DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) yesterday released its annual ranking of leading utility green power programs:
Customer choice programs are proving to be a powerful stimulus for growth in renewable energy supply. In 2006, total utility green power sales exceeded 3.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), about a 30% increase over 2005. More than 500,000 customers are participating in utility programs nationwide, up more than 10% from 2005
Some highlights follow.
- Ranked by renewable energy sales, the green power program of Austin (Texas) Energy is first in the nation (580,580,401 kWh/year), followed by Portland General Electric, Florida Power & Light, PacifiCorp and Xcel Energy.
- Ranked by customer participation rates, the top utilities are City of Palo Alto (Calif.)(16.9%) Utilities, Lenox (Iowa) Municipal Utilities, Montezuma (Iowa) Municipal Light & Power, Portland General Electric, and Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
And the one that really caught my eye:
- Ranked by Price Premium Charged for New, Customer-Driven Renewable Power, the top utilities are Austin Energy (-0.13 cents/kWH), OG&E Electric Services, Edmond Electricb, Avista Utilities
That's right. Austin power has a negative surcharge. A note states: "Premium is variable; customers in these programs are exempt or otherwise protected from changes in utility fuel charges." I'm not clear on how the variable rate contributes to the negative surcharge, but this report (and NREL is pretty reliable) is showing a renewable power option cheaper than conventional! For the curious, Austin is listed as using a mix of wind and landfill gas. Overall the rate surcharges for the top 10 providers ranged from -0.13 - 1.0 cents/kWh.
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Comments
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bswezey Posted 8:20 am
04 Apr 2007
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claxton6 Posted 2:18 am
06 Apr 2007
Huh. That surprises me, as that seems like one of the key benefits of a green power program, particularly for business customers. I did some research, guided by the mammoth number of NREL reports on green pricing, among business customers of a small midwestern utility (14,000 customers total, res and non-res), and that was easily the thing that was most attractive to them. Do you think most utilities don't offer a fixed rate because they're not looking at businesses as a primary source of participation?
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Engineer Posted 2:45 am
06 Apr 2007
At my utility it's because the accounting department likes fixed revenue and the customer service reps don't like having to look up or work with anything 'different' (slows down their turn around time on calls).
Once you can get people past those concepts, it makes sense. Ideally rates are based on the 'cost of service', so a green rate would be based on the cost of acquiring and delivering the renewable power and the 'normal' rate would be based on the costs from those resources.
So, a fuel escalation clause linked to the cost of natural gas shouldn't be reflected in the cost of renewable power. Of course, in the Pacific NW, most (85% for us) of our electricity comes from hydro resources (which isn't considered renewable in WA), so there isn't a lot of fluctuation in costs.
I propose it every year during the budget process and each year the resistance is a little less, so eventually I'll win.
BTW, my utility made the list! I usually don't bother to look because we're so small, but we tied for 10th place for the lowest premium for our green rate.
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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