AES Solar Energy Blog

Xcel has risen rates another 10% for July, making it about 38% since the same quarter last year. They blame rising natural gas prices, yet Xcel has shut down 4 coal-fired power plants and has pushed very hard to get a massive 480MW natural gas plant built. Natural gas is certainly a cleaner (relative to coal that is) alternative, but is far more expensive - and will continue the trend of increasing electricity rates in Colorado.

Rates have increase nearly 9% per year since 2002, and given these recent trends in rate hikes - that annual increase rate will likely continue to increase in the years to come.

Here's a great article by Leslie Glustrom, spokeswoman for Clean Energy Action, a Colorado citizens group.

Electricity rates just continue to go up, and here's another reason why...

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Xcel Energy is doing a lot of things right these days, but its current effort to spend $192 million of ratepayers' dollars to build two unneeded gas turbines at Xcel's Fort St. Vrain site south of Greeley is a throwback to old ways of doing business.

Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Public Utilities Commission Chairman Ron Binz, neither of the other two commissioners appointed by Governor Ritter, Matt Baker or Jim Tarpey, joined in his effort to protect Xcel's already beleaguered ratepayers.

The electricity produced by the gas turbines will be very expensive -- typically 30 cents a kilowatt hour and above -- and they aren't being built to meet customers' demand, but rather to help maintain a generous 16-percent reserve margin in 2009. Moreover, chances are the turbines will soon become obsolete, as Concentrating Solar Power (boiling water with sunlight and mirrors) begins producing summer peak electricity for under 15 cents a kilowatt hour.

As we come to realize that building resources in the northern part of the state (where there is less sunshine) is a bad idea, the $192 million will have been wasted -- at a time when our economy is faltering and we can't afford to squander any more money on soon-to-be-outdated fossil fuel resources than we already have.

Perhaps most shockingly, if the project proceeds, it will significantly idle other gas turbines on the Xcel system, including the Spindle Hill turbines that were just installed in 2007.

Clearly there are better uses for the money. For example, we could:

Double the size of the $12 million photovoltaic rebate program for the next 15 years and direct the money to low- and moderate-income households and small businesses.

Double the $9.5 million budget for low-income energy assistance for the next 20 years and help institute energy-efficiency measures that will decrease, not increase, low-income energy bills. Build much of the transmission we need to start accessing the magnificent solar resources of the southern part of the state. Developing only 1 percent of the Concentrating Solar Power resources in southern Colorado could provide more electricity than the entire state needs -- especially when combined with our abundant wind and geothermal resources.

Part of the problem is the atmosphere of the PUC. While the room isn't smoke-filled, it is windowless and filled with the suits of the attorneys representing large ratepayers and fossil-fuel interests who have been brokering Colorado's energy decisions for the last 20 years. It is the cumulative result of these decisions that has led Xcel to have a system that is still more than 90-percent dependent on fossil fuels -- and which will require repeated rate increases in the coming months and years to pay for the soaring cost of those fuels -- both natural gas and coal.

There are excellent alternatives to building more expensive fossil-fuel resources. In the short term, the cheapest and cleanest way is to get very serious about managing demand.

Here is how it works. Xcel's projected demand for 2009, the year in question, is about 6,800 MW. Of that 6,800 MW, more than 1,000 MW will only be used to meet peak summer demand on those hot July afternoons when air conditioners are working furiously. On top of that, Xcel plans a 16-percent reserve margin of about 1,000 MW. The 260 MW of Fort St. Vrain turbines are intended to preserve the very tip of that combined possible 2009 peak demand of 2,000 MW. After 2010, other resources that have already been built or new, carbon-free sources can fill the need.

The alternative to building gas turbines to meet the summer peak is to begin using modern internet-based tools to manage the demand by cycling non-essential motors, lights, air conditioning and HVAC systems. There are a growing number of firms that develop these high-tech "demand response" systems, but, despite repeated efforts from citizen interveners, Xcel repeatedly refused to explore this powerful form of demand management.

Looking out a little farther -- Colorado has the potential to add many MW of Concentrating Solar Power starting in about 2011. There are already several large CSP developers looking at the state, and they are just waiting for Xcel to get serious about this essentially carbon-free form of electricity that produces very well on the summer peak. First, though, Xcel has to stop "filling its plate" with expensive fossil-fuel resources and spoiling its appetite for low-carbon solutions.

PUC Chairman Binz was appointed by Governor Ritter in early 2007. He then waited patiently for a year for a "second vote" on the three-person commission. With the Arctic ice and the permafrost melting and the price of fossil fuels soaring, let's hope he doesn't have to wait too much longer.

I have just gotten off the phone with another IREA customer who is highly interested in Solar Energy. And again, I've had to explain that IREA opted out of Amendment 37 and does not offer the solar energy rebates that the citizens of Colorado voted for.

We have now been contacted by over 500 IREA customers who are interested in Solar Energy - yet without the rebates, it simply isn't feasible for many of them, which is why Amendment 37 was created in the first place. It is quite disheartening to see such enthusiasm in this great technology - to see it be shot down when people are told that there are no rebates available to them.

We will continue to push to get rebates to IREA, but it will take the voices of the IREA customers themselves to make IREA see that they want Solar rebates. We hope that someday soon, we will be able to call these hundreds of solar hopefuls and let them know that they too can reap the benefits of solar energy.

"We are the generation that will change the way homes are built. In the next 100 years, homes could consume 40 to 50 percent less energy and be healthier to live in than homes of the last twenty years. You represent this opportunity for change with a vision for a stronger and better future.” -- Mark LaLiberte

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With knowledge and awareness of energy efficiency and the mass adoption of alternative energy, such as solar energy, we are well on our way to Mr. LaLiberte's vision for a more sustainable future.

Call Now to Keep the Solar Tax Credits in the Energy Bill!

Senate and House Democratic Leaders are now considering a plan to leave renewable energy out of the Energy Bill. There are widespread reports that a decision has been made, at least provisionally, to move energy legislation without a tax title that extends the Solar Investment Tax Credits (ITC). Together, we can reverse this decision!

Please call your Representative and both Senators and ask them to urge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) to keep the ITC extension in the Energy Bill. The Energy Bill is expected to be voted on at the end of next week. A bill without the solar ITC provisions would be a tremendous lost opportunity for our industry and our country.

To locate your Representative and Senators’ Washington phone number, go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt and type in your company’s Zip Code. Alternatively, you can reach your Representative and Senators’ offices through the Capitol Switchboard at 202-225-3121.