utility informed them, without any explanation, that their green power premiums would be going up by more than 300 percent in March. What’s up with that?

What’s up is that prices for natural gas, the dominant fuel used to create electricity in our region, are way down.  Meanwhile, the price of the clean, renewable wind power that NSTAR Green customers are buying to reduce our dependence on such polluting fossil fuels as gas and coal, is stable. So, because the NSTAR Green premiums are pegged to the price of power from those fossil fuels – i.e., the price of its “Basic Service ” – when the differential between its Basic Service and the cost of wind power increases, the premiums go up.

What NSTAR failed to explain to its Green customers is that, even with the  hike in premiums, customers will still pay the same or less  for their total energy bill (basic electric supply, transmission and distribution charges, plus the green premium) than they paid when the program first started. Other than the obvious environmental and public health benefits of consuming less fossil fuels, NSTAR Green customers also get the benefit of more stable and ultimately lower total energy prices over time. The drop in traditional electricity prices is temporary, and it is inevitable that they will soon rise again, given the finite nature of fossil fuels and the environmental, public health and national security costs of burning them. When the price of traditional electricity increases in the future, NSTAR Green premiums will go back down.

We wish that NSTAR had taken this opportunity to tell its customers who have chosen to buy clean power that their investment continues to be a sound one, one that will ultimately save them money by getting off of the fossil fuel roller coaster.