The 2005 Energy Policy Act (EPAct 2005, to those in the know) tasked public utilities to develop a handful of plans on specific topics, to be done by August 2008. The topics are pretty dreary sounding: net and smart metering, fossil fuel efficiency, interconnections, and fuel diversity.
CWLP has announced that on May 30 it will hold a public meeting to get feedback on its proposed plans for dealing with these issues. And I know: this sounds like warm death. But these meetings are one of the venues for citizens to decide what kind of future they--we--want.
Clean Energy Springfield is going to be reviewing CWLP's plans in the next few weeks. These plans are one of the major ways that CWLP decides how to promote or retard renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Net metering governs the rules for how CWLP buys energy from people who build their own renewables, like solar.
Smart metering--which I should say up front, CWLP is proposing to not really do much with--tries to better align the cost to produce energy with the rates we pay.
Interconnection deals with ... well, I'm not clear. I mean, it's how distributed generation (i.e., those solar panels I mentioned in net metering) gets into CWLP's grid. But I'm not clear on the issues surrounding this.
Fossil fuel efficiency deals with how CWLP can squeeze more electricity out of the chunks of coal it burns.
And the big daddy of them all is fuel diversification. This is CWLP's plan for reducing reliance on coal. Curious what it says? Go read it (PDF).
If you're at all interested in moving Springfield into a more sustainable future, drop me a line. We need help figuring out how to approach these plans.