Clean Energy Springfield

Smart metering is more strictly known as "time-based metering," and refers to charging different rates depending on overall demand for electricity, which is strongly based on time and season. The amount of electricity used in a typical day is lowest overnight, rising to peak around five o'clock, and then declining back to that overnight trough. Because of the way that the engineering and economics of electricity generation work, the cheapest sources of power run the overnight load, plus that level (and then some) of the daytime load. When the cheapest source of electricity is running full-bore, then the next most expensive source of electricity is brought online. This keeps going until the oldest, clunkiest (and typically the dirtiest) sources of power are brought on only for the peak of the peak. What this means is that the cost of producing energy basically goes up and down with demand.

The grid, as a whole, works like this, with the electricity that goes into the grid priced at the cost of the most expensive producer feeding into the grid. We, as CWLP's customers, are not priced like that. This means that when costs are highest for CWLP (or for Ameren or Com Ed), we have no incentive (other than whatever persuasion CWLP wants to employ) to cut back our power use.

The key idea behind smart metering is that making consumer prices work a little more like grid prices is more efficient (since people can make better decisions, when the full costs of those decisions are factored in). Given that the costliest energy (of the on-demand generators, at least) also tends to be the dirtiest, smart metering can also be a tool for cleaning up the grid

Now, there are a few problems with smart metering. First, it's capital intensive--it means swapping out the meter you currently have with one that's much more complicated, which must either have enough memory to remember what your energy use was at different times of the day, or that has an always-on communications connection of some sort (a telephone line or an internet connection, such as through wi-fi). (And, logistically, this seems kind of like a nightmare, since in many cases the meter you have to swap out is in someone's basement, like mine.)

Second, some customers don't have much flexibility in adjusting their energy use, particularly those who struggle the most with their bills, like workers living paycheck to paycheck and the fixed-income elderly. (Of course, a vigorous and comprehensive energy efficiency effort would seems like it could alleviate this.)

Nevertheless, smart metering can be a useful tool, because it attacks the worst parts of the energy system, and it does so through price signals--that is, it's a tool that uses the market for virtuous ends. Moreover, in theory, it can be good for the utility by reducing the capacity needed for peak energy demand, and also by reducing transmission congestion. (I should say that, not being an electrical engineer, I don't understand the transmission congestion issue.)

(UPDATE: For further reaches of where smart metering can get us, check out this article from Grist.)

Now, that's my quick overview. If you want it in more detail (or if you don't trust me), take a look at CWLP's smart metering recommendation (PDF), wherein you'll see (1) actual graphs of CWLP's demand throughout the day! and (2) that I've been talking about smart metering as one thing, when it's actually three (time-of-use pricing, critical peak pricing, and real-time pricing). Also, I should point out that CWLP already has a very rudimentary form of time-of-use metering in place: seasonal pricing, where they have different rates for summer and winter.

Here's essentially what CWLP is recommending for this standard:

• Adopt one mode of smart metering for large commercial customers.


• Those customers must go through an engineering analysis to ensure that they can actually shift their demand.


• Re-analyze the CWLP's infrastructure costs, so as to bill that separately from energy use for these customers


• That there be at least 10 of these large commercial customers before starting the program.

CWLP recommends that they not adopt the standard in any form for residential customers.

Here, in a nutshell, are CWLP's concerns that lead them to these recommendations:

• Revenue neutrality: CWLP wants to ensure that customers pay for the services that they use, so they want to fund any smart metering program through the program participants. More importantly, however, they also want to ensure that customers who participate don't reap a windfall through the changed rate structure, simply because they already use power at off-peak times. They would lose revenue, without gaining any of the benefits of smart metering. To some extent, CES shares this concern [* see below the fold for some background on this].
• Capital cost: Starting a smart metering effort means, well, upgrading electricity meters, for one. But it may also involve putting a communications system in place. And it appears that it involves some sort of computer system upgrade for how CWLP bills these customers. CWLP feels that, comparing these costs against the benefits it would receive (peak load reduction and reduced transmission congestion), the benefits don't approach the costs. They say that doing all of this is "very expensive," but (1) it's hard to get a sense of what they mean by very expensive and (2) they don't give any context for how feasible it would be to fund such an expense, either through bonding or through CWLP's upcoming Environmental Initiatives Fund, paid for out of revenue from sales of the new power plant to the grid.
• Residential load shifting: CWLP feels that residential customers are not able to shift their demand in response to price peaks.

Clean Energy Springfield agrees with CWLP's recommendation for commercial customers. However, we feel that CWLP should not reject the standard for residential customers. Once a smart metering program is in place for commercial customers, adding a residential component should be less costly, since CWLP will be building on infrastructure they've already put into place. In particular, we feel that CWLP should begin planning for how to do a pilot program to test smart metering among residential customers.

In addition to that general stance, we have a few other comments applicable to this standard:

• First, some of CWLP's concerns relate to the memory required in every meter if it is to track time of energy use; alternately, they must include a communications system for every meter. Nowhere in CWLP's discussion of this standard do they consider the possibility that such a communication system might be forthcoming if the city pursues plans for a city-wide wireless network. Such a network would radically change the feasibility and cost of a smart metering program. However, even in the absence of such a citywide network, we feel that CWLP overstates the problem. Imagine, for instance, a program where entire neighborhoods opt-in. In such a case, one central meter could be equipped with a hard line (a telephone connection, basically) to communicate with CWLP, and a wireless node to communicate with the surrounding households' meters. CES is confident that CWLP staff could likely devise many such cost-saving scenarios, once they commit to finding a way to make smart metering work.


• Second, even if smart metering is not appropriate for the typical residential customer, it may be appropriate for those who are net metering (check back tomorrow for our stance on net metering). Connecting smart meters to net meters will allow CWLP to better price the contribution that those customers make to CWLP's grid.


• Third, in considering this standard, CWLP should consider the social benefits of peak load reduction, and not just the utility benefits. Moreoever, because for some time into the future, CWLP will be an energy retailer (because of the excess capacity from the new power plant), CWLP should consider its ability to increase sales at the price peaks on the midwest electricity grid when considering what benefits it receives. While some people have in the past criticized environmentalists when we promote sales to the grid from the new power plant as a source of revenue, we feel that it is a reasonable and realistic tool for making Springfield's transition to a soft energy path as smooth and painless as possible.


• Lastly, even if CWLP is correct that residential customers are not able to shift their loads away from peak times, this suggests that residential customers are primarily captives of their infrastructure--their homes. Thus, we believe that CWLP should investigate the use of smart metering for all new residential developments in Springfield. If developers know that their customers will be paying more for peak energy use, they will design their houses to reduce that peak load, either through increased efficiency, or the incorporation of photovoltaics (which generally produce power at exactly times of peak demand--hot summer days). Moreover, CWLP should and can be a hugely important resource in helping developers determine how best to go about doing so. In fact, starting with this, they could become a general resource for encouraging green building practices among developers.

For these reasons, we support CWLP's recommendation for their commercial customers for this standard, but request that they adopt the standard with modifications for their residential customers as well, to set themselves with the task of exploring the many different ways that smart metering can be tried for residential customers in Springfield.

If you agree with this, here's some of the things you might submit to CWLP in comments:

• CWLP should adopt the time-based metering standard for residential customers, with the goal of developing a trial program.
• CWLP should consider the use of smart-metering as a tool for encouraging the use of small-scale solar power through its net metering program.
• CWLP should consider using smart metering as a way of encouraging greener buildings in all new construction.

Before I get to the substance of net metering (which is going into the next post), I should say that there's a small meta-issue here: CWLP put up its webpage on these standards sometime in early May. Clean Energy Springfield first noticed them May 11, while looking at their website for something else. The timing worked out well, because we had a regular meeting the following week. I prepared initial comments based on those standards. At our meeting, I took another look at CWLP's webpage, and found that the net metering document had been withdrawn, with a note that it was under revision, and would be released later.

The revision showed up on May 24. The hearing was held on May 30. I don't think anything is explicitly required by the Energy Policy Act in this regard, but typically public meetings that are based on review of a particular document give at least 30 days notice. (This is, I think, what CWLP did with the other standards, and intended with its original net metering document.)

Therefore, we are requesting that CWLP hold another public meeting for the net metering standard. The changes that it made to its recommendations are substantial. Clean Energy Springfield is composed of regular people (well, maybe not regular...) who fit what we do into our daily lives. I'm giving up a Saturday afternoon in my garden to write this post. The time that public agencies give for review of documents is important not just to digest what they contain, but to spread the word and organize a response. Given how little public notification there was about the meeting, we feel that it is appropriate for CWLP to hold another hearing for this standard. What's ironic about this whole thing is that the net metering standard is probably the one issue where people who aren't slavishly devoted to sustainable energy issues have something to say--plenty of people are interested in putting solar panels on their roofs, and net metering is vital to that.

Here's the thing, though: CWLP has already heard from us. We have time to adjust our comments in written form. What CWLP needs to hear is that people who didn't show up at the first meeting have something to say.

So, if this is a topic that you're interested in--if solar energy is something you've been thinking about--let CWLP know that you want the opportunity to tell them face to face.

Net metering refers to the ability for small-scale power generators--like the guy down the street who put solar panels on his roof--to sell whatever excess energy they produce back to the utility. This is a well-established tool for making better use of renewable energy sources by bringing them into the grid.

Net metering is particularly important for that most iconic of small-scale energy generation: residential solar power. For most people with a day job, the time of peak power production for solar energy corresponds to the time they're away from home. If they want to make use of that energy, and they're not connected to the grid, they have to invest in battery backups, which are expensive and not terribly efficient. However, if they're connected to the grid, they can sell that power back to CWLP, and then buy power when their panels aren't working (night time and cloudy days). They're not the only ones who benefit, however. As I explained in my post on smart metering, the electricity produced at times of peak demand is more expensive and tends to be dirtier than the electricity produced at periods of low demand. Solar power tends produce best during those peaks in demand. This means that they're offsetting the worst fossil fuel generators. Moreover, from CWLP's perspective, this is great, because it frees them to sell more power at peak price, which brings in the greatest revenue.

One last general note: although we're mostly going to enthuse about net metering, not all net metering is necessarily small-scale renewables. I would imagine that a small-scale incinerator could, in theory, qualify. We don't want to see net metering support even dirtier power sources, so, even though this isn't really an issue right now, we want to get on the record in support of CWLP being able to discriminate among small power suppliers with vastly different environmental performance.

Now, the good news is that CWLP is recommending adoption of this standard. However, they have some modifications, which means that we have some quibbles.

First thing is that all net meterers have to go through the interconnection standard they recommend. (Which means that, even though we don't have many strong, substantive comments about that standard, we are concerned that it support the development of small-scale renewables, rather than restrict their development.)

Second, CWLP seems to be concerned about people moving from small-scale generation, and relying on the grid to efficiently even out their own consumption, toward what we might consider small-scale power producers who operate by selling power to CWLP beyond what they use. I'm not sure that such a scenario is a bad thing (hey, hey, free market and the whatnot), but we recognize that that's a different issue that ought to be handled differently from the small business or household who wants to use solar panels to get to net zero energy purchases.

However! CWLP's proposed solution is not a good one. They are proposing to limit net meterers to 25 kW capacity. At the hearing, staff said that limit was beyond what the typical house would be able to support on its roof. However, single-family houses aren't the only potential customers interested in net metering. Gas stations, for instance, have both higher energy demands (at least, I assume; they're really bright, at any rate) and more roof space (why gas stations, you ask? Because at least one gas station in town has already put up solar panels on the canopy over its pumps). Ditto for big box stores. Both Kohls and Wal-Mart have made recent commitments to renewable energy, particularly solar, and while I don't think either are talking about putting solar panels on their roofs in Springfield, we need to be ready for that. Therefore, we suggest that if CWLP wants to cap net metering to limit people getting income from the program, that they at the very least make the limit scale-able, based either on the individual customer's energy demand or on customer class (so that commercial users have a higher limit, recognizing their higher demand). Moreover, we suggest that the cap be developed at the time of program development, rather than written into the city council ordinance that adopts this standard.

Third, because net metering will require updating their billing software, CWLP is proposing that it not start any net metering program until it has at least ten participants.

CES feels that any such requirement is wrong-headed, because the most important customers CWLP will have in developing a net metering program are the early adopters. These are the people and businesses for whom such a program is the most risky. The comparative level of risk for CWLP to upgrade its software, versus the household that wants to install solar panels, but can't until it knows that it will be able to sell to the grid to offset its grid purchases, will almost clearly dictate that CWLP be the one to absorb the risk. I'll come back to this in a moment.

Fourth, CWLP is recommending that when a customer's monthly generation exceed his or her monthly energy use, that difference be applied forward to the customer's next bill, rather than paid out. CWLP will be happy to hear that, at least right now, I don't think we have any particular comment on this.

Finally, CWLP suggests that any costs associated with the net metering program be borne by that program's participants. In part, this is because of their concern with rate equity--that customers using a particular service pay for that service. There are two ways that this plays out.

First, people who net meter have the potential to use CWLP's transmission system twice: once for the electricity they purchase, and once for the electricity they sell. However, if these balance out, they won't be billed at all, because CWLP rate structure is out of whack with their cost structure. (I'll have more on this in a separate post.) Essentially, they bill for fixed costs (like the transmission system) through their variable prices (the per-kWh energy cost).

Second, because there are costs associated with CWLP preparing a net metering program, they recommend that those costs be borne by net metering participants.

To the first concern, we suggest that they restructure their rates, to better apportion fixed costs to fixed prices. To the second concern, however, we believe that CWLP should adopt a different understanding of its role here. Right now, CWLP seems to be saying that the few select net meterers are so different, that they constitute a different customer class, and thus ought to support their own. CES feels, on the other hand, that potential net meterers are a much larger pool than that, and that if CWLP absorbs these costs, it will not be subsidizing a select group, but will instead make net metering a service more available to every customer. Additionally, because net metering (particularly that done for solar power) will allow CWLP to sell more energy at the extremely lucrative peak prices, these customers ought not be penalized for making this possible.

Again, as with other standards, our general concern is that CWLP sees this program as something it will allow. Instead, we suggest that net metering can be vital to preparing Springfield for a sustainable energy future, and that it ought to be cultivated, rather than put up with.

Therefore, we agree that CWLP should adopt this standard. We request the following modifications:

• that CWLP drop or modify the 25 kW limit to encourage net metering for larger customers.
• that CWLP eliminate the requirement for 10 participants to start net metering/
• that CWLP more explicitly recognize that net metering may bolster revenues, and that it eliminate its requirement that the start-up costs of net metering be borne by those customers.

At the public hearing the other night, something came up on the interconnection standard that I hadn't given proper notice to on my reading of the recommendation CWLP published: that CWLP's rate structure is skewed. CWLP has fixed costs (like the transmission system) and variable costs (like the coal that they burn to produce electricity). On the other side, CWLP has fixed prices (which I think shows up on my bill as a $3.50 per month "Electric Monthly Customer Charge") and variable prices (the per-kWh energy charge and fuel adjustment).

According to the recommendation, and what we were hearing from staff during the hearing, CWLP's prices don't align well with their costs. That is, they skimp on their fixed prices, and cover their fixed costs through the variable pricing. What this means is that if people respond to high variable prices by reducing their electricity consumption (or by installing their own generation capacity), CWLP won't pull in enough money to cover their fixed costs (administration, transmission and distribution, the power plants and maintenance thereof, etc.).

My first inclination was to ask if staff had considered restructuring CWLP's rates, to better align fixed costs with fixed prices. (To which staff said, no, that was a much bigger and volatile issue than they were tasked to deal with.) As I write this, though, I'm having second thoughts. From a conservation point of view, CWLP's current rates are useful, up to a point, because they increase the incentives for conservation--you can't insulate your way out of a fixed charge.

The concern of all of this is that with the current rate structure, CWLP has an incentive to limit development of small-scale generators, since it warps their revenue and ability to maintain the infrastructure that everyone needs.

Imagine a net-metering homeowner who puts solar panels up on her roof, and does a perfect job of aligning her solar capacity with her energy needs. Over the course of a year, the electricity she buys from CWLP exactly balances the electricity she sells to CWLP, so her energy charge is zero, and she only pays the $3.50 monthly charge. She still relies on CWLP's fixed infrastructure, even though she doesn't pay for it. To CWLP, this is a bad thing. To anyone interested in distributed generation, this is awesome, if slightly flawed.

Perhaps the solution is a revised fixed rate for just net metering and interconnected customers. Maybe the solution is, indeed, revising all of CWLP's rates. Or maybe, for the near future at least, we can have everything: maybe the way that these customers will redistribute their load away from peak demand, allowing CWLP to sell more to the grid at that high price, will enable CWLP to cover those customers' fixed costs.

Unfortunately, this is something that doesn't, I think, lend itself very well to public review. Here, you need to be able to trust staff to vigorously investigate these alternatives. And, from our perspective, that means trusting them to imagine a CWLP that takes the soft energy path. What we can do, though, is impress upon them, and city council, the importance and usefulness of that path.

The fuel diversity, or fuel source reliance, standard deals with dependence on a single source of fuel for electricity. Currently, CWLP generates the vast majority of our electricity from a single source, Illinois coal. If CWLP adopts this standard, it commits to developing a plan to diversify its generating capacity. Diversity can be good for a number of reasons. For example, if your sole fuel source becomes more expensive, you have fewer options for coping with that increased expense than if one fuel source among many becomes more expensive. Of course, increasing diversity is also going to mean, to a large extent, increasing use of renewables.

CWLP staff recommend adoption of this standard, and in addition to their 2-page comment supporting that recommendation, they have also released a 29-page internal white paper, evaluating in greater depth some of the different options that were considered in developing that recommendation. Despite the concerns I'm going to outline below, I would recommend this to anyone interested in finding out a little more about how our utility operates. It doesn't cover nearly everything, but it's a good explanation of the generation side of things.

In recommending adoption of this standard, staff recognize that CWLP is heavily dependent on a single fuel source, and that construction of the new Dallman plant will increase the use of that fuel. They further say that future generation will be more diverse due to the upcoming wind power purchase. However, they fail to acknowledge the time limit on the wind power purchase: roughly, 10 years from now. Thus, the wind power will not diversify Springfield's energy sources in the long term: in 10 years and a day, our fuel source diversity will drop back to where it is now.

Of course, that wouldn't be problematic if they outlined a vision for increasing diversity during the time that the wind power purchase protects us from the likely future costs of greenhouse gas regulations. But they don't. They acknowledge that distributed generation will play a role in increasing fuel diversity, and in the white paper recommend that CWLP encourage the use of distributed renewables, but the commitment that comes through in the final staff recommendation is weak.

Moreover, given that renewables will show up in Springfield's energy supply as fixed amounts, any increase in energy efficiency, as well as the use of non-electrical renewables like geothermal heat pumps and solar water and air heaters, will in effect increase CWLP's fuel diversity, since they will lower the amount of energy supplied by CWLP's coal-fired generators. Including a stronger commitment to efficiency and these non-electrical sources of energy will mark a commitment to greater exploration of a soft energy path. Further, providing a target will help CWLP set priorities in encouraging these alternatives in the next ten years.

While we laud the white paper's suggestion that CWLP can promote net metering, we are concerned that this suggestion is out of step with the actual net metering recommendation, which appears to take a much more passive approach. We are also pleased with the white paper's suggestion that CWLP could install its own solar panels. Sadly, that suggestion does not quite make it into the recommendation for the standard. Worse, CWLP has already made a commitment to providing a green power option for its customers, wherein customers interested in green power can elect to pay more for it. Such a green power program can be a powerful tool for building local sustainable energy infrastructure in Springfield, yet is completely missing from all staff discussion of the fuel diversity standard.

Indeed, at the hearing, I asked the CWLP staff member presenting this recommendation what program development they expected as a result of adopting this standard. The answer was none. (Which suggests that the plan they'll develop will simply be whatever disconnected parts have to be done for the other standards, plus "keep on keepin' on.")

The other standards that CWLP has had to consider seem to me to be fairly specific in intent: they envision a particular program, with a well-understood way of operating, to be pursued more or less aggressively. This standard, on the other hand, is much more open. This gives it the potential to provide an overarching vision for electricity generation in Springfield. This can be where we declare that we want to find another way.

Of course, this goes beyond a simple "adopt" or "do not adopt" mentality. The way in which we adopt this standard can guide CWLP staff in how they approach the future. Should they be content to simply enable distributed generation, for example, or do we want them to actively pursue it? Should they focus on photovoltaics, or should they open themselves up to the remarkable diversity of energy flowing through Springfield? Will they have the time, opportunity, and money to do trials of new alternative energy sources. Consider this new design for hydropower: the gravitational vortex, a small turbine that works in a pool less than twenty feet across with a water drop of about 5 feet. Not only does it generate power, it also oxygenates water, and helps speed it along the path to biological purification. Even short of actually installing such a thing somewhere in our area, does CWLP's recommendation envision staff devoted to monitoring such developments and evaluating them for potential use?

Therefore, Clean Energy Springfield agrees in the staff recommendation that this standard be adopted. However, we make the following requests:

• CWLP should commence a planning process to identify how the community wants to pursue fuel source diversification. This should focus heavily on innovative ways of encouraging public involvement, and should work in sync with CWLP's existing community outreach efforts.
• CWLP should acknowledge the role that its green power program can play in developing long-term renewable energy infrastructure within Springfield.
• CWLP should include non-electrical renewables, such as solar water and air heaters and geothermal heat pumps, and energy efficiency in its estimation of future fuel source diversification.
• CWLP should recommend adopting goals for fuel source diversity, in categories covering net metering, green power development, CWLP's own trial experiments, energy efficiency, and non-electrical renewables. These goals should be one result of the planning process outlined above.

After spewing so many words the past few days, it was nice to be able to relax a little today. We started by biking out the Wabash Trail to Barnes and Noble (for, admittedly, today's earlier post). Sadly, Barnes and Noble needs a bike rack: T & I chained onto a tree, and then later someone else did, as well, and it was tricky getting unattached. I took the photo so I'd have something to show B&N's manager next time I go in, by way of asking for a rack.

Later, at home, I worked in the yard and garden for a while, and pulled some beets. I made Deborah Madison's Vinegared Beets Nested in Their Greens, from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Basically, you steam about 2 pounds of beets until tender and peel them, and then steam their greens. Toss the greens with a little under a tablespoon of butter, salt, and pepper, then arrange them in a nest. In a pan, heat another just under a tablespoon of butter. Add 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar, and shake them around until the vinegar has evaporated. Spoon the beets into the nested greens. I suspect this is a "make and eat immediately" recipe, but it's going into the refrigerator, along with a pot of rice, to be doled out for lunch a couple of days this week.

For actual dinner tonight, T & I made a pea and carrot risotto, from Jack Bishop's Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook, along with a wilted spinach chard with garlic side, and fresh bread that T made while I was in the garden. The peas and carrots were from the farmer's market yesterday, and the chard was from the garden.

Most of the cooking was done while listening to the greatest hour of music on the radio, the Sangamon Valley Roots Revival.

And, of course, at the end of the day, a full compost crock is a happy compost crock.

At last night's city council, the second wind power contract was approved unanimously, with no discussion. Which leaves me with ... not a lot say. Except: Woo-hoo!

Also last night, Tracy, from Freecycle, was given an award from the city and county for Recycler of the Year. If you don't know it, Freecycle is an international effort to organize local networks for re-using all the stuff that you want to throw away because you yourself don't have a need for it anymore. Freecycle Springfield works through a Yahoo group, where people post whatever it is they're getting rid of; people submit requests for each offer, and the offerer picks who it goes to. They have about 1700 members, self included (though I haven't made my first offer yet, which you have to do before asking for stuff). Flipping through the digest emails that come several times a day, there's an enormous variety of stuff going through here. So take a look, and think about joining. It's a great effort. As Wynne Coplea said when presenting the award last night, there are two steps we want to do before we recycle, and re-use is one of them.

Congrats, Tracy, and congrats to everyone actually doing all that freecycling.

One of the weirdest things about most debates that pit environmentalism against well-being (usually presented as economic growth) is the way that opponents of stewardship act like regulating this or that will suddenly cause the economy to collapse. It's peculiarly un-American, dressed up as gung-ho patriotism based on a hedonistic view of the American Dream.

So it's always nice to be reminded that people, not just Americans, but all sorts of people, are really good at problem solving. The International Herald-Tribune has a nice slideshow of socially responsible design. The first one is underexplained, but the remaining, mostly focusing on troubles in developing countries, are all fascinating. And click through them all--the last slide is startlingly relevant.

Sadly, they left out one of my favorite of these kinds of things: the merry-go-round water pump. Remember it when someone says that fighting global warming can't be done. Solutions are everywhere.

I've written more words on CWLP's five PURPA standards than any sane person could possibly want to read without being paid for it (sorry, CWLP staff, but you're going to get it all. :) ). So, here's the condensed form, if you want to skip the details and just tell CWLP that now is the time for change.

First, if you have any interest in getting CWLP to actively promote net metering so that it's easier for homeowners and businesses small and large to put up solar panels on their rooftops, let CWLP know that you want another chance to tell them so, face to face. Here's why, and here's how to tell them. We're asking that they merge a second hearing with a CWLP Community Energy Meeting already scheduled for the same night that comments are due, June 21.

Here's an explanation of why we're making the requests that we're making. Overall, we're asking that CWLP use these standards as a way of laying the foundation for a soft energy path that encourages distributed generation and helps to develop renewable energy infrastructure. Simply telling CWLP and your alderman that you support CES's vision for a soft energy alternative for Springfield would be a great help.

If you want to be more detailed, here's what we're asking for each standard:

• Interconnection and fossil fuel efficiency: CES agrees with CWLP recommendation that these standards be adopted, with the following comments:
  
  • No comments on fossil fuel efficiency
  
  
  • Interconnection: CWLP should provide a little more information in their recommendation, so that the effects of this standard are more easily understood.
  
  
  • Interconnection: CWLP to review this standard to ensure that it works to encourage distributed generation, rather than simply allow it.


• Smart metering: CES agrees that this standard should be adopted for commercial customers, and further suggests that CWLP not reject this standard for residential customers. In particular:
  
  • CWLP should not rule out the possibility of residential smart metering; in particular, they should investigate the feasibility of smart metering within a wifi network; they should also provide for a trial run for residential smart metering, as well as smart metering for all new residential developments.
  
  
  • In assessing the potential for smart metering, CWLP should include a broader understanding of its possible benefits, including reduced pollution and a more concrete sense of revenue it may be able to generate from increased sales to the grid during peak demand.
  
  


• Net metering: CES agrees that this standard should be adopted, with the following comments:
  
  • CWLP should eliminate or modify its 25 kW limit on net metering, to encourage net metering among its larger customers
  
  
  • CWLP should eliminate its requirement for 10 customers to be interested before making net metering available; alternately, if CWLP keeps the requirement, it should recruit those ten customers.
  
  
  • CWLP should drop the requirement that net metering customers fully support development of the net metering program, recognizing that these customers will allow for greater revenue through sales to the grid.
  
  


• Fuel diversity: CES agrees that this standard should be adopted, with the following comments:
  
  • CWLP should commit to a public planning process to identify how Springfield wants to promote renewable energy development within our city limits. Part of this process should develop goals for each aspect of a comprehensive fuel diversity plan.
  
  
  • CWLP should acknowledge the role that its green power program can play in developing renewables within Springfield.
  
  
  • CWLP should include mention of energy efficiency and non-electrical renewables as furthering the goal of increasing fuel diversity.
  
  

You can tell CWLP by email, by phone, by mail, and by fax. All of their contact information is available here. We have no idea how seriously CWLP is taking our comments. We are detailed, but they only see a few of us. If you are interested in a sustainable Springfield--with a clean energy future with enhanced local self-reliance, that combines economic competitiveness with a strong ethic of protecting our natural resources and reducing the energy burden on our neighbors that struggle the most with their energy bills--please: let CWLP and your aldermen know.

Thank you.

Well, maybe. At any rate, we issued a press release this morning (included below the fold). I think the Illinois Times and WCIA WCFN, at the least, are picking it up. I'll use this post to collect and point to media appearances. We should be on WCIA MyWCFN news at 9 tonight; I'm assuming it'll show up here. Before you read the release itself, you should know I absolutely hate the basic idea of a press release, which isn't primarily to announce something, or make an argument, but to convey that whatever is being announced will look right as a news story. So it includes silly quotes from me, even though, really, the whole thing is a quote from us. So, don't think ill of me for that. :)

Thanks to Carey Smith Moorman, who submitted the recipe below for a local food meal (she submitted this awhile ago, but I'm still digging out from underneath PURPA stuff). If you have any recipes that you like and want to share, using what's at the farmer's market, in your garden, or at your CSA, send it along or post it wherever you have webspace and I'll link.

One of the great things about what Carey sent in is the flexibility she's included--she started with the basic stuff (roasted vegetables), and then added on a few variations, which is a great way to start eating locally. Take a look & give it a try.

-- Greg

Roaster Pan Delight

From the farmers market:
4 qts. new potatoes, red and yellow
3 medium onions
1 head broccoli
2 summer squash, green and yellow
4 medium beets, plus their greens also

From the garden:
5 burdock roots [UPDATE: See comments below for a discussion on using burdock roots.]
handfuls of:
garlic scapes
garlic mustard
lambs quarters
oregano
basil
lemon balm

From the shelf:
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Starting with the vegetables that take the longest to cook, peel and chop to bite-sized portions. Add olive oil and your starting vegetables to your roaster pan, and bake at 375 degrees. Keep chopping and adding to the roaster pan, until the potatoes taste done. At that point, add greens, season with salt and pepper, and turn off oven. Serve in ten minutes.

This is a beginning path to roaster pan vegetables. For instance, you can add whatever vegetables and herbs you may have on hand or in your garden, and leave out whatever vegetables or herbs do not suit your fancy.

For delicious leftovers, reheat with scrambled eggs (those dark orange ones that only come from hens raised the old-fashioned way, that eat bugs and run around), and serve with red sauce (ketchup, salsa, hot sauce, etc.) and shredded aged parmesan on warmed tortillas. They're not only tasty in the morning!

Following are three dressings to use on any batch of roasted vegetables (given in roaster-pan sized measurements):

Cantonese Dressing
2/3 c. soy sauce
2/3 c. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger root
2 Tbsp. honey
2 Tbsp. dark sesame oil
6 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tsp. ground anise

Italian Dressing
8 tsp. olive oil
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice
12 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
6 Tbsp. minced fresh rosemary (4-6 tsp. dried and ground)
2 Tbsp. minced fresh oregano
2 tsp. salt

Caribbean Dressing
6 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. canola or vegetable oil
4 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
1 med. onion, coarsely chopped
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. ground black pepper
2 tsp. grated fresh ginger root
2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 fresh green chile, coarsely chopped, seeds removed for a milder "hot"

Two big items today:

First, CWLP will be having its third community energy meeting tonight at 6pm in city council chambers. This is an excellent opportunity to find out what they're doing for energy efficiency; beyond that, though, it's also your chance to tell them what they else they ought to be doing.

Second, today is the last day for comments on CWLP's PURPA standards. If you haven't been following this, these standards could help set Springfield on the path to true energy independence, protect us from the costs of global warming regulation, and lay the foundation for a distributed energy grid. This is all sorts of good. Our resource page is here. CWLP's page on the standards is here. If you check the CWLP page, you'll see they've received six comments so far, all in support of some or all of the CES proposal. Letting CWLP that you support net metering, smart metering, and renewable energy in Springfield can be an enormous help to us and to the city. So drop them an email to let them know. They need to hear it.

Great article in today's SJR, about CWLP's PURPA standards. Chris Wetterich did a pretty good job of grappling with all of the standards. There was one point in particular that I wanted to respond to, from Bill Murray, who is shepherding all of this stuff for CWLP.

"The group has trouble distinguishing between consideration of a standard or policy and implementation of a standard or policy through a particular program," Murray said. "It would be like trying to reap the crop before the seed has been planted."

The first time I contacted him, to ask about the process CWLP was going through, Murray made much the same point, and I like to think that we did a good job of respecting that sentiment in shaping our recommendations. We threw in a lot of extra stuff, to be sure, but that's because we're trying to argue what's possible.

That said, it's not clear to me where the line between adopting the standard and implementing the standard is drawn. In CWLP's own recommendations, many of their modifications look to me to be creeping into implementation, particularly where they talk about capacity limits. And, if you look at the transcript of the public hearing, page 9, you'll see that I asked what CWLP's plans were for implementing one of the standards (fuel diversity), and the answer was, essentially, "we don't know, we didn't think about it." (Not, obviously, a direct quote.) So, we decided to include in our recommendations guidelines for how CWLP should implement--not doing the work of implementation itself, but instructions that city council can take up guide CWLP. To take the fuel diversity standard again, where CWLP had no sense of what it would do next, we suggest that they conduct a planning process to meet a goal (replacing our wind power capacity with in-town renewable resources by the time the wind contracts end), and that they include their green power program in that planning. We're not looking to dictate to staff how to fill in everything, but we think it's appropriate for Springfield citizens and for city council to set goals.

One of the points that we try to make over and over is that there's nothing we'd recommend to fight global warming that doesn't have other benefits. Here's a nice, and near-ish, example: the Wetlands Initiative, along with other environmental groups, is doing a wetlands restoration project in Hennepin, IL, with the goal of showing that converting farmland back to wetlands can be an effective tool for improving water quality, improving wildlife habitat, providing recreational opportunities, and trapping carbon dioxide.

I think that we're about to enter a revolution in how we understand the potential of ecosystems to provide valuable services. On a large scale, wetlands like this are going to cease to be an impediment to development, and instead will be seen as a crucial component--a cost-effective way of responsible growth. And, as in the past, the cost-effective route will lead to a cultural shift in how we perceive the relationship between people and our environment. Of course, to do this, we need good rules, that require heightened environmental performance.

I've collected quite a little treasure trove of bicycling oddities lately, which are all pretty exciting.

First, take a look at this compendium of 82 photographs of cyclists in Amsterdam, taken during a 73-minute period along one street. Some of the themes the photographer notes: people dressed up on bikes, multiple people on bikes, bike modifications, big chains, and cheap bikes.

Second, speaking of bike modifications, check out this video and discussion of a hybrid bike mod--wiring a small electric engine onto a bike to give a power boost on start-ups (important to keeping up with traffic in intersections and for going uphill). This sort of modification can really make cycling a mode of transportation for everyone.

Third, Melvin Davis, local to Springfield, made his own bike modification to recharge AA and AAA batteries while he's biking around. His explanation and a photo are below the fold.

The SJR has news about the Illinois Fan Club, a partnership among state agencies to provide fans to the elderly and people with disabilities. Deaths from excess heat are a bigger problem than most people think; in typical years, heat waves are the big killers among natural disasters. Eric Klinenberg's Heat Wave, about the 1995 Chicago heat wave, is an excellent, in-depth look at how heat waves kill.

Fans and air conditioning are only part of it. Energy prices are, of course, a big part as well--it's apparently not uncommon to find people dead in their rooms, with functioning a/c's that simply haven't been turned on, because people worry about the cost. The unexpected element, though, is social capital--being part of overlapping social networks. Something as simple as having someone to look in to see how you're doing is an important part of simply surviving a heat wave.

So the Fan Club is an important short-term part of managing a heat wave. But we need long-term strategies, too. We need to improve building performance, particularly for low-income families and the elderly--households for whom energy bills are a major budget item. (When I lived in Nevada, the average energy burden--the percent of monthly income going to household energy costs--across the state was 3%. For low-income households, the energy burden was 14%.) Luckily, energy efficiency spending goes directly to this--CWLP's money devoted to low-income and elderly households is crucial here. However, I'm not sure that CWLP is hooked into service providers in Springfield to help it identify households that need summertime help.

However, we also need a better city. We need neighborhoods and communities that connect everyone together, and connect people to emergency services and information. We need investment in our poorer neighborhoods.

A few weeks ago, Mechanical Engineering had an article about where the U.S.'s carbon emissions come from. The article is a good introduction to the issue, and includes the following really excellent chart:

(via Grist)

I mostly look at things that CWLP ought to do, or things that you can do in your home, and on occasion about changing larger patterns of how we live. But climate change is a comprehensive problem, so we can't let anything slip by. Electricity generation, transportation, home energy use, food miles--these are the biggies that we mostly talk about when we talk about fighting climate change. The big unknown is the embodied energy (and greenhouse gas emissions) in what we buy.

So it's good news that we now have Climate Counts, an effort to rate the brands we buy for their climate friendliness. Joel Makower has a good backgrounder and explanation. The short version is that Climate Counts looks at what companies do to monitor and reduce their emissions, as well as what public policies they support and how open they are with all of that information.

I don't imagine that this is hugely crucial information--I suspect that the people who are most likely to take big actions based on these rankings are already moving into lifestyles where they aren't as important, and everyone else is going to decide their purchases based on other qualities. But, if you're ambivalent between McDonalds, Wendys, and Burger King, but still wedded to the fast food hamburger, maybe this can nudge you over to climate-friendly option.