Renewable Energy Payment Conference (Follow Up)

Notes from SE CERTS January meeting:
Discussion in response to Renewable Energy Payment Conference at St. Olaf College
- "Renewable Energy Payments" formerly described as "Feed-in Tariff" – see a detailed white paper here: http://www.newrules.org/de/feedin.html
- Conference website includes all presentations: http://www.newrules.org/de/fitconference.html
- The way Europe funds their solar and wind systems; Government sets a tariff structure - @ ~ $0.40 - $0.50 / kW – to establish a structure for selling wind and/or solar energy; compensates for the cost to actually put it up and gears incentive toward smaller producers – say this is the driver for Spain and Germany
- Models being developed in United States, WeEnergies program in WI is similar (subscribed right away, geared directly toward production); Michigan is also examining this
- Rep. Hilty, Sen. Anderson, Rep. Bly were all at conference; think this may have legs
- Could there be issues with handling the supply and the load? Distribution management level (micro) vs. transmission management level (macro). Is the smart grid the answer to all of these concerns?
- Reimbursed based-upon the effectiveness of what you’re installing; pay more to folks who put up systems in less efficient areas, but claim that this helps disperse where development occurs so that it’s not overly concentrated. This also speaks to the idea that if you have a renewable energy system on your home or business, you’re more likely to actually know what a kWh IS and how much you USE.
- Almost exclusively designed to be grid connected (not to serve both sides of the meter by powering your home and business and the grid)
- Article: “taking the red tape out of green power” – good national summary: http://www.newenergychoices.org/uploads/redTape-rep.pdf - Who pays for the differential cost in power? Good question – our rate might be closer 15-20 cents/kW – rate payers would subsidize one another; it’s a guaranteed income for those who install systems at the expense of the “average person”
- Grid parity for solar by 2015? Is the renewable energy payment system ill-timed for the current pricing structure? What if parity happened in 5 years? Would it really be necessary, with the existing 30% tax credit, to move it forward? You still have to pay for the system up-front and need to get that cash somewhere.
- 67 turbines on I-90 south of Dexter (not yet commercial)… SMMPA has had to shut down their turbines cause it cost money to inject it (not sufficient transmission); what about storage? Battery storage technologies cost $3.2 million/MW (almost 50% more costly than the wind generation itself); what about flywheels, compressed air storage? There are (ONLY) 850 MW of storage worldwide right now.
- Iowa State project for wind-generated hydrogen that could then be pipelined. Does anyone know the status of this project?