Kansas and wind power potential
September 26, 2008
Reprinted in full from Salina Journal/ Harris News:
Kansas aims to cash in on wind power
By CHRIS GREEN
TOPEKA — Renewable energy boosters said Wednesday that this year’s significant expansion of wind energy production in Kansas could be just a starting point.
Speakers at this year’s Kansas Wind & Renewable Energy Conference in Topeka envisioned a future in which wind power becomes a major export for the state.
Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson said that while wind power can help meet Kansas’ own power needs, there’s even more potential for providing electricity to other states.
As a result, Parkinson said that with the right amount of help, wind power could transform into a major economic force in the state.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of if it’s going to happen,” Parkinson said, “but a matter of when it’s going to happen.”
Parkinson compared the situation with wind energy in Kansas right now to being in Oklahoma when oil was discovered or being in Silicon Valley as the technology boom ramped up.
But he and other wind energy experts also said it may take congressional action, including an extension of federal tax breaks for wind energy, to help make new wind projects cheaper than coal-fired power.
Legislation extending the wind energy production tax credit, which helps make wind power more competitive with coal and other traditional power sources, easily passed the Senate on Tuesday. But the $17 billion tax-break bill for renewable energy still must clear the House.
Parkinson said the state’s wind industry also could benefit from a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Such limits could help increase the demand for the state’s wind resources to meet power needs.
Kansas also would be an “enormous winner” if Congress passed national standard requiring utilities to produce a certain amount of their power from renewable sources, he said.
Parkinson said supporters of renewable energy should educate and lobby Congress, including the state’s own delegation, to support such a move.
But experts said the state also needs an expansion of high-voltage electric transmission lines, such as the V-plan that two utilities are competing to build in southwest and south-central Kansas.
In the meantime, wind energy production, some of which already is exported, is undergoing a significant expansion in the state. By the end of the year, the state’s wind farms could be producing 1,013 megawatts of electricity, up from the 364 megawatts being churned out at the beginning of the year.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ administration has trumpeted the fact that Kansas would be the first state to top the 1,000-megawatt mark without writing mandates in state law requiring utilities to use renewable energy.
But estimates suggest the state’s overall wind energy potential isn’t close to being met. Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said the state’s maximum wind potential is 120,000 megawatts, or 12 times bigger than the state’s peak load.
He notes that both wind and solar energy, which western Kansas also has great potential to produce, would seem to be a good fit with the state’s farming culture.
In the right direction?
Some scenarios suggest that Kansas could be capable of producing as much as 8,000 to 10,000 megawatts of wind power in the coming decades, The Wind Coalition of Austin, Texas, said in a news release.
The state could use up to 3,000 megawatts for itself and the rest could be used to help meet a national goal of providing 20 percent of electricity through wind power by 2030, the group said.
“Kansas has a far greater wind resource than it can use, so there is a tremendous opportunity to build out more wind energy to export to other markets,” said Paul Sadler, the group’s executive director.
Touting wind energy as a possible export comes at the some time that Parkinson and other critics have opposed a coal-plant project in southwest Kansas.
More than 80 percent of the electricity from Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s proposed $3.6 billion expansion would have gone to nearby states. The plant expansion was blocked by the Sebelius’ administration.
Critics of the project said the plants would have left the state with all of the project’s pollution but little of the power.
Proponents countered that the plants would be the state’s most efficient and that exporting power would be beneficial to the state by providing jobs and economic development. They also argued wind was too intermittent to be widely depended on as a power source.
But Eckhart said he believed that the benefits of renewable energy production exceed those of coal power because so much money would leave the Kansas to pay for a fuel source being mined outside the state. Growth in the state’s wind industry could put the state in line to gain the wind-industry manufacturing jobs that have eluded it thus far, a manager at a company that designs, manufactures and install turbines said.
Christopher Mone, business development manager at Vestas-American Wind Development, said Kansas is well-position to gain those jobs, which have presently clustered in other states, including Colorado.
Eckhart said that during the past six years, Kansas has shed about 6 percent of its manufacturing work force, but new wind farms could help bring those jobs back by the thousands.
Parkinson said the state’s lack of renewable energy mandates and a perception that Kansas policymakers might not be friendly to wind has initially hindered the state’s efforts to land manufacturers.
But the state is now positioned to begin landing some of those jobs as its production of wind power expands, he said.
“There is really no reason why Kansas shouldn’t be the No. 1 state in the country in terms of renewable energy and we’ll continue to head in that direction,” Parkinson said.
Couldn’t make the KS Wind/ Renewables Conference this week? The KS media has you covered.
September 26, 2008
Here’s a start on the excellent coverage of this week’s ninth annual KCC-sponsored Wind and Renewable Energy Conference. I’m not going to get it all posted this morning, but hopefully soon.
Kansas aims to cash in on wind power (Salina Journal/ Harris News)
NASA scientist warns Kansans about CO2 emissions (Dodge Globe)
Global warming reaches emergency status (Salina Journal)
Some of the coverage also got wrapped up with the fact that KS had NASA scientist and climatologist James Hansen in town the day after the KS Chamber of Commerce heard from global warming skeptic and scientist Roy V. Spencer.
There were definitely varying takes on the contrast between the two speakers. This contrast is also not unconnected to the Kansas coal controversy.
NASA scientist urges action on global warming; His speech at clear odds with sentiment of researcher who says CO2 not to blame (Hutch/ Harris News)
Energy summit sparks debate, Coal plants may be back on table for legislature (TCJournal)
Speaker: CO2 not to blame for global warming (Hutch/ Harris News)
Editorial – Renewable Energy Must be Embraced (TCJournal)
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Kansas lags other states in net metering
September 26, 2008
Reprinted in full from the LJWorld:
Kansas lags in energy conservation, protecting environment
State falls behind in process known as net metering
by Christine Metz
This is the year for talk about which states are red and which ones are blue.
But in the midst of an energy crisis and rising concerns over carbon emissions, some are focused on a different color: green.
And in the past year, Kansas has been shaded as a murky brown.
In 2007, Forbes magazine ranked Kansas No. 31 when it comes to protecting the environment.
Environment America, in a report on the nation’s clean energy policies, identified Kansas as one of 16 states where “efforts lag significantly behind those in … the rest of the country.”
In a state scorecard released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Kansas was No. 34, receiving poor marks for how much utilities spend on conservation, tax incentives, appliance standards and transportation policies.
One area where Kansas falls behind others, alternative energy advocates say, is the lack of compensation — known as net metering — that homeowners receive for the alternative energy they produce and do not use. That extra energy gets sent back into the electric grid.
“For Kansas, the matter now is not forward thinking; we are just trying to get into the 20th century,” said Aron Cromwell, vice president and CEO of the Lawrence-based Cromwell Environmental.
Turning on the switch
According to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Kansas is one of a half dozen states that don’t have a net metering law.
The way most net metering laws work is that when customers who generate their own power, such as solar, generate more power than they actually use, they can in essence run their meter backward. But often the return is just less than half the true cost of the electricity, or roughly about 3 cents per kilowatt hour compared with a retail rate of about 7 cents.
Advocates for a net metering law would like the alternative energy producers to be paid the retail rate or something closer to that 7 cent marker.
“We have nothing in the state of Kansas to help us out,” said Cromwell, who has installed photovoltaic and solar hot water panels in the region.
Net metering would encourage homeowners and particularly businesses to build larger solar power systems, he said.
Jim Ploger, manager of climate and energy programs for the Kansas Corporation Commission, said not having net metering discourages small wind and solar companies from selling their products here. Some vendors even ignore Kansas.
“The pay-out is so far out in the future, it’s not economically viable,” Ploger said.
More importantly, Ploger said, the very fact that Kansas doesn’t have a net metering law can be a detractor for big-scale renewable energy businesses (like wind farms and turbine manufacturers) looking to locate to the state.
“We’re not practicing what we preach. Net metering has no factor in commercial wind farms, but it is part of an image,” he said.
Kansas and solar energy are a nice fit. The state has decent potential for capturing the sun’s rays (not as strong as Arizona, but not as weak as New Hampshire). And, solar energy is often at its best when electric companies need it the most — on those 100-degree-plus days in August when air-conditioners are cranking.
Installing solar panels would help electric companies on those peak days.
“A few kilowatts here and few kilowatts there and pretty soon it starts to add up,” Ploger said.
A good idea?
Not everyone believes that net metering is such a good idea or that it’s fair. Among them is Dick Rohlfs, Westar Energy’s director of retail rates.
Rohlfs agrees that electric companies should pay small alternative energy producers more than just the fuel costs. The reimbursement should also cover the savings from incremental operation and maintenance costs and the energy that is lost to get the electricity from the plant into the system.
But the retail price isn’t a fair one either, he said.
Of Westar’s 670,000 customers, only 50 to 60 of them produce energy that can be sent back into the electric grid. And, only around five produce more energy than what they take from Westar in a given month.
When the wind stops blowing and the sun no longer shines, those customers rely on Westar for backup energy. And they expect the company to have generation equipment and transmission lines to provide them with electricity, he said.
But, if those alternative energy producers were reimbursed at retail rates, that capacity is a cost they wouldn’t be paying, Rohlfs said.
“We are there to serve them whenever they demand energy,” Rohlfs said.
And David Springe, consumer counsel for the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board, is afraid it’s a cost that will get passed along to everyone else who pays the electric bills. As the appointed representative for utility consumers, Springe sees net metering as a way to subsidize electricity for those who have the thousands of dollars to install solar panels.
Those who couldn’t afford them would be on the losing end, Springe said.
If there are going to be subsidies, Springe said he would prefer they go toward energy conservation efforts for low-income housing.
State Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, said there needs to be a middle ground.
“Yes we need to provide incentives to assist in meeting the total energy need. But we also need to recognize that a utility has the responsibility to be a provider of last resort. And they have costs associated with that responsibility,” Sloan said.
From proposal to law
At the last legislative session, a net metering law for solar energy was proposed as part of a packaged energy deal. Overshadowed by the political fireworks from the proposed coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, it received little attention.
It wasn’t the first time the matter was before state lawmakers. And Sloan suspects it will come back.
Cromwell is among those who would like the issue to return to the Capitol.
Cromwell testified before the Missouri Legislature, which passed a net metering law last year. He predicts that it will take more lobbying and funding before something similar is enacted in Kansas.
“It’s just the beginning. It’s just a small step,” Cromwell said. “But it’s sad if we fall behind Missouri in our level of progressiveness.”
