The Greener Home - Articles, New & How To's

Mike Hopping's Energy Report - Sept. 12, 2008

Mike Hopping's Asheville Energy Report
Sept. 12, 2008

WNC Faces Massive Rate Hike Request, Tougher Building Codes, National Center for Sustainability and More

EXCERPTS OF HOPPING'S REPORT

Progress has also requested utility commission approval for a massive rate hike. The residential bite is 16.2%. About a fifth of the money will support the new efficiency programs. Higher fuel costs and past “under-recovery” of expenses account for the remainder, said Martha Thompson, Progress community relations manager. The company wants to phase in the increase over three years. Residential customers would see an initial bump of 11.2%. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for September 16.

Former CEAC member Margie Meares will be pleased to learn that Progress is supporting an effort to strengthen North Carolina building codes. The state won a $499,190 Department of Energy grant to fund development and implementation of higher building code efficiency standards. The governor’s office, State Energy Office, the NC Department of Insurance, Appalachian State University, and Mathis Consulting of Asheville participated in the grant request. Current CEAC member and Mathis employee, Jonah Butcher, is assigned to the project.

CEAC facilitator, Steve Cochran, announced that he is part of a group hoping to convert the Haywood Park Hotel and Starnes Building in downtown Asheville to a state-of-the-art efficient National Center for Sustainability. The Center would house organizations and business groups oriented toward sustainability issues in a variety of fields including heavy industry and retail business.

For the complete copyrighted report, entitled "CEAC and the Iron Equation," by Michael Hopping, see article below.

CEAC and the Iron Equation
By Mike Hopping
Copyright 2008 Michael Hopping
Reprinted with Permission

On September 12th, the Community Energy Advisory Council (CEAC) met for the first time without Progress VP Robert Sipes sitting at the head of the table. Sipes was in Kansas City cheering his company’s entrants in the National Lineman’s Rodeo. CEAC might have called off the September session but decided to press ahead with discussing how to involve the public in energy conservation and efficiency.

Action updates
Chris Edge, Progress demand-side manager, reported that NC utilities commission approval is still pending for the company’s first round of efficiency programs. He expects good news “any day now.” The submissions include incentives to promote energy efficiency in new buildings—companion programs for retrofits will be applied for shortly—and a residential load control project called EnergyWise.

EnergyWise will pay customers $25/year per qualifying electric heat, hot water, or air conditioning system, in return for allowing grid managers to remotely cycle those appliances off and on to blunt demand spikes. While some customers will be allowed to sign up this fall, a major rollout isn’t planned until early next year.

According to Edge, programs like EnergyWise are typically adopted by 20-25% of eligible customers within the first 5-7 years of operation. He guesstimates an eventual ability to shave 30-35 megawatts (MW) off a WNC demand peak. He added that local demand for electricity is increasing by 20-30 MW per year.

Some other announcements could have been made, but weren’t. A recently inked deal between Progress, FLS Energy, and Biltmore Farms Hotels will outfit the Hilton on the Biltmore Park Town Square with solar-thermal hot water. The system should provide 2,000 gallons per day and save an estimated $10,000 per year in fuel costs.

Meanwhile, Appalachian Energy is preparing to install WNC’s largest photovoltaic (solar cell) array on the roof of Jim Barkley Toyota. The project involves 336 solar panels and will produce 75-kilowatt of power to be sold to Progress. According to press reports, Barkley expects to recoup its investment within five years.

Sectors
Thompson and Cochran then divided council members into breakout groups: Government, Business, Industry, Education, and Community, to discuss how the “sectors” might foster community engagement. Worksheets to focus the talks and provide feedback were distributed and collected at the end of the session. There was no discussion of results.

The meeting ended with a CEAC video segment from the locally produced variety show, Green Radio Bistro.

A peanut gallery commentary -
CEAC has much to be proud of:

*It is pioneering a new model for constructive engagement between a corporation and its customers.

*CEAC has shown itself to be a powerful tool for the mutual education of all involved.

*CEAC has produced solid suggestions for how Progress might adapt its business to a new century with markedly different environmental conditions. Many of these ideas are gaining traction.

*CEAC connections have facilitated significant community projects. Had it not been for CEAC, Paul Szurek told me, the Hilton wouldn’t be getting solar hot water. His isn’t an isolated testimonial.

*And yet, CEAC isn’t measuring up to the sum of its diverse and accomplished parts. The council remains strangely inert where it most counts. Demand for electricity continues to rise unchecked. There’s no community action plan to promote conservation and efficiency, let alone any concerted community action.

The crazy thing is that Robert Sipes may be among those who’d rather not build a new peaking power plant, with all the burning of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, and community consternation it would entail. But the iron equation of the electric grid may push him to propose it anyway.

Electricity Supply = Electricity Demand

Even a momentary imbalance in the equation equals deep doo-doo. We’re staving off 250 MW worth of peak power doo-doo with stop-gap contracts.

Issues of Ownership

Why has CEAC been content to fret and talk about public engagement when it could long since have been rallying member constituencies and lobbying hard with others, such as the local news media? From my seat in the peanut gallery, I see problems with issues of ownership.

They’re present in the CEAC charter:

“The CEAC will function as an advisory group. The primary purpose of the group is to provide input to PEC on local opportunities and concerns in the region and to provide PEC a local means of advising the company in developing the best overall energy strategy for meeting growing demands in the region.”

Progress owns CEAC. It created the group, defined its scope, selected the members, and provides the funds. This past March, when CEAC asked to stretch the boundaries and address electric rate structures with the utilities commission, permission was denied. The council’s ownership arrangement, necessary as it may have been from the corporate point of view, created a subservient group. Progress drives CEAC. Council members are along for the ride.

There’s a second, perhaps more destructive, ownership assumption also contained in that charter passage. Progress implies that it owns both sides of the grid equation, Supply and Demand.

As a practical matter, by virtue of power plants and transmission lines, electric utilities do own Supply. However, Demand is a manifestly different story. Demand is owned by the demanders, the community of ratepayers. Community behavior can be shaped by load control incentives, and I applaud Progress for proposing them. But, apart from the company’s impressive demonstration of how a simple in-house energy audit can reduce wasted electricity, this is not ownership. On the Demand side of the equation, utility companies are relegated to the backseat.

Demand in WNC is now driven by a disorganized and largely unconscious populace. CEAC is in a unique position to alter that dangerous state of affairs if it so chooses.

This doesn’t require anyone’s permission. What it requires is a transformation of group consciousness to one that takes active ownership of Demand. Such a CEAC will reach into the community for whatever allies it needs to ensure the necessary action.

I enjoy Chris Edge’s reports, but I also want to hear about Buncombe County trends in Healthy Built homes and watch the PowerPoint on how Chamber of Commerce members are progressing with efficiency measures. When will Ned Doyle be asked to come in and explore possible CEAC interfaces with the Southern Energy & Environment Expo? Where are the energy audits on the public schools? What changes are occurring as a result?

One other re-vision may help finesse the ownership contradictions. What if CEAC becomes less about an organizational construct than a dependable location where Progress (Supply) and the community (Demand) coordinate efforts on shared goals?

I’ll close with a plea to Progress. Why not go ahead and announce what you already know? that without a major downturn in the Demand trend, you’ll have to try for another peaking power (Supply) plant in the near future? Tell us now, while there’s still time to avoid another fossil fuel solution to the grid’s iron equation.

Editor's Note: This article first appeared as is and in its entirety on www.MichaelHopping.com.

tgh8energyreportmikehoppingsept12bb1