Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) is seeking a base rate increase of approximately $263 million in IURC Cause No. 44967.
The OUCC is reviewing I&M's request and is scheduled to file testimony on November 7, 2017. The deadline and additional procedural schedule dates are included in the IURC's September 5, 2017 docket entry.
I&M customers may comment for the formal case record by:
One source placed the likelihood of Trump placing tariffs on international module manufacturers at 90% if the USITC finds in favor of petitioners Suniva and SolarWorld Americas in the pending Section 201 trade action the pair filed in May. Axios also quoted former Obama State Department official David Goldwyn as telling the Atlantic Council think tank last night:
“I think [Trump] will impose tariffs on imported solar panels. The president wants a tariff. All he wants to use is a hammer and solar is the nail.”
Earlier reporting by Axios quoted Trump as telling his Chief of Staff John Kelly to bring him some tariffs and expressing intense frustration that he hasn’t been able to impose almost nine months into his first term.
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, reacted with skepticism to this morning’s reports on Trump’s thinking.
“One unnamed administration source does not a decision make,” Hopper said. “It is premature to discuss tariffs. After all, it’s our position the ITC should not make an injury finding in the first place.
“When the time is right, I trust that this Administration will carefully consider the specifics of this case: a Chinese and a German owned company are trying to use our trade laws to put American manufacturers out of business,” Hopper added. “It’s as simple as that.”
Suniva filed for bankruptcy in April and filed trade complaints against its Chinese competitors under Sections 201 and 202 of the Trade Act of 1974 with the USITC eight days later. The complaint asked for “global safeguard relief” from imports of crystalline silicon solar PV cells and modules – a move aimed at limiting international manufacturers’ access to the United States. SolarWorld Americas joined the complaint in May.
In a letter to the head of the USITC, the group wrote: “Thousands of workers have lost good paying U.S. jobs as a result [of overproduction by international module manufacturers]. That these severe effects occurred during a period of booming U.S. [solar] demand, and despite two successful solar trade cases, is all the more troubling.”
Hopper also said CPA’s endorsement of the SolarWorld/Suniva side of the trade case was odd – at least for some of the group’s members.
“We are not going to comment on every group that says they support one side or the other, but this one verges on the ridiculous,” Hopper said. “At least two purported members of their organization are also members of the Energy Trade Action Coalition, the more than 200-member group opposing the petition.”
Support from a group like CPA suggests the solar trade petition taps into an ever-growing frustration with what seems like continual losses of U.S. manufacturing jobs, a rich vein of mostly-white working-class resentment that at least in part helped propel the president to his victory in November. He made the renegotiation of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and others a centerpiece of his campaign for president and has continued to tout his pledge to bring well-paying manufacturing jobs back to the United States.
At the same time, Trump routinely disparaged solar electricity as “expensive” and “not working” on the campaign trail, as well as suggesting Climate Change is a Chinese hoax designed to put the United States at an economic disadvantage.
Today’s reporting suggests, however, that tapping into peoples’ fear of losing manufacturing jobs may “trump” the president’s repeated disdain for the solar industry, as a decision to protect the solar industry would, by definition, concede that the solar industry is both a real economic force in the country and is worth protecting.
A report put out by The Solar Foundation earlier this year revealed that the solar industry produced one out of every 50 new jobs in the United States in 2016 and produced $154 billion in economic activity over the same time period.
New solar panel carports could save MSU $10 million in electricity costs
New solar panels are installed on Michigan State University's campus over the parking lot at Hagadorn and Service Roads pictured on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017.
MSU is going greener than ever with new solar carports that’ll keep cars shaded and money in their savings.
These new campus parking bays will accumulate energy from the sun, produce electricity and keep the air clean while protecting cars from heat, rain and snow according to physics professor and Office of the Executive Vice President Senior Consultant Wolfgang Bauer.According to Bauer, MSU has a 25-year power purchase agreement with the private company Inovateus Solar that says it will carry all the risks while MSU guarantees they will buy all the electricity that the solar panels use.
“The peak power that the solar arrays, once they’re all done, will produce is about 18 percent of campus’s peak power demand,” Bauer said.
There are currently four parking lots along Service road that are in various stages of being partially completed. Lot 91 on Hagadorn road already has solar panels up and by the end of the year all of the parking lots will be completed.
“Throughout this fall semester there will be a huge effort on these parking lots and there will be one segment at a time will be closed,” Bauer said.
Each individual unit is comprised of 3–by–6 solar panels. There are approximately 40,000 panels that cover 5,000 parking spots and an overall area of about 45 acres of land, according to Bauer.
Inovateus Solar Account Executive Jordan Richardson remarked that MSU’s 13 megawatt solar panel project isn’t the largest their company has done, but is definitely the largest carport in North America.
These solar panels will save the university about $10 million in electricity costs over the next 25 years, according to Bauer, and those savings could be available for other things, including better instructional spaces or even paying for teaching assistants.
“It’s very easy to be green when you’re willing to put a lot of money into it, but we don’t have that luxury," Bauer said. "We have to save money at the same time and so it shows that a university of our size can be green in terms of its energy portfolio and at the same time being green in terms of its pocket book. We’re saving money.”
These solar arrays could produce enough electricity for almost 1,800 Michigan households and it is equivalent to planting 15,000 trees each year for the next 25 years, according to Bauer.
Richardson called MSU’s thinking "very creative" because instead of digging holes in a random area to produce electricity, they are utilizing land that’s already consumed by students' cars every day.
The utility has reached a settlement with environmental groups under which it will invest in wind, solar microgrids and electric vehicles, but AEP will still get a bailout for aging coal plants.
As America’s utilities move to a future of renewable energy, storage and electric vehicles, some have to be prodded along, and others are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
While this week pv magazine has reported on major settlements in Florida and Colorado which will result in up to 1.4 GW of new solar coming online, we and many other media outlets missed a settlement between Ohio’s AEP and environmental groups last Friday which finalizes a 2015 agreement for the utility to procure and/or build 400 MW of solar and 500 MW of wind in Ohio over the next four years.
Specifically, the settlement spells out mechanisms for AEP to either procure this solar or build it itself, in either case paid for through a rider on customers bills. The utility will also have the option to participate in power purchase agreements between large commercial and industrial customers and third-party-owned wind and solar projects – an approach that has been increasingly popular for utilities that want to still get in on the action when such customers seek out renewable generation on their own.
In addition, under the settlement AEP is withdrawing a more than three-fold proposed increase in fixed charges for its residential customers. This charge will now remain at $5 per month instead of the $18.40 which the utility had sought, a major win for distributed solar and energy efficiency.
Additionally AEP will invest $10.5 million in one or more microgrid projects and $10.5 million in an electric vehicle charging rebate program, as well as implementing a new cost recovery mechanism for projects related to the state’s PowerForward grid modernization effort, as well as the Smart City program in Columbus.
These are significant victories for Sierra Club as well as Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Ohio Environmental Council (OEC), which later joined the settlement. However, these organizations were not able to stop a coal bailout and AEP will still receive funding through 2024 for its share of two ancient coal plants owned by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC).
The OVEC bailout is currently being contested at the Ohio Supreme Court, and is being challenged through various means by Sierra Club, EDF and OEC. Significantly, the OVEC payments are procedurally separate from the solar and wind procurement, meaning that if they are overturned the wind and solar procurement will not be affected.
The entire package now goes to the Public Utility Commission of Ohio (PUCO), but as of yet no timeline for the process or a decision has been set.
TRAVERSE CITY — The future of Traverse City's green energy goal is looking brighter than ever.
Traverse City Light & Power officials recently voted to approve a special green rate for the city as part of a deal where the city will buy the output of Heritage Sustainable Energy's planned solar array, TCL&P Executive Director Tim Arends said.
The city will pay an extra 0.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for all municipal operations, Arends previously said. That amount represents the difference between the cost of the solar array's energy and the utility's avoided cost in buying it. TCL&P will adjust the surcharge every year of the 20-year, fixed contract, and the surcharge could become a credit if prices for power on the open market rise.
City leaders voted in July to buy the solar array's output as a means of furthering the city's goal of powering all government operations with renewable energy by 2020, as previously reported. Energy from Heritage's 1-megawatt solar array will push the city's green energy consumption to 21 percent from the current 10 percent. It's planned for land along M-72 near a wind turbine the company also owns.
TCL&P, Heritage and city officials had signed off on the agreements as of Wednesday, Arends said. The utility also has contracted an engineering firm to seek bids for power grid enhancements needed to get the solar array's output on the utility's system.
"So we're good to go, we're waiting for the project to be installed," he said.
Construction on the array should begin within two weeks, Heritage CEO Marty Lagina said. It should be operational by Oct. 1.
Heritage Sustainable Energy hazarded that city commissioners intended to move ahead with the deal, and ordered solar panels before the city approved it, Lagina said. The company's contractor has started to take delivery of the panels.
"We took a chance that the city was serious, and they were," he said. "They put their money where their mouth is, and we took a chance on that and ordered all of this stuff months ago."
TCL&P will ask the Downtown Development Authority and the utility's own board if they want to participate in the green rate, Arends said.
Bill Golden, DDA board chairman, said he didn't know enough about the subject to comment.
TCL&P board Chairman Jan Geht said he's not in favor of the utility paying the green rate for its own operations. He'd rather find out about offers from other companies, especially Spartan Renewable Energy. The agreement between Heritage and TCL&P isn't contingent on the utility or DDA agreeing to the green rate as well.
"It's really more of government units having the opportunity to claim that source of energy as properly theirs, and we may choose that we want to claim a different renewable energy source as ours," he said.
