/ Newsletter
Fourth Quarter - October 2016
1Q 2014
Solar Tour 2016: A Sunny Success
By Theresa Martin, KySES Chairperson
It was a beautiful sunny day when over 215 people attended our annual Solar Tour in 6 Kentucky cities: Berea, Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, Lexington, Louisville and Northern Kentucky. Each city’s tour provided an outstanding overview of how solar works well in Kentucky, the financial value of solar and real life examples of solar in action in our communities. Each tour ended with opportunities to socialize and meet installers, and several offered opportunities to attend benefit concerts to support solar for low income housing as well. It was a sunny and shining success!
Berea
This year's tour was hosted by Sustainable Berea on Saturday, September 10, to coordinate with the Celebrate the Harvest event. Over 30 participated in the Solar 101 and tour of a SENS House Ecovillage solar homes and solar greenhouse irrigation system. Following this, 13 participants rode the bus and car tours to visit homes and farms powered by solar. There was a drawing for LED lights and a free solar site assessment—the lights went to a Berea College student and the solar site assessment went to the residents at Wild Earth Farm in Estill Co. Some on the tour were aspiring solar installers and others were very interested and committed to moving forward with solar someday soon. Thank you to the Berea tour sponsors: Sustainable Berea, MACED and Solar Energy Solutions.
Bowling Green
This year's tour was hosted by Solar Energy Pioneers. The tour started with a short Solar 101 presentation and then visits to several homes that take advantage of the sunny skies of southern Kentucky. We were happy to have Bowling Green on the tour this year!
Elizabethtown
This year's tour was hosted by Daily Green Power. Over 10 people attended the Solar 101 presentation which shared ideas on energy efficiency, solar technology concepts, as well as the declining cost and increasing value of solar across the country. Following, the group boarded a bus to visit 6 homes and businesses that harness the sun to generate electricity. The participants appreciated the opportunity to talk to home owners and installers who could explain first hand the value of solar from the financial, environmental and social benefit perspectives. Thank you to the Elizabethtown tour sponsors: Citizens Union Bank, DermSpecialists, State Farm, Republic Bank and Swope.
Lexington
This year's tour was hosted by Clean Power Planet. There were over 30 people who attended the morning educational sessions. Rachel Norton of MACED kicked off the day with ideas on home energy efficiency, followed by Alex Smith of Solar Energy Solutions who gave an overview of solar concepts and then Andy McDonald shared details of solar financing and incentives. Next, the group took a bus to visit several homes with solar energy generation. Finally, the group was able to see the University of Kentucky’s Solar Car that is 100% powered by solar energy! In the evening,Solar Kentucky held a concert at The Burl to raise funds to support energy efficiency and solar panel installation on Habitat for Humanity homes. Four bands played to the delight of all that attended! It was an exciting day filled with learning, information sharing and raising money for a good cause! Thank you to the Lexington tour sponsors: Habitat for Humanity, Kentucky Housing Corporation, Clean Power Planet,Solar Energy Solutionsand Wilderness Trace Solar.
Louisville
There were over 100 people who attended the Louisville tour! The day opened with a Solar 101 presentation by Robert Chatham andSenator Morgan McGarvey sharing efforts to promote legislation that benefits energy efficiency and solar in the state of Kentucky. Following, David Huff shared information on the LG&E Demand Management and Energy Efficiency programs, followed by a homeowners panel and installers panel. It was a standing room only crowd at Bellarmine University. Then, off the group went on a guided bike tour or self-guided bike or car tour of over 40 solar powered homes and businesses! The group later met at the Apocalypse Brew Works to meet the installers and share ideas. Finally, Solar Kentucky held a benefit concert at the Haymarket Whiskey Bar to raise funds to support energy efficiency and solar panel installation on Habitat for Humanity homes. Three bands played late into the night. It was an exciting day filled with learning, information sharing and raising money for a good cause! There were many Louisville tour sponsors but to name a few: Whayne Supply Company, Solar Energy Solutions, SunWind Power Systems, Avery and Sun Solar Installations, Third Sun Solar, Chatham Energy Consulting, Graybar, Sierra Club, Solar Over Louisville and several more.
Northern Kentucky
There were over 40 people who attended the Northern Kentucky tour. The day started with a solar “fair” with demonstrations of solar technology such as panels, inverters and batteries. Then, participants went on a self-guided tour to visit 3 business and 3 residential homes sporting solar. Following, the group met at the Boone County Library for a special presentation from U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie who shared his off grid life on a farm right in Northern Kentucky. In addition, the group received a short presentation from Solar Energy Solutions on solar basics. The group later met at the Lucky Duck Pub to meet the installers and share ideas. Thank you to the Northern Kentucky tour sponsor Solar Energy Solutions.
Empower Kentucky Summit:
Vision for Kentucky's Energy Future
By Lisa Abbott, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
What’s your vision for Kentucky’s energy future? What do you think it will take? And how can we make sure everyone benefits and no one is behind? Those are the questions members of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth have been asking over the past year as we work to shape a people’s energy plan for Kentucky.
The goal of the Empower Kentucky project is to build a large, diverse, and powerful movement for a just transition to a clean energy economy. In 2016, KFTC has engaged more than 1,000 Kentuckians in conversations about our changing energy landscape and their vision and ideas for the future. Informed by those perspectives, a team is now working to craft a people’s plan, describing ways Kentucky can generate jobs, improve health, advance equity and a just transition, and comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
An early draft of that plan was shared with participants at the Empower Kentucky Summit, attended by 250 people earlier this month in Louisville. Additional feedback is welcome. Comments may be sent to . A final plan will be released early in 2017.
As Chris Woolery told participants at the Empower Kentucky Summit, “Through this process we’ve learned Kentuckians are just not happy with our energy choices. We want more and better options. We want a future powered by energy efficiency and renewables. And we want the transition to be as fair and just as possible, especially for miners and affected workers.”
The Empower Kentucky Summit featured a dozen workshops on topics ranging from “Accelerating Renewable Energy in Kentucky” to “Solar Energy for All” and from “Prioritizing Health, Equity and Racial Justice” to “Ramping up Energy Efficiency Across our Economy” and “Creating Good Jobs in the Clean Energy Economy.” Many members of the Kentucky Solar Energy Society provided leadership in these discussions as moderators and presenters, including Matt Partymiller, Nancy Givens, Josh Bills and Theresa Martin.
The draft Empower Kentucky plan reflects ideas generated from public input as well as best practices and model policies from across the US. It includes many positions long advanced by solar energy advocates in Kentucky, including expanding net-metering, allowing 3rd party ownership of distributed renewable energy systems, and removing barriers to community-owned solar. The plan makes recommendations across seven key areas, including:
- Accelerate energy efficiency and renewable energy
- Support local, community based solutions
- Prioritize health and equity
- Support a just transition
- Fully and fairly invest in our energy transition
- Meet our responsibilities
- Engage everyone to transform our economy, democracy, and essential systems
In a nutshell, the KFTC planning team is learning that policies to ramp up energy efficiency and renewable energy in Kentucky will result in more net jobs and lower average bills than the business as usual scenario. That’s good news, and it’s consistent with what we expected. However, we are also learning that those policies alone will not significantly reduce harmful power plant pollution in our state. That’s because as Kentuckians demand less coal-fired energy, the computer model predicts our utilities will simply export more to other states. In that case, they would comply with the Clean Power Plan by purchasing tens of millions of “allowances” or permits to pollute, which are expected to cost little or nothing.
The Empower Kentucky planning team is now grappling with those findings and evaluating additional policy measures to ensure the final plan meets all of their objectives. Namely, they seek to design a final plan that is good for jobs, bills, and health; one that prioritizes equity and just transition, and one that meets our obligation to protect the climate.
As Nancy Reinhart explained during a plenary session at the Summit, “These findings should not make us say it’s too complicated or we cannot do anything. We know our families are worth it, our kids are worth it, and our future is worth it. And I can see a day when all of us have equal access to the conditions that make us healthy.”
LG&E Solar Shares Proposal Falls Short:
Fails to Offer Affordable Solar Option
ByAndy McDonald
LG&E-KU has asked the Kentucky Public Service Commission for approval to develop a solar subscription program known as “Solar Shares” that would be available to customers on a voluntary basis. The Kentucky Solar Energy Society has reviewed the proposal and while we support LG&E-KU’s intention to make solar energy available to more customers, we have serious concerns about the terms of the proposal which fail to make the proposal accessible or affordable.
1. The monthly cost for the Solar Subscription is excessive, unreasonable, and well above the market rate for solar. The proposed subscription fee of $6.29/ ¼ KW block per month works out to an average annual rate of $0.21/kWh for the solar electricity, about three times the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for solar PV installed on the customer’s property. The LCOE for solar PV ranges from about $0.06 - $0.08/kWh, for commercial-scale and residential systems, respectively, factored over the standard 25 year warranty period of the PV modules.
2. The Solar Credits proposed by LG&E-KU fail to account for the full value of solar energy. LG&E-KU propose to credit customers about $0.04/kWh at the start of the project. This rate may change in the future, but there is no reason to believe it would rise significantly. When you combine the cost of the Solar Subscription with the Solar Credit, the Subscriber ends up paying $0.17/kWh for the solar energy, twice the retail rate for residential customers and more than four times the retail rate for industrial customers.
Contrast this with the financial benefits available to customers who use net metering to install solar on their home or business. The net metering customer makes an up-front investment and then is credited for all of the solar energy they produce at the retail rate. For the net metering customer solar is an investment which eventually generates substantial energy cost savings. For the Solar Shares subscriber, participation simply imposes additional costs for as long as one subscribes.
There is a growing body of research on the “Value of Solar,” distributed generation, and net metering. Numerous states, utilities, and organizations have studied this issue in recent years, and there are strong arguments for including a wide array of factors in an analysis of the value of solar. LG&E-KU use a very limited number of factors to include in their calculation of the Solar Credit and have thereby undervalued it. We believe that the value of the Solar Credit should be based on either (a) a careful, transparent evaluation of the value of the solar energy, accounting for the full range of relevant factors, or (b) the net metering model.
3. The Solar Shares proposal was designed to appeal especially to larger industrial, commercial, and governmental customers who do not have access to net metering for larger-scale solar arrays. However, LG&E-KU have lobbied for years to block efforts to expand net metering, which would have made it accessible to these larger customers. We are quite troubled that LG&E-KU have acted to limit their customer’s options in the solar energy market, strengthening their monopoly control of their customer’s energy supply, and then proposed an extremely expensive “solar option” that will benefit the utility at the expense of their customers. If LG&E-KU would enable net metering for larger solar arrays, their customers would have much more affordable solar energy options. As it is, they only permit net metering for systems up to 30 KW, while customers like schools and factories could benefit from 300 KW or 1,000 KW or even larger systems.
State law requires LG&E-KU to offer net metering to systems up to 30 KW but it does not prohibit them from offering net metering to larger systems. If LG&E-KU want to make solar energy available to more customers, they should raise their cap on net metering and allow their customers much more affordable access than the Solar Shares proposal provides.
4. The Solar Shares proposal does not increase accessibility to solar for lower-income customers and the pricing structure is obscure, making it difficult for customers to compare the actual cost of a Solar Share to their existing rates or other options.
5. The projected profits from the Solar Shares proposal are unreasonable and excessive. Based on our analysis of the project, we project LG&E-KU could earn a $2.6 million profit on each $1 million invested in the Solar Shares project. In light of the high cost to participants and other shortcomings of the proposal, we consider this level of profit to be excessive and unreasonable.
6. The Solar Shares proposal fails to capture the many benefits “Community Solar” can bring to a utility, its customers, and community. The “community solar” model was developed to make solar energy more accessible to a larger part of the population, while being of mutual benefit to the utility/developer, participating customers, and the community. In many project designs, the customer becomes an investor in the community solar project and reaps long-term financial benefits from that investment. LG&E-KU's model excludes this by giving the community no ownership or investor's stake. The LG&E-KU model does not provide the customer with any return-on-investment, ever. It simply increases the customer’s cost of energy for as long as they remain a subscriber.
7. There are a few steps LG&E-KU could take to make solar much more accessible and affordable for their customers. If any of these steps require changes to law or regulations, they should support those changes.
- Expand net metering for systems up to 1,000 KW or larger.
- Explicitly allow solar leases and power purchase agreements for renewables.
- Enable “virtual net metering” and development of community solar projects by third-party developers.
Conclusion
The Solar Shares proposal presented by LG&E/KU has the potential to be an innovative means to making solar energy more accessible and affordable to their customers. We are excited about the possibility of up to 4 megawatts of solar PV becoming available through a “community solar” type of project. We believe that the community solar model, which has many different forms and potential project designs, has great potential to make solar more accessible, affordable, and commonplace in Kentucky.
However, we do not support the fundamental design features of their Solar Shares proposal. The pricing structure is too costly for participants and out of line with market prices for solar PV; it would generate unreasonably high profits for the utility; the pricing and payment structure is obscure and non-transparent; the proposal fails to accurately account for the full value of the solar power, unfairly benefiting the utility to the detriment of the customer-subscriber; and it fails to make solar more accessible, especially for lower-income customers.
There are other designs for community solar projects in use within Kentucky and in other states which provide real benefits to both the customer-subscriber and the utility. We urge the PSC to direct LG&E-KU to re-design their Solar Shares proposal, to make it an affordable, truly accessible option for their customers. As one of the first community solar-type projects in Kentucky, the Solar Shares project offers a great opportunity to demonstrate an innovative project design that truly makes solar energy more accessible for customers, in a way that is economically beneficial to the customer and the utility.