CO Businesses Vow to Reach Paris Climate Goals

Colorado companies including Western Union, New Belgium Brewing and several ski resorts have joined hundreds of U.S. mayors, governors and chief executives, all promising to make good on the nation's commitment to reach climate goals set in Paris. A letter - including signatures from such high-profile brands as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nestle, Target and Wrangler - was released Monday. Rebecca Cantwell, director of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association, said she isn't surprised President Trump's decision to pull out of the international agreement is meeting a groundswell of opposition "by mayors, by governors, by legislators, by major businesses, showing that - despite what the administration has said - we the people plan to continue to do our part in addressing climate change." So far, Colorado's governor and nine mayors - representing Aspen, Boulder, Breckenridge, Denver, Edgewater, Lafayette, Lakewood, Longmont and Vail - have pledged to continue working to reduce climate pollution. The Trump administration has claimed the Paris accord put the United States at a disadvantage against other countries and that withdrawing will create jobs. From a strictly business perspective, Cantwell calls Trump's decision shortsighted. "Clean-energy sources, especially solar, are dropping dramatically in price," she said, "and really will drive the next great economic renaissance in this country if we seize the opportunity." In Colorado, Cantwell said, solar alone employs more than 6,000 people in jobs that can't be exported or automated. According to U.S. Department of Energy estimates, fossil-fuel power plants employ some 180,000 workers nationally, compared with 375,000 jobs in solar.

Solar, solar, everywhere, so bright it makes you blink

Solar, solar, everywhere, so bright it makes you blink By Guest Columnist Sunday, June 4, 2017 By Tamera Minnick Xcel Energy sends me a check every month. Naturally, I also transfer funds to them for heat and service charges, but it is exciting to cash that $8 to $12 check. I am an energy producer because of the solar panels on my roof. This rebate is due to the foresight of Coloradans passing Amendment 37 in 2004, the first Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) enacted by ballot initiative in the U.S. This amendment, along with subsequent updates, requires utilities to meet between 10 percent and 30 percent (depending on their size) of electricity production from renewables by 2020. Most of that renewable electricity production, in Colorado and nationwide, will be met with utility-scale projects such as wind farms and concentrated solar plants. However, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 37 percent of solar production is from small-scale systems, with more than half of this coming from residential rooftops. Small-scale production is known as distributed energy. Colorado’s RPS requires a portion of the renewable production be from distributed generation. Distributed energy projects avoid the land-use issues that occur with large, industrial solar installations (which is still a smaller footprint than that of a coal power plant supplied by surface mining, and it uses very little water compared to coal, natural gas or nuclear plants). Utilities must use “net-metering” for these distributed systems. Forty-three states require net-metering. Because of net-metering, the little round plate of the old, analog meter ran forward or backward depending on my electricity consumption or production after installing solar. Watching this was electrifying on the first of those sunny days. With new digital meters, little dots to the left or right on the face indicating production or consumption are less satisfying, but the result is the same. Most months I pay only the service charge for electricity. One of the indicators that incentives for emerging technology works is the dramatic drop in prices for a residential solar installation, before any tax credits, over the last decade. Compared to our old house, the solar system on our new house cost 50 percent less for a 50 percent larger system. Prices will continue to decline as economies of scale come into play. Costs to the consumer are further reduced by federal tax credits. There is a 30-percent federal tax credit for installing a solar system on your house through 2019. This credit is scheduled to decrease to 22 percent by 2021. Unfortunately, our state-level programs have not kept pace with other states. We are barely in the top 10 states for distributed solar now. Even New Jersey and Massachusetts, states not well known for their solar resources, surpass Colorado on many measures. The final cost for the system on our new house was $11,900. I estimated the payback time to be about 10 years if electricity costs remain at $0.11/kwh, an unlikely prospect since it generally rises every year. Not everyone is able to afford this kind of investment. However, according to Andy Whipple of Atlasta Solar, about 40 percent of their customers choose a financing option through a company like EnerBank in Salt Lake City. Basically, you get a solar system for no money down and pay the loan back over 12 years by sending the bank a check instead of sending it to the utility company. This is akin to a personal loan, meaning that there is no lien on your home, but with a very low interest rate. A second indicator that incentives work is that renewable electricity production in the US has increased from about 9 percent of total electricity production in 2000 to about 14 percent now. Much of this electricity is from hydroelectricity (44 percent), but wind is advancing (37 percent). Solar is 6 percent of renewable energy production and is growing quickly; solar energy is now the top source of new electrical production nationwide. While the number of jobs in coal extraction and electrical generation has declined to 160,119 nationwide, the number of jobs in solar is increasing rapidly — 373,807 jobs, according to the Department of Energy. It is difficult to mechanize solar-industry jobs since each system requires people for project design and equipment installation. Another reason for increases in renewable energy production is investment into research, including at Colorado’s National Renewable Energy Lab. In 2011, the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative set the goal of decreasing the cost of residential solar energy 75 percent by 2020, from $0.40 to $0.09 per kilowatt-hour, by working with various federal agencies and private businesses. Progress was made on these goals so rapidly that in 2016 they were updated to $0.05/kwh by 2030. Combining public policy and incentives to the private sector has been successful for gaining momentum in the transition to renewable energy. Poor policy choices may slow the inevitable progress, but the future (for wind and solar energy) is so bright, I need to wear shades! Tamera Minnick, Ph.D., is a professor of environmental science and technology at Colorado Mesa University. She is an enthusiastic supporter of renewable energy; she received no compensation from any of the businesses mentioned here.

Colorado Blazes Low-Emissions, High-Employment Energy Pathway

Take Colorado, which is aggressively pursuing energy innovation across the full spectrum of fuels and technologies. Governor John Hickenlooper has crafted a pro-growth, low-emissions agenda that should be a model to other states and to national policymakers. It emphasizes shale gas, wind, solar, hydropower, efficiency and advanced technology in everything from zero emissions electric cars to home net electricity metering. Colorado voters approved the nation’s first Renewable Energy Standard, getting buy-in from citizens who are increasingly aware of the economic as well as environmental benefits of the clean energy revolution. Renewable energy production has burgeoned, growing from 1 percent in 2004 to more than 15 percent in 2014. The state’s largest utility has committed to producing 30 percent of its power from clean sources within 3 years. The payoff in jobs has been significant with more than 62,000 clean energy jobs state-wide. Clean tech was the Denver area’s fastest growing industry in 2015, with the nine-county Northern CO region ranking 5th among the nation’s 50 largest metro areas for clean tech employment concentration in 2015. And the region’s 21,600 clean tech direct employment jobs are high paying--with an average salary of over $76,000 a year – showing that the clean energy revolution has a key role to play in rebuilding America’s middle class. But Hickenlooper has also recognized that shale gas has an important role to play in Colorado’s balanced energy portfolio – as long as it’s produced responsibly. In 2014, he negotiated with citizens, industry, and environmentalists the nation’s first methane leak detection regulations, which became a template for rules at the national level. Data from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission shows that statewide oil production increased more than 21 percent in 2015, the year after Colorado adopted its methane and hydrocarbon rule. Meanwhile the rule is expected to reduce emissions from gas development in the Front Range by 33 percent by the end of this year. Low emissions gas development is especially important because natural gas growth nationally has been a key factor in reducing overall emissions, since gas has half the CO2 emissions of coal, and because fast-ramping gas plants are uniquely adept at integrating with wind and solar when those resources are ramping down. As Colorado pioneers ways to create more energy jobs while lowering greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration is headed in the opposite direction. The new White House budget would slash funding for clean energy technology by more than $3 billion, about 18 percent at the Department of Energy alone. This is a recipe for hobbling the United States in the global race for the world’s largest market – the $10 trillion market in advanced energy. Indeed, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, located in Boulder, CO, which has been a lynchpin of the US energy technology innovation for decades, will face the severest cuts under the Trump proposal, unless Congress reverses his shortsightedness. Trump’s penchant for fumbling at the goal line is especially striking on energy and climate issues. Under President Obama, the United States began to decarbonize its economy even as it experienced steady economic growth. American greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by more than 12 percent since 2007, even as the economy grew by more than 15 percent. Indeed, U.S. CO2 emissions fell by 3 percent in 2016 alone, according to the International Energy Agency. Remarkably, this decoupling of economic growth from rising carbon emissions has been accomplished even amid an unprecedented boom in U.S. oil and gas production. America became the world’s largest producer of natural gas and oil in the Obama years, with oil production increasing a stunning 74 percent, and natural gas production growing 34 percent. Yet renewable energy production grew even more rapidly in the same period, with wind and solar production in the United States more than tripling, primarily because the costs of wind and solar came down dramatically. Solar costs have fallen by more than 60 percent in just last five years, and wind energy costs are two-fifths lower today than when President Obama took office. Meanwhile, coal jobs have fallen from 180,000 in 1985 to fewer than 50,000 today. Solar energy alone already employs more than twice as many Americans as coal, and employment in the U.S. solar business is growing 12 times faster than the economy’s overall job creation. Trump’s promise to “bring back” coal jobs rings hollow, since their loss is mainly due to automation and the new influx of cheap shale gas that his policies support. Finally, as Democratic governors like Hickenlooper have shown, the clean energy economy is not only good economics, it is good politics. Under pressure from ultra-green activists demanding fracking bans and keeping shale energy “in the ground,” Hillary Clinton missed an opportunity to more fully embrace the balanced, but high-employment course taken by Democrats like Obama and Hickenlooper. Other Democrats should not make the same mistake going forward, but instead lead the country to creating millions more high-paying, clean energy jobs in the future.