Author Archives Laura Arnold

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.

Bad news: Ohio House Passes SB 310 53-38; Worse News: Gov. Kasich says he intends to sign SB 310

Posted by Laura Arnold / May 28, 2014 / Posted in Uncategorized / No Comments

A spokesman for Gov. John Kasich said he intends to sign Senate Bill 310, which freezes Ohio's renewable energy and energy efficiency standards for two years so lawmakers can study their merits.

Gov. John Kasich intends to sign two-year freeze on renewable energy, energy efficiency standards

By Jeremy Pelzer, Northeast Ohio Media Group
Follow on Twitter
on May 28, 2014 at 5:25 PM, updated May 28, 2014 at 5:45 PM

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Gov. John Kasich intends to sign a two-year freeze of Ohio's renewable energy and energy efficiency mandates, an administration spokesman said Wednesday.

The freeze, which passed final legislative votes on Wednesday afternoon, will give lawmakers time to study the mandates, which critics said are unachievable, raise Ohioans’ electric bills, and intrude on the free market.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols, in a statement, said Senate Bill 310 is a "balanced" way to support renewable energy while helping Ohio's economic recovery.

"Ohio needs more renewable and alternative energy sources and it needs a strong system to support them as they get started," Nichols said. "It's naïve, however, to think that government could create that system perfectly the first time and never have to check back to see if everything's ok."

SB 310 is "a solid plan to examine the progress Ohio has made while also holding onto that progress," Nichols continued.

"It's not what everyone wanted, which probably means we came down at the right spot."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

For a listing of who spoke on the bill during the House debate see my tweets at www.twitter.com/IndianaDG

From other earlier news sources:

The Ohio House passed SB 310 with a final vote of 53-38. Democrats Sandra Williams & Stephen Slesnick voted YES; Republicans Brown, Burkley, Duffey, McGregor, Pelanda, and Romanchuk voted NO. The Senate has concurred with the House & the bill now goes to Governor Kasich for final consideration.