Solar energy advocates fight Duke Energy to a draw over the terms of continued solar electric development in NC. This week in CIB.

Administrative Watch: Solar Incentives Stay Intact

In a critical ruling for the continued rapid development of solar energy in North Carolina, the NC Utilities Commission has issued an order that leaves existing incentives for solar electric development intact.

Most renewable energy advocates commenting on the ruling consider the outcome – a draw in their fight with Duke Energy over the price and contract rules Duke must pay for solar generating projects – an opportunity for continued progress.

The Duke proposals would have severely undercut the current strong market for development of new solar electric generating facilities by substantially cutting the prices Duke pays to independent power producers. Speaking of the commission’s decision to reject Duke’s requests, Zoe Hanes of FLS Energy said, “I call it a win.”

That positive outlook was reflected in the reactions of most other clean energy supporters. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) posted a news release from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), in which SELC’s Katie Ottenweller said, “We’re pleased that the Commission rejected attempts by Duke Energy and others to roll back long-standing polices that allow independent solar power producers to compete in a market that is dominated by monopoly utilities.”

The NC Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA) agreed. In an online post, NCSEA communications coordinator Allison Eckley said, “The commission deserves a lot of credit for this thoughtful, balanced order. By making this finding and rejecting the monopoly power companies’ efforts to roll back the established policy, the commission itself recognized we’re better off with clean energy.”

Reactions from the clean-energy community were not universally positive. The NC Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN) criticized the Utilities Commission’s refusal to adopt competing proposals to expand the contract opportunities for independent power producers. NC WARN’s news release said that solar energy companies “need regulators to improve contract conditions in order to force Duke to quit stalling large independent solar projects.” NC WARN’s John Runkle says existing rules allow Duke to “slow-walk” contract and interconnection negotiations, delaying projects that have proven value.

The majority of expressed viewpoints from the solar industry reflects relief that we can look to continue solar growth in North Carolina. The dissent recognizes that we can still do even more to seize the solar day. Both show that we have an active and growing presence of clean solar energy, jobs, and development in our state.

The Commission’s full 67-page order can be reviewed here.

Washington Watch: Keystone Throwdown Leads the Agenda

As predicted, the new Congress which opened in Washington last week is leading off the year with a push to pass legislation requiring approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The controversial pipeline would provide a new route for oil from Canadian tar sands production to reach U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists have vigorously opposed the pipeline because of the boost it could offer to increased production of oil from one of the dirtiest sources in the planet.

The big news from the Obama Administration last week came with the president’s announcement that he would veto such legislation if passed. Prior to that announcement, few responsible observers purported to be certain how the president would act on the pipeline-mandating legislation. Environmentalists cheered the announcement of his intent to veto.

Washington observers across the board are projecting 2015 as a year full of high-stakes showdowns on energy and environmental issues at the national level. Beyond the sharp symbolism of the Keystone debate, there’s sure to be a series of fights over several clean air related rules moving through the Environmental Protection Agency or the courts. On one of these, standards for carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, the EPA announced last week that it was delaying the release of those rules until mid-summer when they would be released at the same time as the rules for existing and modified plants.

When it comes to climate change debates, it’s going to be a long, hot year in Washington.

Legislative Watch: Here They Come

The NC General Assembly returns to Raleigh this Wednesday for the start of the 2015 legislative long session. At this point, we are not projecting as high-profile a role for environmental issues as we saw in 2013-14, when legislators rammed through fast-track fracking legislation and labored long and loudly over the coal ash disaster before producing a mouse of a “cleanup” bill.

However, conservationists are wary about two energy-related topics on which action is possible. First, legislators will have the opportunity to reel back the rules on fracking adopted by the Mining and Energy Commission (MEC) late last year. The betting at CIB leans toward expecting the General Assembly as a whole to let those rules move forward. That’s primarily because holding them up for a hard look could postpone the date by which the state is ready to theoretically issue those first permits for fracking exploration. In fact, North Carolina’s limited prospective gas reserves, together with the supply glut that’s axed oil and gas price levels, makes it look unlikely that the oil/gas industry will be beating down Tar Heel doors for permits this year. Nonetheless, such reality checks haven’t notably dampened the enthusiasm of state fracking supporters yet.

Second, clean energy advocates are watching with concern the possibility of a renewed push by dirty-energy supporters to slash our state’s successful standards now fueling the solar energy boom here. Anti-renewable ideologues backed by oil industry money made a hard run during the previous biennium at gutting the renewable energy portfolio standard (REPS). That would have been an economic disaster, since REPS has boosted the development of solar energy by requiring electric utilities to provide a market for its production on reasonable terms. A bipartisan coalition of legislators supporting clean energy and the jobs it’s producing in our state helped to kill the REPS-repeal effort. Sadly, the dirty-energy funded ‘think tanks’ have already signaled that they haven’t given up on their crusade to kill solar. Conservationists are ready to fight for the future of clean energy in North Carolina again, and we may need to do so in 2015.

Environomics: Affordable Solar

Electric customers in Charlotte, Raleigh, and 40 others of the 50 largest cities in the United States would save money by replacing some of the electricity they buy with home-generated power from rooftop solar installations. That’s the word from a new study released by NC State University’s Clean Energy Technology Center.

This is no pie-in-the-sky prediction with envelope-back calculations. It measures electric rates in effect in each jurisdiction, the local costs of installing a 5-kw rooftop solar photovoltaic system using current technology, and the resulting estimated monthly savings to the consumer. The number of cities in which consumers see clear net savings over a reasonable period of years varies according to whether the consumer pays all installation costs up front or uses a loan, and its terms. The 42-of-50 number assumes the availability and use of a relatively low-cost loan (5%) for those installation costs.

The report was funded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy with the goal of studying solar development strategies that could be pursued by municipal utilities and other local governments. It concludes that the low-cost loans approach for these projects is a practical approach. Local funding sources will do well to heed that message.

The full report – “Going Solar in America” – can be found here

That’s our report for this week.