Exempt from state regulation in 33 states because they purportedly offer democratic and local control, new data on the nation’s rural electric cooperatives suggests that skin color is still a major barrier to their democratic representation.… Read More
This is a response to a Forbes commentary published last week, by Steve Cicala In his commentary last week, Steve Cicala fell into a common trap for economists analyzing the electricity system. Touting what economics calls competitive advantage, Mr Cicala suggests we pursue the lowest price by taking cheap solar electricity from the Southwest, wind from … Read More
Net metering is a common rule for the electricity system in nearly every state, allowing folks who generate their own electricity to get a fair credit on their bill for what they generate. But there’s more to the concept that a single person with solar on their rooftop, from cities wanting to offset energy use across … Read More
We’ve been keeping a running tally of where distributed generation has come under attack, usually from incumbent utility companies, and displayed it in map format every few months. But the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center and Meister Consultants Group have done such a good job with their 50 States of Solar reports, that we’re going … Read More
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
This week in Energy Democracy news: Arizona’s new dueling ballots initiatives are scrapped (for now). Yet more arguments for cities to lead the way on energy transformation. Massachusetts raises it’s net metering cap. Featured Stories: Rooftop solar cease-fire takes ballot measures off table for now by Ryan Randazzo and Mary Jo Pitzi, AZ Central Did FERC … 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
