Citizens petition for renewable energy
In a community center on Guemes Island, Wash., about 100 people gather for a potluck dinner. But casseroles and cookies are not all that they bring to the table. This potluck is a yearly gathering of people passionate about using renewable energy. The small island community of approximately 500 people has two-dozen solar and wind energy systems, making it an ideal setting for discussing renewable energy. On a table next to the door is a petition for an initiative that would make renewable energy use mandatory for Washington’s largest utilities.
Hundreds of volunteers are collecting signatures to put Initiative 937 on the Washington state ballot in November. Representatives from several environmental organizations drafted the initiative with strong support from the Northwest Energy Coalition. The measure would require electric utilities with 25,000 or more customers to meet energy conservation targets and increase the use of eligible renewable energy sources.
Support for the initiative is widespread and includes organizations such as the Cascades chapter of the Sierra Club, Audubon Washington, the Green Party of Washington state, Washington Public Utility Districts Association and the Washington Public Interest Research Group. Democratic Congressmen Jay Inslee of Bainbridge Island, and Adam Smith of Tacoma, also support the initiative.
John Vanden Bosche, principal engineer at the wind energy consulting firm Chinook Wind, said he would like to see more renewable resources in the state.
"Renewables displace other forms of generation that have impacts on the environment," Vanden Bosche said. "The initiative would create a stable market for renewables. More supply would bring the price down."
Inslee said he believes increasing renewable energy will provide more local jobs. He also sees the initiative as a homegrown solution to environmental and energy concerns.
"[The initiative] is the most powerful thing we can do right now to stop global warming, the most active thing we can do to break our addiction to foreign oil," Inslee said. "I would be very concerned if we don’t do something like this."
I-937 would require the state’s 17 qualifying utilities to use renewable resources to meet the equivalent of 15 percent of their electricity supply loads by Jan. 1, 2020. These 17 utilities represent 87 percent of the power delivered to customers in state, said Grant Ringel, director of corporate communications at Puget Sound Energy.
Eligible renewable resources under the initiative include wind, solar, geothermal, methane gas from landfills or sewage treatment facilities, tidal power, biodiesel fuel and biomass energy derived from animal waste or fuels from wood, forest, or field residues.
Currently, renewable energy does not make up a large part of Washington’s energy supply. PSE, Washington’s largest electric utility, uses eligible renewable resources for less than 1 percent of its total power supply, according to the PSE Web site. Though neutral on the initiative, Ringel said PSE is nevertheless on track to increase the supply of wind energy to 5 percent by the end of 2006 and 10 percent by 2013.
"With our two wind projects we have no stress about complying," Ringel said. "We’ll be way ahead of requirements."
George Pohndorf, director of major accounts at PSE, said he looks for two factors when acquiring energy resources: minimizing cost and risk.
"Natural gas and electrical wholesale prices are high right now, meaning that natural gas has a higher cost than our wind projects," he said. "If natural gas and electric prices go down, we might go with something different."
However, PSE takes into account environmental factors as well as economic when providing energy, Pohndorf said.
In addition to its acquired renewable resources, PSE is one of 16 utilities in Washington that offer a green power option to allow customers to purchase renewable energy. As of December 2004, more than 14,000 PSE customers, or about 2 percent, were participating in the Green Power program, according to the 2005 PSE Green Power Report.
"Green power is an addition to what you’re paying on your bill," Pohndorf said. "Cities have a fairly high concentration, but [the program] is new, and more and more people sign up every day."
Students at Western Washington University voted in 2004 to purchase 100 percent green power from PSE. Western and other Green Power participants purchase electricity generated from renewable resources, and the utility adds this to the Northwest power-supply grid along with electricity from all other energy sources. Employees in the state capitol building have also made a similar 100 percent commitment to green power.
Ian Woofenden, senior editor of Home Power magazine, who has used renewable energy for more than 20 years, said people should be encouraged to use renewables. At the potluck on Guemes, Woofenden brought the initiative to people’s attention. He said he is more in favor of letting individuals choose to use renewable energy than making it mandatory.
"I wonder if the people who are circulating the initiative are using renewable energy," Woofenden said.
He said he believes people will make the switch to renewables not because of incentives or a government initiative, but because they know they are doing the right thing.
"Compared to subsidized non-renewable electricity, renewable energy is expensive," Woofenden said. "People want the cheapest energy, but they need to look at quality, not price. They’re not paying the cost of the damage it is doing."
Woofenden’s son, Ryan Woofenden, 17, has lived on solar and wind energy his entire life. He said he does not believe money should be the most important issue when talking about energy costs.
"Comparing the cost of renewable energy to fossil fuels is ludicrous," he said. "The money is what I consider a very small part of the cost."
Lori Hauser and Ron Nichols of Mount Vernon own the first and only residential grid tie in the city. A grid tie extracts power from a solar panel array, converts this to usable electricity and sells excess energy back to a power transmission system, or grid. They said they agree with Ryan Woofenden about renewable energy costs.
"All the energy we use on this planet comes from the sun anyway," Nichols said. "If you can access something directly, it becomes so much more convenient and efficient. The wind’s going to blow and the sun’s going to shine whether or not we’re using it."
Renewable energy is something everyone has access to, Ryan Woofenden said.
"Not everyone has oil wells or refineries in their backyard, but everyone has sun," he said.
Alex Ramel of the Environmental Resources Division of the City of Bellingham said he believes people care about the renewable energy issue.
"When people realize they have a choice, they’re willing to put money into making that difference," he said.
But not everyone believes the benefits of renewable energy will outweigh the possible costs of the initiative. Some energy companies, such as Avista Corp. and Inland Power & Light Co., are concerned about the strict regulations and requirements proposed in the initiative. Tom Paine, director of government relations at Avista Corp., an Eastern Washington utility that is officially neutral regarding the wording of the initiative, said he is concerned that the initiative will not allow for flexibility in acquiring energy.
"We like that the initiative is attempting to broaden the development of clean renewable energy for all utilities," he said in an e-mail. "We have never been that excited about hard mandates and penalties with inflexible timelines because mandates can skew the market and can increase the cost of acquiring such generation."
Paine said one of the best ways to serve customers and the community is to make every effort possible to keep power affordable and reliable.
Vanden Bosche, while supporting renewable energy and gathering signatures for the initiative, said he still believes energy regulation would be best served through the legislature.
"The legislature is better equipped to analyze complex issues than the general population to create utility regulation policy," he said.
He said he believes Washington’s current state legislature would be more agreeable now than in past years to pushing a renewable energy bill through.
Cindy Bjorklund, a National Park Service employee, uses renewable energy sources at her home and permaculture farm conservation site. She said she believes bureaucratic channels will make it harder to achieve the goals of the initiative.
"There are so many layers in the government that it trips people up," she said. "There should be overall encouragement. The bucks should be put into [encouragement] rather than into administering an initiative."
As she walked onto the ferry leaving Guemes Island after the potluck, Bjorklund summed up many of the hopes and concerns relating to renewable energy and I-937.
"We want it to happen," she said. "But we want it to happen for the good of everybody."