This week in Energy Democracy: Updates on Hawaii and Colorado’s renewable energy journey, a new FERC decision that could open up greater renewable energy for municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives, and a new Illinois poll on demand charges. Featured Stories Are Rural Electric Cooperatives driving or just dabbling in community solar? by John Farrell, CleanTechnica … Read More
“We just need to become the Ben and Jerry’s of the utility world!” So said Mary Powell (pictured left), CEO and president of Green Mountain Power, as she announced in 2014 that her electric utility had just earned B Corp certification, making it one of more than 1,700 companies in the world committed to rigorous standards … Read More
Renewable energy in large cities has been a challenge for years, however, Next City is covering this trend of smaller units being installed on big city rooftops by reaching out to ILSR’s Energy Democracy initiative director John Farrell and gaining the insight of our own energy guru.… Read More
Incentives designed to make rooftop solar feasible for a wider range of consumers are under attack nationwide, threatening new solar development as well as the consumers that already have rooftop panels. The staunchest opponents? Utilities who say, despite a growing body of research to the contrary, that rooftop solar hurts other ratepayers and their bottom lines. … Read More
A surge of interest in residential solar arrays threatens traditional utilities’ outdated business model of selling more and more electricity, prompting them to adopt a controversial fee that hurts efficiency and diminishes long-range cost savings — even for themselves. Mandatory fixed fees on utility bills force consumers to pay up no matter how much, or how … Read More
This week in Energy Democracy news: Regulators in Minnesota say that a nearly 10% rate hike is unjustifiable, a new Vermont energy-siting bill has been signed into law, and advocates at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair say that utility monopoly future could be dimmed. Featured Stories Energy-siting bill signed into law by Times-Argus Pursuing grid modernization in … Read More
This post made possible by the tireless efforts of ILSR intern Abbigail Feola. She dug up the data, identified the story worth sharing, and wrote the following piece below. Historically, the purpose of both municipal and cooperative utility agencies has been to bring energy services to communities that for-profit corporations thought unprofitable to serve. This philosophy … Read More
Chuck Quirmbach of Wisconsin Public Radio covered the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in the state, including ILSR’s Energy Democracy initiative director John Farrell’s keynote presentation on utilities harming the prospect of local, small-scale solar energy in the MidWest.… Read More
Solar made up over a half of the added power plant capacity during the first quarter of 2016. With over 800 MW (AC) coming from distributed solar, this year is shaping up to be another banner year for renewable energy. See previous updates: 2015 Q4, 2015 Q3, 2015 Q2, 2015 Q1, 2014 Q4, 2014 Q3, 2014 Q2 Distributed Solar … Read More
