Good things may be coming in threes on the renewable energy front, with a trio of bills promoting Colorado’s “new energy economy” progressing at the Capitol.
• House Bill 1160 by Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, and Sen. Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, would extend “net metering” provisions now embraced by investor-owned utilities to include Rural Electric Associations and municipally owned utilities. Already passed by the House, it won unanimous approval of the Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy committee Friday and headed for the full Senate.
• House Bill 1222 by Rep. Frank McNulty and Sen. Ted Harvey, both Highlands Ranch Republicans, has passed the House Transportation and Energy Committee and is now in the House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee. It’s designed to promote more pumped storage projects similar to Xcel energy’s existing Cabin Creek Project as well as encouraging low-impact hydro-electric projects.
• House Bill 1270 by Rep. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood, and Sen Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, passed the House on Thursday and headed for the Senate. It expands an existing law that already prohibits homeowners’ association covenants from limiting use of solar energy devices to also ban restrictions on other energy-saving items, such as wind-electric generators, shutters and retractable clotheslines.
Municipal utilities and REAs have long fought against “net metering” rules that permit customers with solar or wind generating systems to sell surplus power back to their local power company. But they dropped their opposition last week after Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, helped craft language protecting rural REAs with heavy summer peak loads for crop irrigation. As amended, the bill is fair to urban and rural customers alike and HB 1160 deserves passage by the full Senate.
McNulty’s HB 1222 is an especially far-sighted measure because the more the state expands wind and solar generation, the more it needs a “storage battery” to bring that energy on line when needed. Pumped storage operations like Cabin Creek use reversible pump/generator systems to use power generated by windmills at night to pump water uphill, then let it flow downhill in the afternoon to spin electric generators when air conditioners are running full blast. No other existing technology is as reliable as pumped storage to help make wind and solar power 2 4/7 substitutes for carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuel plants.
Kerr and Tupa’s HB 1270 — striking down homeowner association rules that mandate energy waste — recognizes that conservation is still the least polluting and cheapest new energy source.
All three of these environmentally and consumer friendly bills are examples of “thinking globally, acting locally” and deserve to become law.
