Tag Archives: green tariffs

Missouri utilities consider program to pay for efficiency on customer bills

Written by Karen Uhlenhuth, Midwest Energy News

The Pay As You Save program puts energy efficiency projects within reach
for renters and lower-income customers.

Missouri utilities are studying a potential program that would let customers pay for energy efficiency projects through their monthly bills. Pay As You Save, or PAYS, has been primarily used by rural electric cooperatives, but it has supporters in Missouri and Iowa who think it could be a valuable tool to put energy efficiency upgrades within reach for more customers. A consultant recently analyzed the program’s potential for all three of Missouri’s investor-owned utilities. Continue reading here.

Photo Credit: Roy Manchester / Flickr: Countdown To My Electric Bill

CORPORATE RENEWABLE ENERGY BUYING

As corporate renewable buying surges, innovative PPAs pressure utilities to improve green tariffs, Utility Dive. Green tariff structures that
allow utilities to serve corporate demand for renewables within
regulatory rules continue to evolve slowly. But power purchase agreements between renewables developers and big energy users are adding innovative, risk-limiting financial strategies that make them
more appealing and challenge utilities to match the offers.

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED READING

U.S. SOLAR PANEL MANUFACTURING 

SunPower officially producing P-Series at former SolarWorld factory in Oregon

Demand for Clean Energy Coming from Businesses, not Politics

By Rod Walton, Power Engineering

U.S. companies are dominating corporate procurement of clean energy this year even as global demand rises, and the record pace accelerated with two new and very different types of American firms announcing renewable power purchase agreements (PPA) totaling 160 MW this week.

Jelly maker J.M. Smucker Co. signed a long-term PPA with Lincoln Clean Energy for 60 MW of wind power from the 230-MW Plum Creek project in Wayne County, Nebraska. The Plum Creek PPA will help Ohio-based Smucker gain half of its electricity use from clean energy by 2020.
Continue reading here.

iStock photo

ALSO OF POTENTIAL INTEREST

From WINDExchange Newsletter
Associations Allow Landowners to Collaborate on Wind Energy Developments
In conjunction with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters, WINDExchange produced an audio interview with Paul Stout, board member of the Coalition of Renewable Energy Landowners, an organization launched in 2009. Landowner groups may allow rural landowners to collaborate to negotiate wind energy development agreements as a group. According to Stout, when wind energy developers need to assemble large parcels of land for a wind farm, it is easier for them when they have one negotiated agreement that everyone can sign. Learn more about wind project development at the WINDExchange website.

Facebook’s Nebraska reach expands

By Jason Kuiper, The Wire, OPPD Blog

Facebook announced today their Nebraska data center will be three times the size of its original announcement. The Papillion data center will be six buildings instead of two with groundbreaking set to begin in May on the additional buildings. Facebook announced last April their plan to build its next data center here and credited the development of OPPD’s Rate 261M as one of the biggest draws. Read the entire blog post.

Facebook’s Press Release: Papillion Data Center Expanding to Six Buildings
Author: Jim Piazza, Director of Data Center Operations, East. Last year, we worked with Omaha Public Power District to create a new renewable energy tariff that ensures we can power our data center with clean and renewable energy. With the tariff in place, we could seek new, in-state wind projects, which we found in Enel Green Power‘s Rattlesnake Creek Wind Project. We will now increase our purchase from 200 MW to 320 MW to support our growth, and we are excited to share that we have partnered with Adobe to help them enter the U.S. renewable energy market with Enel; 10 MW of Rattlesnake Creek will be allocated to Adobe.

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED READING
Enel sells energy from new US wind farm to Facebook and Adobe, Enel Press Release
The new deal between Enel and Facebook widens the scope of the bundled, long-term power purchase agreement for 200 MW signed in November 2017 to gradually include the plant’s overall output by 2029, following Facebook’s decision to significantly expand its data centre in Papillion, around 120 miles from Rattlesnake Creek. The energy produced by the entire wind farm will enable the expanded data centre to be 100% renewable-powered.

“Powering our data centers with 100% clean and renewable energy is not just a goal for Facebook, it is a requirement of our business,” said Bobby Hollis, Director of Global Energy at Facebook. “The Rattlesnake Creek wind farm will enable us to power our future Papillion Data Center, and fulfills our passion to expand the energy market for other corporate buyers, like Adobe.”

The expansion increases Facebook’s total investment in the Papillion Data Center to
$1 billion.

A new way for Fortune 500 companies to buy wind power

By Hannah Hunt, Into the Wind, AWEA Blog

Good news blew in from Michigan late last week: General Motors and Switch signed up as the first customers to buy wind power through Consumers Energy’s new green tariff. The new Cross Winds Energy Park II in Tuscola County will supply enough wind energy to match demand at both General Motor’s Flint Metal Center and Flint Engine Operations, as well as at Switch’s 1.8 million-square-foot data center campus in Grand Rapids . . . As of last September, 17 green tariffs in 13 states have been proposed or approved. Thursday’s announcement was the fourth where a green tariff translated to wind energy procurement.  Read more here.

Creative Commons Photo

OPPD’s green tariff:

Like this: Facebook buys more wind power

How Corporations ‘Bypassed the Politics’ to Lead on Clean Energy in 2017

By Julia Pyper, Greentech Media

Click image to watch an AWEA video showing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos smashing a bottle of champagne to launch Amazon Wind Farm Texas in October 2017.

As of December 12, when heads of state joined to commemorate the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement, 327 major corporations, worth a cumulative $6.5 trillion, had committed to matching their emission reduction plans with the Paris goals through the Science Based Targets initiative. Another 864 companies have stated their intention to adopt a science-based target within two years . . . In addition, some 1,700 U.S. businesses from every state and of varying sizes — from Walmart to Wild Joe’s Coffee Spot in Bozeman, Montana — have signed the “We Are Still In” declaration. The initiative, which also includes cities, statehouses and college campuses, was intended to demonstrate America’s enduring commitment to delivering on the promise of the Paris Agreement. Click here to learn more.

Utility responds to commercial green power demand in Minnesota

By Frank Jossi, Midwest Energy News

A Minnesota electric cooperative is among the latest utilities to offer a commercial green tariff program in response to growing demand from business customers . . . It’s another sign of growing corporate demand for renewable energy extending beyond Silicon Valley and into rural and suburban regions such as those covered by Great River Energy, whose 28 member cooperatives geographically cover about two-thirds of Minnesota. It comes on the heels of the state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy, launching its own commercial green tariff program earlier this year. Read more here.

PwC Survey of  U.S. companies shows that 72% of respondents are actively pursuing renewable energy procurement.

Photo: Great River Energy Aerial View

ALSO OF POTENTIAL INTEREST

500 cities have committed to going big on clean energy this year – now what?

By Alexander Laska, Into the Wind
American Wind Energy Association Blog

A handful of cities like Georgetown, Texas, and Greensburg, Kansas, have gone 100 percent clean energy, getting all of their electricity from sources like wind, solar or hydropower. Now, over 500 cities are following in their footsteps, committing to go big on clean energy–saving their constituents money and cutting pollution along the way.

To help the effort, AWEA has released a new brochure, Wind Works for America’s Cities, which provides information on how cities can purchase clean, affordable wind energy and offers many examples of cities that have already done so.

Click here to read the entire blog post.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES REFERENCED IN ARTICLE

OPPD News Release: Stay Cool This Summer With Smart Energy Savings

The Omaha Public Power District wants to help customers stay cool this summer by making smart energy choices. Power Forward solutions, a portfolio of demand-side management programs, are helping customers manage their electric use while working toward the district’s goal of shedding 300 megawatts (MW) of peak demand by 2023. Peak demand occurs on the hottest days of the summer, when air conditioners are working the hardest. Reducing the need for electricity at these times reduces the need to build another power plant. That helps keep rates low for all customers. One of OPPD’s Power Forward programs is Cool Smart. So far, 42,000 customers are actively participating in this air conditioning management program, and they’re getting paid to do so. Click here to learn more about Cool Smart and another OPPD program, HVAC Smart.

OPPD FEATURED IN UTILITY DIVE ARTICLE
Green designs: Corporate demand pushes new generation of utility green tariffs
By Herman K. Trabish

Corporations are hungry for green energy — nearly half of Fortune 500 companies have climate or renewable power goals, according to a recent report. Utilities know they must satisfy this growing demand or risk losing business to independent renewable energy developers. To do so, many are designing innovative rate designs — labeled green tariffs — to provide wind and solar power to corporations like Facebook, Yahoo and
Amazon . . . Nebraska’s Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) is the first public power utility designing a green tariff, with Facebook expected as its first customer.
Read the entire article.