IPL Files new DSM Plan with IURC in Cause No. 44497; Download Petition and Testimony

Posted by Laura Arnold / June 02, 2014 / Posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

IPL files plan for 2015-2016 Energy Efficiency Programs

IPL has a long history of providing energy efficiency programs, resources and education

June 2, 2014

Indianapolis – Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL) announced today the utility has filed its 2015-2016 Demand Side Management and Energy Efficiency plan with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC).

IPL has a long history of implementing and delivering cost–effective Demand Side Management and Energy Efficiency programs for its customers. Energy efficiency is an important element of IPL’s overall resource plan and will allow for deferred capacity needs, reduced energy costs and the opportunity for customers to have more control over their energy usage and costs.

IPL is seeking approval to continue to offer the following programs for residential customers:

Residential Lighting: Offers point of purchase rebates for certain high efficiency lighting products such as LED and CFL bulbs.
Residential Income Qualified Weatherization: Provides energy audits, including the installation of energy-saving measures and weatherization improvements for income-qualified customers.
Residential Air Conditioning Load Management: Pays incentives to customers who allow IPL to manage their air conditioner energy use during critical times in the summer months.
Home Energy Assessment: Provides walk-through energy assessments including the installation of energy saving measures and recommendations for improving a home’s energy efficiency.
Multi Family Direct Install: Offers the direct installation of a variety of energy efficiency measures in multi-family housing units.
School Energy Efficiency Education: Informs and educates elementary aged students by providing them a take-home energy efficiency kit.
Online Energy Assessment: Residential customers can use this online energy assessment tool that includes delivery of an energy efficiency kit.
Residential Appliance Recycling: Provides incentives to homeowners to recycle older, less efficient refrigerators, freezers and window AC units.
Residential Peer Comparison Reports: Informs customers about their household’s energy use, including a comparison to similar homes in their area.

If the current plan is approved, these programs as well as a number of offerings for Commercial and Industrial customers will begin on January 1, 2015.

Complete details on IPL’s current energy efficiency programs for residential and business customers, called Power ToolsSM, can be found at IPLpower.com/PowerTools. Current IPL energy efficiency programs, as well as those offered by Energizing Indiana, will continue through Dec. 31, 2014.

###

About Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL): Indianapolis Power & Light Company provides retail electric service to more than 470,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in Indianapolis, as well as portions of other Central Indiana communities surrounding Marion County. During its long history, IPL has supplied its customers with some of the lowest-cost, most reliable power in the country. For more information about the company, please visit www.IPLpower.com or connect with us at www.twitter.com/IPLpower,www.facebook.com/IPLpower or www.linkedin.com/company/IPLpower.

Media Contact:

Brandi Davis-Handy
Indianapolis Power & Light Company
317.261.8423

If you are interested in more details, download these documents:

44497 IPL DSM Petition filed 2014-05-30

44497 IPL DSM Case-in-chief_2014-06-02

Duke Energy proposes Indiana energy efficiency programs in Cause No. 43955 DSM2

Posted by Laura Arnold / June 02, 2014 / Posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

Duke Energy proposes Indiana energy efficiency programs

PLAINFIELD, Ind., May 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy is asking state utility regulators to approve a comprehensive portfolio of energy efficiency programs for its customers.

Current energy efficiency programs offered by Energizing Indiana will continue through Dec. 31, 2014.

"Since the early 1990s, Duke Energy has offered its customers programs to save energy and save money," said Doug Esamann, Duke Energy state president -- Indiana. "Upon approval from the commission, we plan to continue offering energy efficiency programs similar to those that exist today. I encourage all customers to take full advantage of these valuable energy-saving opportunities."

The programs the company wants to offer residential customers, beginning Jan. 1, 2015, include:

Residential Smart Saver -- offers rebates to customers who maintain or upgrade their home heating and air conditioning units,who insulate attics and ductwork or add high-efficiency lighting.

Agency Assistance Portal -- provides homeowners and renters who apply for the federally funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and sign up for Agency Assistance Portal with a 12- pack of CFLs
Appliance Recycling -- removes older, less-efficient refrigerators and freezers from customers' homes and pays them a $50 incentive

Energy Education for Schools -- targets elementary students with energy efficiency information and provides a take-home kit of low-cost energy-saving devices

Residential Neighborhood -- provides energy-efficient and weatherization improvements for income-qualified customers

Multi-Family EE Products and Services -- offers a variety of energy efficiency measures, including lighting, for apartments and other multi-family buildings

My Home Energy Report -- informs customers about their energy use as compared to similar homes in their community and gives energy-saving tips

Power Manager -- pays customers who voluntarily reduce their use of air conditioning during times of high demand for electricity

Home Energy House Call -- assesses homes with electric heat or electric hot water heaters for their efficiency and provides a kit of energy efficiency devices

As is the case today, there will be no separate fees for customers to participate in these programs. Program costs will be included in customers' monthly utility bills under an energy efficiency rider.

In addition, the company will continue to offer both prescriptive and custom energy efficiency programs and incentives for commercial and industrial customers.

Duke Energy Indiana's operations provide about 7,500 megawatts of owned electric capacity to approximately 800,000 customers in a 23,000-square-mile service area, making it the state's largest electric supplier. More information about the company is available at: www.duke-energy.com.

Media contact: Lew Middleton

Office: 317.838.1505 | 24-Hour: 800.559.3853

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130322/CL81938LOGO

SOURCE Duke Energy

/Web site: http://www.duke-energy.com

Obama climate-change plan would close some AEP plants, CEO says; Which plants will AEP close?

Posted by Laura Arnold / May 30, 2014 / Posted in Indiana Michigan Power Company (I&M) / No Comments

AEP CEO Nick Akins

Obama climate-change plan would close some AEP plants, CEO says

By Mark ChediakBloomberg News • Friday May 30, 2014 7:14 AM

American Electric Power Co., the top U.S. operator of coal-burning power plants, expects to shut some of its largest units if the Obama administration proposes a 25 percent greenhouse-emission cut.

The company would likely have to retire plants that can’t be relied on to deliver electricity if the Environmental Protection Agency requires such steep reductions by 2030 in proposed rules to be unveiled June 2, CEO Nick Akins said Wednesday in an interview.

“We would see that as a particular challenge,” Akins said, adding that such a target would be “ very aggressive.”

The rules, a core part of President Barack Obama’s plan to fight climate change, could cost the U.S. economy $50 billion a year by forcing more than a third of the coal-fired power capacity to close by 2030 and eliminate 224,000 jobs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said. Supporters predict it will create jobs and lower power bills.

The chamber report “makes unfounded assumptions about the EPA’s upcoming proposal for common-sense standards to cut the harmful carbon pollution from power plants,” Tom Reynolds, a spokesman for the EPA, said in an email.

EPA declined to comment on speculation about specific emission reductions that will be proposed in the draft rule, Liz Purchia, a spokeswoman for the EPA, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

New carbon limits could save customers $37.4 billion on electric bills in 2020, while creating more than 274,000 jobs from energy-efficiency investments, according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The analysis was based on a proposal by the council to cut greenhouse gases about 25 percent by 2020 from 2012 levels.

The regulation may give states broad leeway in how to cut emissions and endorse a path that goes beyond cuts at power plants, three people familiar with the plan said last week.

American Electric Power has reduced carbon emissions from its plants 21 percent since 2005 by closing older coal units and replacing them with natural gas-fueled generators, Akins said. An additional 25 percent cut from last year’s baseline would be “a pretty dramatic change,” he said.

Power plants release more than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the U.S. a year, accounting for more than 40 percent of such emissions. The new rules are anticipated by environmental groups pressing Obama to make good on a pledge to take bold steps in the effort to reduce the risks of climate change.

Also see these previous IndianaDG posts:

http://wp.me/p37Lx8-1Lm

http://wp.me/p37Lx8-1tX

Digging for the Truth: Groups Say Mining Ad is “Full of Lies”; Air war begins on proposed US EPA carbon rule expected

Posted by Laura Arnold / May 30, 2014 / Posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

Digging for the Truth: Groups Say Mining Ad is "Full of Lies"
Mary Kuhlman, Public News Service-IN
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2014-05-29/environment/digging-for-the-truth-groups-say-mining-ad-is-full-of-lies/a39635-1
Join the discussion: facebook.com/PublicNewsService Twitter: @pns_news @pns_IN Google+: plus.to/publicnewsservice

(05/29/14) INDIANAPOLIS – An ad on local radio this week is being criticized, with claims by environmental activists that it's full of lies.

The National Mining Association is paying for the national media campaign.

The ads tell consumers they'll pay a lot more for their electricity if new federal standards to limit carbon pollution are put in place.

Ted Strickland, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, says that isn't true.

"The ads are an extreme exaggeration and not based upon fact or hard data certainly, but just purely speculation coming from a special interest," he maintains.

Late last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council sent a letter to stations in Indiana and other states, demanding they pull the ad because the claims made have been proven false by independent analysis.

The National Mining Association is spending $750,000 on the media campaign.

Nick Mullins is a fourth-generation coal miner, but he says it's time for the country to invest in alternative energy sources.

"By reducing demand using energy efficiency, we can lower electric rates and produce more jobs, and provide a cleaner future for our children that doesn't include a lot of the health issues that they're currently having to face," he says.

Strickland points out the ads ignore the advancements that would come by reducing carbon pollution at existing power plants and the positive impact on curtailing climate change.

"This is not unlike the kind of alarming information that has been put out in the past any time there has been an effort to require the polluters to accept some responsibility for their pollution," he stresses.

The National Mining Association maintains the new standards will eliminate jobs, but a former EPA administrator under President George W. Bush wrote that between 1970 and 2006, the gross domestic product grew by 195 percent at the same time many environmental regulations were being put in place.

Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2014-05-29/environment/digging-for-the-truth-groups-say-mining-ad-is-full-of-lies/a39635-1

Whose side are you on in the solar PV trade law suit with China? SolarWorld or SEIA and CASE? CASE webinar today

Posted by Laura Arnold / May 29, 2014 / Posted in solar / No Comments

SolarWorld Files New PV Trade Suit Against China, Locks Horns With SEIA

by SI Staff on Thursday 02 January 2014

SolarWorld has submitted anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce against China and Taiwan to close what it says is a loophole in photovoltaic trade remedies issued a year ago.According to SolarWorld, the measure enables Chinese producers to evade duties averaging about 31% by assembling modules from cells manufactured in third countries. As a result, the company says, China has continued to improperly subsidize its export-intensive campaign and sell below production costs in the U.S. market to seize market share."We're finishing the job of presenting the facts to our trade regulators to prevent China from further damaging yet another manufacturing industry and another rich base of employment," says Mukesh Dulani, president of SolarWorld Industries America Inc. "If fair competition can be restored, the U.S. industry will return to growth."

SolarWorld has been aggressive in its use of the courts to pursue alleged anticompetitive trade practices by China-based PV manufacturing firms, to the point of balking at mediation efforts. The company cites research, including a recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory report, that concludes China has no solar production cost advantage and so pricing is the result of anticompetitive policies. Chinese companiesdeny they are dumping their PV products on the market.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) took a dim view of SolarWorld's latest bid for legal action over perceived unfair trade practices in Chinese crystalline silicon solar products.

"We oppose today's escalation of the U.S.-China solar trade conflict," says Rhone Resch, SEIA's president and CEO, in a statement. "More litigation is the wrong approach. Trade litigation is a blunt instrument and, alone, is incapable of resolving the complex competitiveness issues that exist between the U.S. and Chinese solar industries. It’s time to end this conflict, and negotiations must play a role."

Resch points to SEIA's public offer of a compromise plan that could serve as a framework to end solar trade disputes between the U.S. and China. The plan, put forward last September, calls for U.S. anti-dumping duties to be phased out in exchange for various confidence-building measures from China, including the termination of anti-dumping actions taken against U.S. polysilicon products.

SolarWorld quickly dismissed SEIA's proposal.