For more details on the proposed legislation visit:
http://www.indianadg.net/utility-dive-michigan-senate-bill-would-erode-the-value-of-net-metering-for-solar-owners/ This article includes a link to SB 438.
http://www.indianadg.net/michigan-state-sen-nofs-introduces-long-awaited-energy-package-not-good-for-renewables/ This article includes information on how to contact the bill author Sen. Nofs.
(AFP) For most farms, manure is a pungent problem. At Homestead Dairy, it smells like money.
The family-run American farm invested in a biogas recovery system which transforms cow poo and other waste into electricity.
Enough electricity, in fact, to power 1,000 homes, a service which the local utility company pays for handsomely.
But that's just a side benefit.
"It works economically, but one of the main reasons we did it was to try to help take care of the odor control for the neighbors," said Floyd Houin, whose family has owned the farm in Plymouth, Indiana since 1945.
"The land's important to us also because we produce a crop for feeding cows. So we want to do everything we can to take care of the land and the water. We drink the same water as everyone else."
Livestock farms typically store their effluent in open lagoons and the stench does not make them very popular with the neighbors.
The lagoons also have a significant environmental impact because they emit methane and carbon dioxide -- major contributors to climate change -- and can sully the groundwater if they leak or overflow during heavy rains.
Setting up an anaerobic digester, essentially a giant shed that uses heat to speed up decomposition, captures both the smell and the greenhouse gases.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than three million tons of greenhouse gas emissions were eliminated last year by Homestead and the 246 other US livestock farms which have installed biogas recovery systems.
That's equivalent to taking more than 630,000 cars off the road.
There are about 8,000 dairy and hog farms in the United States which are large enough to make a biogas recovery system viable.
The EPA estimates they could generate enough electricity to power over a million homes and cut emissions by the equivalent of taking nearly four million cars off the road.
Biogas recovery is also being used to capture methane from landfills and sewage treatment plants and even at craft beer companies.
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"The federal government is really committed to seeing progress in this sector," said Allison Costa, program manager for the EPA's AgStar unit.
"Widespread investment and adoption could help us make significant inroads in helping us address some of our environmental and energy challenges."
The problem is the financing, Costa said. There's a huge upfront cost and most utility companies in the United States won't pay enough for the electricity to make the project appealing to a bank loan officer.
It also requires a lot of maintenance, which many farms don't have the manpower to manage. But when it works, Costa said, it really works.
"We've seen a lot of farms expand and build a second one," she stated.
"You just have to have someone willing to love that digester and take care of it."
Ryan Rogers, 31, loves his digester.
"There's so many (good) things, you forget them all," said Rogers, who married into the Homestead family and spends about four hours a day on digester maintenance and management.
Controlling the smell from the 70,000 gallons of manure and urine produced every day by the dairy's 3,400 cows clearly tops the list.
Then of course, there's the crops. The digester does a much better job of turning the manure into fertilizer, which means a better yield from the farm's 4,500 acres of corn.
Once that nutrient-rich liquid fertilizer is extracted, what's left makes for some nice soft bedding for the cows.
And instead of spending money to manage the manure, soon they'll be making money off it.
The family managed to get a grant to help cover some of the cost of the facility and a favorable contact with the local power company which was looking to expand its renewable energy supplies.
They bring in extra income -- and fuel for the generators -- by charging restaurants and food processing plants a lower rate to dump their waste than the local landfill.
It will probably only take about five years until the initial investment is fully paid off, Rogers said. And it's working so well they're planning to build a second facility.
"It's definitely a growing field within the United States," said Mike Fenton of Michigan CAT, which sold the Caterpillar generators used by Homestead and helps them to maintain the system.
The European market is much more advanced because there are so many more subsidies available and the cost of electricity is so much higher, he said.
While US farmers may balk at the initial cost -- a system like the one at Homestead would run around $6 million -- Fenton said it's a good investment. Most farms can pay it off and start making a profit within three to five years.
"It's a proven technology that works really well," he explained.
Buildings housing generators and an anaerobic digester are seen at Homestead Dairy in Plymouth, Indiana on July 13, 2015. The family-run farm invested in a biogas recovery system which transforms cow manure and other waste into enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. Photo - AFP
IndianaDG Editor's Note: Homestead Dairy is participating in NIPSCO's voluntary feed-in tariff (VFIT) 1.0.
Prosperity Ag & Energy Resources will host a Farm Energy Incentive Open House, in partnership with Indiana Farm Bureau, at the Indiana State Fair Thursday, August 20th 2015. This free open house and educational seminar will allow incentive providers to raise awareness of their incentive programs in the farming community.
Indiana farming operations can benefit from energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions that save money and reduce energy consumption. As producers consider these investments, industry leaders can aid the decision making process by providing access to numerous unique incentive programs such as state and federal grants, as well as energy efficiency rebates from gas and electric utilities.
Sarah Beth Aubrey, Prosperity Ag, LLC Founder and Indiana Farm Bureau member from Morgan County says, “Interest in renewable energy at the farm gate has never been higher. We’re excited to join with utilities and government agencies to bring this networking event to the Indiana State Fair.”
Follow Prosperity Ag & Energy Resources on Facebook for event updates.
Press Contact:
Christi Southerland – Managing Partner
317-650-7069
Aug. 06 --Hoosier Energy is exploring putting a solar farm west of Ellettsville in Monroe County , but recent zoning outcries and the need for a new zoning ordinance to fully accommodate the proposal may leave the utility company's expansion into renewable energy in the dark.
Hoosier Energy's plans are part of an effort to construct 10 one-megawatt solar arrays throughout southern Indiana and southeast Illinois before the end of 2016. While the comprehensive proposal is still in the works, the Monroe County Plan Commission is looking at creating a new solar farm zoning definition to safeguard for the future.
"We are investigating several sites to put in a solar array near Ellettsville ," said Mary Lynn Beaver , communications specialist for Hoosier Energy. "We are adding several solar farms, 10 altogether, located throughout our service territory; some are being constructed and some are in the permit process. Zoning requirements (and the) processes vary depending upon the county where the proposed site is."
Hoosier Energy and its 18 electric cooperative members are currently investigating potential solar array sites in Morgan , Owen and Monroe Counties, but the fight in Monroe County may be tougher than anywhere else, thanks to the backlash the utilities service is facing from neighboring residents in its attempts to re-zone its former headquarters.
The public utility company is investigating more than one potential site in the Ellettsville area, but the Monroe County Plan Commission's work session Tuesday night focused primarily on a plot of land at the intersection of Ind. 46 and West Flatwoods Road . Zoning restrictions caused commissioners to consider amending current landscaping stipulations, setback distances and other issues that didn't apply to the unique aspects of a solar farm.
"Our urban definition of landscape may seem silly," said Monroe County plan director Larry Wilson . "If you have an isolated site in the middle of a field, you don't need the buffering you would in an urban setting."
Such a use typically would require the property, now a farm field, be zoned for commercial or industrial uses.
County officials support exploration of alternative sources for energy -- the county office building roof now has its own solar array -- but the outcry that accompanied the utility's request to rezone the site of its former headquarters building for light industrial uses has given plan commissioners pause.
The consensus now appears to be that a new zoning classification for renewable energy sites would head off confusion. But not all renewable energy processes are as passive as solar panels -- wind turbines, for instance, loom over the landscape, threaten birds and bats and create wind noise -- so officials worry that a blanket alternative energy classification would not be adequate.
Two of the proposed 10 sites are already under construction; one is in New Castle at 1-70 and Ind. 3 and serves the Henry County Rural Electric Membership Cooperative , RushShelby Energy and the Whitewater Valley REMC. The second, along I-69 on the Greene / Daviess county line, serves the Utilities District of Western Indiana and the Daviess-Martin REMC.
While the configuration of the solar arrays will be customized for efficiency at each $2.7-million-dollar site, all 10 will have 4,320 panels and are being proposed at high profile, high visibility areas and high traffic sites near interstates. Hoosier Energy's projection for each site estimates about 1,000 kilowatts of energy production, and the collective annual output of all 10 solar farms will provide approximately 20,000,000 kilowatt-hours of energy for the 300,000 consumers served by Hoosier Energy members.
"The main community benefit is an education on how solar works, how they connect to the grid and how this renewable energy resource can be used in times of need," said Beaver. "Solar's intermittent nature -- highly intense during the day -- coincides with peak demand times. Its availability can help offset the need to call on other, more expensive resources."
Solar energy is a part of Hoosier Energy's "all of the above" strategy, a system of energy production that generates power through a diverse portfolio of methods. Hoosier Energy is targeting growth in the renewable energy portion of that strategy and aims to increase that portion of their portfolio by 10 percent by 2025. The utility company's expansion into renewable energy, despite its proximity to the recent Clean Power Plan regulations instituted by President Barack Obama earlier this week, was a decision made by the board of directors in 2006.
To complete the 10-megawatt project before its 2016 deadline, zoning decisions and construction will have to move quickly on multiple sites simultaneously.
"We're on pace, though the first one had a little bit of a setback because of the rain," Beaver said. "It only takes about 90 days to put the arrays up, and then it's about a month for them to be connected to the grid. Once the site selection and the permitting process has been done, they go up fairly quickly."
Further discussion on the development of Hoosier Energy's proposed Ellettsville solar array will occur at the next Monroe County Plan Commission meeting Aug.18, in the Nat U. Hill meeting room of the courthouse at 6 p.m.
After informing a few institutional customers and at least one solar installer over the past few months that it would not allow them to net meter their third-party funded projects, one of Iowa's major power companies has reversed course.
After the Iowa Supreme Court one year ago upheld third-party funding of renewable-energy projects, Alliant Energy took the position that it would not agree to net meter those projects.
Under net metering, utilities compensate owners of distributed generation system for excess electricity fed to the grid. Alliant contended that the third party was essentially reselling power, impinging on the utility's state-sanctioned monopoly within its service territory.
In an e-mail earlier this week, an Alliant employee told a member of the Cresco city council that the utility will allow the city to net meter some solar arrays that it is considering on three city-owned buildings.
“We have been reviewing your situation and others similar to it, and have determined that our Alternative Energy & Small Hydro Production (AEP) electric tariff allows net metering for third-party financed projects,” Nick Smith wrote to Amy Bouska on Aug. 6. He is Alliant's product manager for renewables.
“Projects would still be subject to IPL’s (Alliant's) AEP electric tariff, but would not be restricted by the form of ownership of the system.”
“I'm delighted,” said Amy Bouska, a member of the Cresco City Council, and the coordinator of the city's energy action team, which has been investigating the feasibility of installing solar panels.
Barry Shear, president and owner of Eagle Point Solar, the Iowa solar installer that filed the legal action that led to the state Supreme Court ruling last summer, clearly was feeling vindicated.
“This is a major turnaround, a total turnaround from what they told me, my lawyer and numerous other people,” he said. The change in policy happens to have come just a few weeks after Shear filed a complaint with the Iowa Utilities Board on June 26 criticizing Alliant's policy on net metering third-party projects. Shear felt he had to downsize a solar project for the city of Asbury in part because of the utility's net metering policy.
The policy change on the part of Alliant could have major repercussions because institutions without a tax liability – schools, universities, hospitals, local governing entities and non-profit organizations, for example – have no way to collect the substantial tax benefits that, in Iowa, can in some cases cut the price of a solar installation in half.
Without access to a third party to provide upfront funding and to collect the tax benefits and then pass them through to the tax-exempt entity in the form of lower electricity prices, that meant that solar and other forms of distributed generation were not very financially feasible for non-taxable entities.
'The policy changed once we actually got something to review from our customers.'
Justin Foss, a spokesman for Alliant Energy, said that the company had one policy – a no net-metering policy – when the third-party issue was strictly hypothetical. Once interconnection applications started to arrive at the company's office this summer, Alliant looked at it differently, he said.
“The policy changed once we actually got something to review from our customers,” he said. “We reviewed what they presented. We looked it over, and found the most customer-focused options possible, and here we are.
“We have told everybody who has provided a formal application that, 'Yes, we're accepting formal applications.' We want to work with our customers, and this is just further proof of that.”
Alliant no longer views third-party net metering as reselling of energy, Foss said.
Until very recently, Alliant's institutional customers understood it to be hostile towards net metering third-party projects. One college in Alliant's territory didn't even even consider sizing a solar project big enough to generate the excess power that would need net metering: the administration didn't think that net metering would be granted.
And Shear said he downsized several projects because of his understanding that Alliant would not grant net metering privileges.
In Cresco, Amy Bouska said that in light of Alliant's initial refusal to net meter a project there, her energy team had begun to look for other ways to cover the cost of installing solar panels on City Hall, the fire station and the road maintenance garage. They thought about a leasing arrangement, or putting up a very small array as an experiment.
“I seriously doubt that we would have moved ahead without a (power-purchase agreement),” she said.
Alliant's change-of-mind, she said, “reopens doors we thought were closed.”