by Bill


The propaganda line is WV is that coal is our state’s most abundant electricity resource.  That statement, which we see repeated in the state media year after year, is simply not true.

Our state’s most abundant electricity resource is the resourcefulness and ingenuity of West Virginians.  The second most abundant resource is solar energy, which includes the power potential of the wind, as well as direct photovoltaic conversion.  So coal might be the third most abundant electric resource, but gas, at least temporarily, might be catching up fast.

Mike Harman, of Energy Efficient West Virginia, had an op ed piece in the Charleston Daily Mail the other day that illustrates how we can leverage our most abundant resource to lower electric bills in WV.  Increasing the wisdom of our electricity use, by using it more efficiently, or simply using it less, is the key to reducing electrical bills in WV.  Until we fully exploit this resource, we can’t even begin to assess how much new generating capacity we might need for the future.

Mike focuses on what power companies and regulators can do, but every West Virginian has the ability to reduce his or her electric bills right now, without government or corporate “help.”

As I have said many times before on The Power Line — stop thinking like a consumer.  Start thinking like an energy producer.  If you have electric heat, do you really need any incentives to install a programmable thermostat that will cost you $200 and pay for itself in one winter?  Do you really need a power company discount, that will be charged to your electric bill through the rate making process, to get you to replace your incandescent light bulbs with florescent bulbs that will reduce you lighting bill by over one half?  Do you really want to spend thousands of extra dollars on a home solar power system to cover your entire current 1000 kwh per month electrical use without trying to cut that use first to its bare minimum?

As Mike says, we need power companies to start investing now in efficiency and demand management, but there are lots of things you can do right now to save money, reduce your electric bills and build a more reliable and healthy electrical system in our state.  Why wait?  Do it now.

by Bill

Back in 2009, the WV Legislature, and then Gov. Manchin, engineered something called the Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard which you can read here.  This addition to the WV Code was denounced by observers at the time as a fraud.  What started out as a decent bill to create a renewable portfolio standard that would promote real innovation and business opportunities in WV was totally rewritten by power company lobbyists and compliant politicians into a total waste of time that would require absolutely no change in WV's energy industry.

Now we know that those critics were right.  Pam Kasey has continued her excellent energy reporting in The State Journal with an article that surveys the actual results of WV's fraudulent "standard."  Here is a link to her story.  Back in July C4RP covered Downstream Strategies' analysis by Rory McLimoil of First Energy's plan for compliance with the WV "standard."  Ms. Kasey's article assesses the impact of all of the compliance plans filed with the PSC by all WV power companies.

Here is her conclusion:

"If anyone thought having a renewable energy portfolio standard in West Virginia would mean more wind or hydroelectric or solar generation facilities in the state, they were wrong. 

As the last of six utility plans for compliance with the 2009 Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard are under review for approval by the Public Service Commission, the results are basically in.

The major utilities will meet the state's requirements through 2025 with no new generation."

You read that right.  After all the work by the Legislature, and extensive rule making and submission of compliance plans, the end result is a big nothing.  No change.  No increase in renewable power generation in WV.  No nothing.

Republican legislators in the 2011 legislative session had the nerve to claim that the Manchin "standard" would result in higher electric rates.  Well, that won't happen.  Nothing will happen.  This political effort was as dishonest as the fraud of the "standard" itself.

Hoping that the "standard" would result in a solar carve out?  Carve out from what?  There will be no market in renewable energy credits in WV, because power companies will not have to buy credits to meet the Legislature's fraudulent "standard."

The entire effort on the "standard" was a waste and a fraud.  The power company compliance plans are the proof that Gov. Manchin and the Legislature wasted our tax money on their entire fraudulent effort to make WV appear to support renewable power.

Where has the Charleston Daily Mail been since August?  Or are they just trying to keep up the coal industry propaganda drumbeat against the EPA?

And yes, Ken Ward, they actually used the word "brownout" as part of the scare editorial.

The Daily Mail apparently just discovered the issue that was in the national press (as well as here on The Power Line, StopPATH WV and Coal Tattoo) back in late August and early September.

The Daily Mail's editors would have done well to actually read the report that our regional grid manager, PJM Interconnection, released last summer about the situation.  It is far from this claim in the Daily Mail editorial:

"But the president and his allies disapprove of coal and want Americans to rely on natural gas, wind and solar power instead. They are clearly willing to risk brownouts and economic harm to get what they want."

Change is hard, but these EPA rules are not coming out of the blue, or at the last minute, as the Mail claims.  The timetable for the development of these rules and limits has been in the works for decades.  If the coal-fired electric power industry wanted to ignore them until the last minute and hope that political blackmail would save their necks (and their power plants) then that is not the EPA's fault.

But one thing should be clear:  the adjustments required by the retirement of the oldest, highest cost coal fired power plants can be accommodated by our current electrical grid managers without any "brownouts and economic harm."  If the Daily Mail's motives had been to honestly report the news, then they should have done so back when this issue was news.  Today's editorial indicates that their real motivations lie elsewhere.

Cross posted from The Power Line