• CREA Joins Governor, Legislators, Coalition Members at Signing of Net Metering Legislation
• Be Part of the Energy Crisis Solution
• Energy Bill Passes House of Representatives

CREA Joins Governor, Legislators, Coalition Members at Signing of Net Metering Legislation

March 2008 — The Colorado Rural Electric Association, on March 26, joined Governor Bill Ritter, Sens. Jin Isgar and Brandon Shaffer, Rep. Judy Solano and coalition partners for the signing of House Bill 1160, legislation providing for net metering between Colorado’s 22 rural electric cooperatives and member-owners who generate their own electricity.

“While all of Colorado’s electric co-ops already have policies providing net metering at varying levels, this new legislation will set a uniform minimum standard for giving co-op members credit for home-grown energy. We believe that HB1160 provides that standard in a way that is fair to all of our co-op members,” said Ray Clifton, executive director of CREA, a member association representing the state’s electric cooperatives.

“We want to thank Sen. Isgar for working with the electric co-ops to make this legislation possible,” Clifton said. “Sen. Isgar, who sponsored our first co-op net metering bill back in 2002, understood how co-ops differ from other utilities. He knew what would be needed to make this legislation work for those wanting to net meter while still being fair to other members of the co-ops.”

HB1160—sponsored by Rep. Solano in the House and Sens. Isgar and Shaffer in the Senate—sets guidelines for providing a net meter for residential customers who generate up to 10 kilowatts and commercial or industrial customers that generate up to 25 kilowatts from eligible energy resources. The bill requires that electric cooperatives and municipally owned utilities credit a customer’s excess generation one-to-one against the customer’s energy consumption.

CREA joined with several coalition members—including the Governor’s Energy Office, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, Independent Bankers of Colorado, Sun Edison, CoSEIA, Bergey Windpower, Colorado Corn, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Colorado Association of Municipal Utilities, Colorado Springs Utility and Environment Colorado—to craft this balanced approach to net metering.

Colorado’s 22 Electric Cooperatives

Making Net Metering Work

Every electric cooperative in Colorado gives members the opportunity to net meter, and over the past few years, the number of consumer-generation systems has increased steadily. In the cooperative spirit of educating members, about a third of our cooperative offices also use photovoltaic or wind turbine systems that net meter.

What exactly is net metering?
Net metering allows consumers to:

• Generate their own clean energy
• Get credit on their bill for the self-generated energy they use
• Supplement what they generate by buying power from their electric utility
• And sell the utility any excess power they generate

Net metering is often described as a meter that rolls forward when the consumer uses power from the grid and backward when the consumer sends power to the grid. As a result, the consumer pays only for “net” power taken from the system.

What’s good about net metering?
Net metering helps the environment and consumers by allowing them to offset their power bill when they generate their own clean energy. Because alternative energy sources—such as wind, sun or biomass—are available only intermittently, consumers maintain the advantage of having access to a reliable power supply from their co-op.

What are the pitfalls of net metering?
The pricing structure for net metering can be set up in a way that doesn’t treat all cooperative members equitably.

Cooperatives typically buy power at a wholesale rate and sell it at a retail rate, which covers the cost of the power as well as the cost of doing business. If cooperatives are required to pay consumer-generators the retail rate for power they generate and sell back to the system as well as for power they generate and use, un-recovered operation and maintenance costs are shifted to other members.

Be Part of the Energy Crisis Solution

MARCH 2008 - Pressure is mounting in Congress to do something about climate change. And while political debates in Washington, D.C., may seem far away, the outcome will have a direct impact on our cooperative – and on you, the cooperative member and other electric consumers.

Climate change is but one aspect of a looming energy crisis created by increasing demand and decreasing capacity to meet that demand. Experts now say some areas of the country will be short of power within one or two years.

And yet energy supply isn’t an issue our elected representatives are spending a lot of time on. These forces, the desire by government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly and the growing demand for power by consumers, are about to collide.

Some people say we can meet demand through efficiency and renewable energy. The reality is we need all the efficiency and renewable energy we can get, but that will not be enough.

To avert an energy crisis, the federal government must exercise true leadership, the same leadership that got Americans to the moon in the 1960s. Without that leadership – without a sound, responsible plan – government risks not only the reliability of our electric system, but literally the ability of many Americans to be able to afford to pay their electric bill.

We, as electric co-op members and constituents, must call on elected officials to provide this leadership. That’s why I want to encourage you to contact your elected officials.

Now.

You don’t need to be an energy expert to ask questions. Asking questions helps find the answers to solve the problem of balancing climate change goals with keeping your lights on and your electric bills affordable.

Right now, members of Congress as well as state elected officials are hearing from lots of different interest groups who have ideas about how to address climate change. No one is talking to consumers, however. We need a plan people can live with today while we deal with the climate change problem of tomorrow.  

To make things easy, we have a website that will send an email for you. Go to www.ourenergy.coop and plug in your address. There you’ll be able to ask a series of questions to your representatives in Washington. We’re kicking off this effort with a basic but critical question: What are they doing to make sure we’ll have the power we need in the future?

Far too often, questions don’t get asked by policy-makers until plans go wrong. We believe it makes sense to know the answers before the laws are passed. You can help your elected officials and yourself by having this conversation. The electric bill you save will be your own.

Energy Bill Passes House of Representatives

The U.S. House of Representatives passed an energy bill Saturday, August 4, on a vote of 241 yeas to 172 nays. The bill includes a 15 percent renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for investor-owned utilities. The co-ops and municipal systems are exempt.

The Edison Electric Institute (the IOUs’ trade association) sent a letter to every member of Congress opposing the RPS amendment. Click on the link below to read a copy of that letter. It makes some interesting arguments about areas with an abundance of renewable energy versus areas that don’t have these resources, the role of states in the RPS debate, conservation, and the co-op and muni exemption. As a reminder, Colorado lawmakers passed an RPS of 20 percent for IOUs and 10 percent for co-ops by 2020.

Also included in the bill was funding for the Clean Renewable Energy Bond program.

What was defeated was an amendment that would have stripped from the 2005 Energy Policy Act the backstop eminent domain authority for transmission siting.

The Senate has already passed its energy bill so the next step is to go to a conference committee. We will keep you posted on the details of the House bill as well the progress of the conference committee.

The Edison Electric Institute's letter to Congress

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