eTopia, November 19, 2012 An eTopia News interview with ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell. John describes how renewable energy, by its nature, decentralizes the generation of energy and that the dispersion of power generation means local ownership is a natural complement to renewable energy, expanding both its economic and political impact. Click below to watch the … Read More
The enormous growth in local renewable energy is decentralizing the electricity system, often supplanting energy from centralized power plants. But not all renewable energy is built locally, even in a country like Germany with massive local ownership of its renewable energy systems. The Germans are undergoing significant upgrades to their electricity grid as they push 25% … Read More
Friend and renewable energy journalist Osha Gray Davidson released a book today called Clean Break, detailing the German Energiewende (translation: energy change). It’s a story of how the Germans systematically shifted to clean energy, finding as they proceeded that the possibilities were greater, the costs lower, and the benefits for ordinary citizens more prodigious than anyone … Read More
ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell is giving this presentation to a collaborative meeting of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC) this weekend. It highlights the proven value of distributed solar to utility grid systems and the urgent need for regulators and utilities to incorporate this value into their … Read More
A presentation by ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell explores how decentralized biogas production could provide a key piece of the future, renewable electricity system. Given Oct. 29, 2012, in St. Louis to the Biocycle Annual Conference. The Missing Piece in Clean Local Energy from John Farrell
Last week the Minnesota Public Utility Commission had a rare live public comment period on Xcel Energy’s long term planning process (called an Integrated Resource Plan). At the urging of several fellow clean energy advocates, I gave my 3 minute testimony about the enormous gulf between Xcel’s 10-year plan for solar power and the solar opportunity. … Read More
My colleague writes a good-as-any explanation of why we’re not getting quite as much energy work done in the past week as we’d like. What happens when economies of scale are taken to ridiculous proportions? The wretched customer service of Comcast, AT&T, Etc. We recently had to move our Institute for Local Self-Reliance office within Minneapolis … Read More
Click here for a more detailed article. ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell presents to a big crowd at “Green Ideas and Ham,” a breakfast policy forum in Minneapolis, about the opportunity for the city to dramatically increase its control over its energy future. In a short time, the city’s monopoly energy contracts with its electric … Read More
A new government investigation of Solarcity on the eve of its initial public offering (IPO) may explain how solar leasing is fleecing federal taxpayers and making U.S. residential solar more expensive than in other countries. The Treasury Department inspector general is probing solar leasing company SolarCity (and others) for its use of “fair market value” pricing … Read More
