Should utilities be able to add special fees on customers that have solar or small wind installations? Not only is it against Minnesota state law, but in our recent comments to the state’s Public Utilities Commission, we explain how one-off fees on customers using distributed generation to cut their energy consumption violates the spirit of good … Read More
ILSR’s John Farrell was the keynote speaker for the Salt Spring Community Energy Group’s 2016 Conference in British Columbia, Canada on Saturday, April 23rd. Following the keynote presentation there were over a dozen different workshops on new energy methods and technologies that can be implemented by homeowners and businesses. John’s plenary illustrated the opportunities that communities such … Read More
You may have missed our small change, but after rolling out our program logo back in December 2014, we decided to make a small revision in our name and program description, from “democratic energy” to “energy democracy.” Primarily, this is due to the understandable but mistaken notion that democratic energy had any relationship to the … Read More
In conjunction with our recently released report: Beyond Sharing – How Communities Can Take Ownership of Renewable Power, we are re-releasing a number of podcasts which feature renewable energy projects with innovative community-owned energy structures. These pertinent podcasts prove that community-owned renewable energy projects are the way to move towards Energy Democracy.… Read More
St. Peter, Minn., home to 11 thousand people, is nestled within the verdant hills of the Minnesota River Valley. The town was originally intended to be the state capital of Minnesota, until a legislator named “Jolly” Joe Rolette nabbed the bill and hid it from the governor’s awaiting signature. Unflappable, the city would play its own part in … Read More
Andy Johnson works with the soil. When younger, he served in Peace Corps in Central America for three years, working on conservation practices. Then he worked in the Natural Resource Conservation Service for years, the same agency that his father Paul Johnson headed by appointment from Bill Clinton in 1993. After moving back to northeast Iowa in 2007, he started farming christmas trees and grass-fed beef cows, but thinking about how the concept of conservation applied to his community’s energy use and economy.… Read More
This report explores the opportunity of community renewable energy to enable energy democracy, examining the benefits and barriers, barrier-busting policies, powerful examples, and how cities and cooperatives can lead the way.… Read More
The Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute just released a report analyzing the top 25 U.S. investor-owned electric utilities, and one of the highlights is that these 25 largest utilities collectively spent over $400 million of money (from their ratepayers) lobbying in the past four years. In many cases, this involved lobbying against net metering, renewable energy standards, or incentives for solar energy.
What could that money have bought if instead spent on the things that most electric customers want, such as solar energy?… Read More
Rhode Island established its Community Renewables Program in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 through a net metering tariff. This post summarizes the policy and compiles Rhode Island community solar resources.… Read More
