Comments to the Virginia General Assembly's Legislative Transition Task Force

Alden M Hathaway, Energy Consultant
for Environmental Resources Trust, Inc.
Round Hill, VA

Speaking in Favor of a Renewable Portfolio Standard and a Public Benefits Fund
Richmond, Virginia
December 8, 1999

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Legislative Transition Task Force. My primary purpose in speaking to you today is to express my support for the proposal presented to you by Steve Kalland of the Maryland-District of Columbia Virginia Solar Energy Industry Association (MDV SEIA) calling for a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and a Public Benefits Fund (PBF) to be applied to all electricity sold at retail in the Commonwealth.

I am an electrical and energy engineer from Loudoun County and a graduate of the University of Virginia, with almost 18 years in the energy industry including two years at an electric utility, eleven years for a lighting and a solar manufacturer and the last five years for the EPA's Energy Star Buildings Program. Currently, I am the energy project manager involved with the development of the largest solar power plant in Virginia, the Barns at Franklin Park in Loudoun County. I know the benefits of both energy efficiency and renewable energy for the economy and, more particularly the nation's consumers. I wish you to consider six (6) points:

1. On our current path of growing energy consumption in Virginia, we are expected to see a shortfall of electricity by as much as 17 GW in the next several years (1998 SCC Report). To maintain electric system reliability, there are eight (8) proposed new fossil fuel power plants to be built in Virginia. Two are planned for Fauquier County. I know that in Loudoun County, we have successfully blocked the construction of new combustion plants. I believe the residents of Fauquier County are similarly disposed. If you were to poll the public there, I think you would find little support for the construction of these two power plants.

   This is not a surprising development. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal, highlighted, yet again, the public's unwillingness for power providers to continue building new power plants even for regions where power shortages are imminent. The article yesterday highlighted the arrogance of Sempra Energy's position that the people of Litchfield County, Connecticut are not intelligent enough to know that they need the plant, even though some of the people against the new plant are individuals such as Henry Kissinger; Henry Kravis, and playwright Arthur Miller.

   The opposition to new power plants across the country is getting to such a level that some power plant developers are resorting to new designs to camouflage what they really are. One particularly despicable design was featured by the Wall Street Journal's September 22 "MARKETPLACE" section. The plant, proposed by Reliant Energy for McHenry County, Illinois, is to be disguised as a rather large barn with silos that are really smokestacks.

   Utilities and Power Developers are simply out-of-touch or just brain dead on this. My experience in Loudoun County and the message from yesterday's WSJ tells me it's not power plants that the public is against, it's new smokestacks with more emissions. Not only have we had no opposition to building a solar power plant in Loudoun County, but the public is rallying around it.

   Unfortunately, the General Assembly is sending the wrong message to the utilities and the public about what kind of energy plants to develop when it allows subsidies for Virginia Power' north Anna Plant to the tune of $825 million per reactor; or subsidies for Virginia Coal at $3.00 per ton without leveling the field with some kind of renewable subsidy or renewable portfolio standard. In contrast, the General Assembly is telling the public that deregulation is meant to put all energy technologies on an equal footing and let the best ones win. Unfortunately with the wrong technologies incentivized such that they will ultimately be much less expensive than new technologies, renewable energy and energy efficiency will not have a chance.

   New power plants are not in the best interest of Virginia consumers when energy-efficiency and renewable energy could have taken up the slack.

2. Virginia is blessed with natural renewable resources, especially small hydroelectric mills that are on the cusp of becoming cost-effective, but will not likely be able to compete with subsidized coal, oil, gas, or nuclear sources (please reference Old Mill Powers: Mitch King's arguments). Most small hydro sources in the state are owned and operated by local Virginia farmers.

3. Virginia has a stake in the emerging renewable energy technology market. British Petroleum predicts that by 2050, half of the worlds energy will be supplied from renewable resources and 20% of that will be solar. In the last five years Virginia has become home to two solar manufacturing plants. BP Solarex plant in Toano, Virginia is a prime example. The plant's capacity currently is 10 MW per year. it could easily be extended to 20 MW (15%) of the entire solar production industry, yet less than one (1) percent of its current capacity is being used here in Virginia. In fact the neighboring states of Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will be using 5 times what Virginia has installed before the end of the year 2000.

   I have been involved in the effort to attract other solar companies to Virginia, which is important to Virginia's growth in technologies for the 21st century. However, without stronger interest in solar energy in Virginia, that task is made all but impossible.

4. I am involved in a solar electrification program with the Anglican and Catholic churches for the third world countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Conga, and Kenya, home to some of the poorest people of the world. The program involves energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps operated with electricity generated from solar panels. We have installed over 700 systems in Uganda alone. It is worth noting that the government of Uganda has recognized solar energy as its chief aid to its rural people.

   It's interesting to consider the parallels of the developing electricity infrastructure in the third world to the developing railroads of Europe in the aftermath of World War II and compare it to the US penchant for hanging on to old infrastructure. No longer chained to the old railroad infrastructure before the war, Europe was free to develop the high-speed continuous weld rail lines that made high-speed rail travel possible and the envy of America. 30 to 40 years behind Europe and we in America are still trying to find a way to duplicate their rail service. Freed from the constraints of the electric and communications grid the third world is developing its wireless energy and communications at such a clip it is becoming the fastest growing global business and one of the reasons for Virginia's prowess as a high technology state.

   Are we going to incentivise our utilities to hang onto their aging infrastructures and continue putting us further behind, or are we going to learn from the rail industry and incentivise utilities to change the way they deliver energy?

5. The project I am involved with in Loudoun County, Virginia, The Barns at Franklin Park, is the first completely solar powered facility of its kind. In fact, it is actually a power plant for the area of Western Loudoun County. I would like to invite all of you up to Loudoun County this spring when we throw the switch on the 70 kW solar array. The amazing thing is that it has all been possible without increasing the cost to the county to build the theater nor operate it once it has been completed. It was accomplished through a combination of both energy-efficiency and new solar technologies, much of them from Virginia. We have the technologies now to replicate buildings like this around the commonwealth and around the country. However, without a renewable portfolio standard there is little incentive for the utilities, who have the capital, to invest in buildings to be renewable plants.

6. Finally, I would like to offer a saying we often use in the church. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day... Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

   My experience in the energy industry has taught me the value of showing an energy efficient product to a consumer and leaving it with him to see how it cuts his power bill; Consider a single compact fluorescent light bulb. One nine ($9) dollar bulb saves the average home owner $10 to $15 per year in energy costs (higher or lower income - it doesn't matter). However, for a lower income consumer who pays an average $60 per month for utilities, a few of these lights could reduce his bill by 10-20% permanently.

   In the past, utilities around the country sponsored programs that have helped low income consumers get energy-assistance from compact fluorescent light bulbs to home energy audits to solar power systems.

   My final question is: After deregulation, when utilities are no longer required to offer assistance to low income consumers, who will?

We need a public benefits fund and a renewable portfolio standard to ensure that renewable and energy efficient technologies as well as low income consumers do not fall between the cracks of utility deregulation.

Alden M. Hathaway
Environmental Resources Trust, Inc.
17358 Legacy Terrace
Round Hill, Virginia 20141
alden@ert.net
540-338-6930