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A report for the Renewables Advisory Board. July 2009 edition

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Robbie Erbmann, Hugh Goulbourne & Piya Malik, May 2009. Published by The Co-operative Party (UK)

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Short points about the advantages of community power.

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This updated edition of Energy Self-Reliant States narrows the focus to electricity, but includes virtually all renewable resources (on shore and off shore wind, micro hydro, combined heat and power, geothermal, rooftop PV).  We also discuss the potential gains from improving energy efficiency and estimate the per kWh costs for each state to become energy independent. The data in this report suggest that every state could generate a significant percentage of its electricity with homegrown renewable energy. At least three-fifths of the fifty states could meet all their internal electricity needs from renewable energy generated inside their borders.  Every state with a renewable energy mandate can meet it with in-state renewable fuels. And, as the report discusses, even these estimates may be conservative.

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Des installations éoliennes socialement acceptables: élaboration d’un modèle d’évaluation de projets dans une perspective de développement territorial durable

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Des installations éoliennes socialement acceptables: élaboration d’un modèle d’évaluation de projets dans une perspective de développement territorial durable

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RFPs and competitive bidding has its place in modern day procurement in both the public and the private sectors, especially when the product or service is a commodity with definitive and quantitative characteristics. In such cases, “least cost” decision making makes sense. But when a purchaser is looking for the greatest value, relying on an RFP may, in fact, be counterproductive and add costs to both the delivered product and to society as a whole.

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When members of community use resources wisely, for example by recycling or taking mass transit, a community moves toward sustainability. To promote sustainability, then, it is essential to have a firm grasp of how to effectively encourage individuals and businesses to adopt behaviors that are resource efficient.

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This document presents the work of the Ontario Smart Grid Forum. The report begins by describing the Forum, what it set out to accomplish, and how it operated. A vision of the smart grid follows which explains the smart grid and the fundamental transformation of the electricity system that it represents. Subsequent sections discuss various aspects of smart grid development and make recommendations in each area. The report concludes with a section on advancing the smart grid.

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his year offers a rare historical opportunity for our nation to marry energy and agricultural policy objectives. The new 110th Congress will be revisiting the 2005 energy bill and reauthorizing the 2002 farm bill, giving congressional leaders the chance to link increased rural prosperity and energy security. The key ingredient in such a strategy: Maximize local ownership of the rapidly expanding biofuels and wind-energy industries.

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This document presents a series of recommendations for a Community Wind Energy Program for the province of New Brunswick.

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The ‘first stop’ for local government leaders addressing energy sustainability and climate change

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Released by the 25' X 25' Alliance, The Energy Foundation and Harvesting Clean Energy, this report makes clear that community wind must be an integral part of the U.S.'s national energy strategy and lays out a set of public policies designed to grow local wind investment and ownership.

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by John Farrell and David Morris for Institute for Local Self-Reliance This report examines the current impact of renewable energy on rural communities and identifies existing and potential policies that could dramatically expand the economic benefit this new sector can bring to these communities.

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This primer focuses on the large-scale storage of electricity in order to bring more renewable power sources onto the grid. Adding power storage to the grid will allow our future base load and peak power needs to be met primarily with renewable power sources, including those that have variable outputs like solar, tidal, wave and wind power.

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Energy conservation is the focus of many advertising campaigns and new strategies and resources are being developed daily. The importance of energy is understood, particularly as it relates to the future. Given its significance, it is alarming that the energy sector will suffer a skills shortage unless changes are made. The Ontario Centre of Excellence for Energy (OCEE), in consultation with the Electricity Sector Council (ESC) undertook a survey of the colleges and roundtable discussion help address this shortage.

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This "Green Paper" outlines the value of creating stronger partnerships between core commercial property stakeholders ( owners, property managers, operations, and tenants) in the pursuit of green.

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The Community Power Pack has been created by Communities and Local Government with the help of Involve to aid local groups organise and facilitate discussions on the topic of empowerment. Your feedback will be used by Communities and Local Government to inform and shape empowerment activities, including the Empowerment White Paper. The pack contains suggestions for the format of the meeting, advice for facilitators and organisers as well as detailed information about key empowerment issues.

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The world's alternative-energy superpower has lured companies from around the world with offers of funding and support theyclean, sustainable power

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Local governments around the world have been leaders in tackling climate change by promoting renewable energy at the community level, with innovative policies and programs that have made national-level impacts on energy policy and greenhouse gas emissions. Local governments are ideally placed to champion renewable energy in British Columbia.

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TORC published this report following the TORC Energy Forum: Exploring Ownership Options for Farmers, Rural Landowners and Rural Communities in November of 2007. This report addresses issues such as: grid access and connectivity costs; unified voice for policy advocacy; benefits of local ownership, and much more.

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L’approche en coût global est un progrès considérable par rapport à la simple comparaison des coûts d’investissement initiaux d’options de projets de bâtiments. Elle permet en effet de prendre en compte les avantages d’options de constructions à faibles coûts d’exploitation et d’entretien, y compris en essayant de prendre en compte les avantages en coûts indirects pour l’environnement et la société, comme dans les réflexions en cours sur le “coût global partagé”. 1 Bernard Chabot,

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This report describes a feasibility analysis and the development of a business model for a solar electric co-operative within the City of Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area.

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This discussion paper provides an overview of the context for municipal microgeneration policies in BC, and some potential policy options. It aims to help stimulate discussion and provide some ideas for consideration at the workshop.

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Taking a community-based approach to renewable energy means more than just creating jobs in rural areas. It means helping communities get more of their energy from local, independent producers, thereby ensuring that they once again have a personal stake in their energy future.

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This study was conducted for EverPure by Michelle Fruendt with the generous support of the Agricultural Co-op Initiative of the federal government’s Cooperatives Secretariat.

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This guide presents a high level overview of some of the legal and business issues which wind energy industry participants face as part of the development of individual projects and is our attempt to distill some of the insights which we have gained over the past number of years serving Canada’s wind energy industry.

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by John Farrell and David Morris for Institute for Local Self-Reliance This report examines the current impact of renewable energy on rural communities and identifies existing and potential policies that could dramatically expand the economic benefit this new sector can bring to these communities.

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This report briefly reviews the benefits of wind power, introduces small-scale, locally owned wind generation, highlights three analyses that compare the economic development benefits of small-scale, locally owned generation to other larger capacity ownership structures and closes by discussing the barriers and changes necessary to aid the development of small-scale, locally owned wind generation, specifically in Iowa. Other Iowa Policy Project publication related to the economic development potential of renewable energy technologies include Wind Power and the Iowa Economy and Statewide Economic Values of Alternative Energy Sources and Energy Conservation.

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For years, farmers in the United States have looked with envy on their European counterparts’ ability to profitably farm the wind through ownership of distributed, utility-scale wind projects. Only within the past few years, however, has farmer- or community-owned wind power development become a reality in the United States. The primary hurdle to this type of development in the United States has been devising and implementing suitable business and legal structures that enable such projects to take advantage of tax-based federal incentives for wind power. This article discusses the limitations of such incentives in supporting farmer- or community-owned wind projects, describes four ownership structures that potentially overcome such limitations, and finally conducts comparative financial analysis on those four structures, using as an example a hypothetical 1.5 MW farmer-owned project located in the state of Oregon. We find that material differences in the competitiveness of each structure do exist, but that choosing the best structure for a given project will largely depend on the conditions at hand; e.g., the ability of the farmer(s) to utilize tax credits, preference for individual versus “cooperative” ownership, and the state and utility service territory in which the project will be located.

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The Northwestern United States is currently home to several large, commercially developed wind projects. With many more in the development pipeline, large commercial wind projects will likely dominate wind power development in the Northwest for years to come. Recently, however, there has also been growing interest throughout the Northwest in wind projects of a smaller scale, yet still using modern utility-grade wind turbines – i.e., so called “community wind.” For the purposes of this report, we define “community wind” power development to mean locally owned projects, consisting of one or more utility-scale wind turbines that are interconnected on either the customer or utility side of the meter.

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This Guidebook explains the options for structuring and financing community-based wind power projects.There have been numerous publications and conferences on community wind development, but less specific attention on options for project structuring and financing. The goal of this handbook is to identify critical financing issues and present several possible financing models that reflect the differing financial positions and investment goals of various project owners/developers.

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"Permitting Small Wind Turbines" was developed by the American Wind Energy Association's Small Wind Advocate Team in cooperation with Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development (SEED)

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This report is an update of the December 2000 report and documents the installation and 34-month performance of a heated plug-flow anaerobic digester for managing dairy manure at Haubenschild Farms. This type of digester is appropriate for treating manure with a high solids content, such as cow manure that is collected by scraping.

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The purpose of this guide is to help you determine whether a PV system is a suitable option for you in providing electrical power for one or more of the above uses. It describes typical and innovative PV systems, provides examples of successful Canadian installations and answers some of the questions you should ask yourself before approaching a PV dealer ( as well as questions a dealer should be able to answer).

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The first half of this book discusses the century-long struggle by cities to gain autonomy and authority from state governments and create their own planning and service delivery capacities. The second part describes the first urban-based localization movements. Given the relevance of the book to current localist efforts, [ILSR has] written a new foreword that traces the local energy initiatives after the 75 percent plunge in oil prices after 1982 and the coming to power of a new administration hostile to renewable energy.