Green power gets a plug

'Green power' gets a plug
BY PAUL BONNER : The Herald-Sun
pbonner@heraldsun.com
Oct 1, 2003 : 7:53 pm ET

DURHAM -- If they haven't already, North Carolinians will soon receive an insert with their electric bills telling them how they can support alternative energy sources.

Ceremonies Wednesday at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Research Triangle Park and in Charlotte launched the NC GreenPower program. Designed to bring power from wind, solar and other renewable sources into the state's supply, it invites residential and small-business customers to include with their electric bills a payment toward the program.

Each $4 will underwrite the addition of a 100 kilowatt-hour "block" of "green" power to the state's power grid. Higher-volume business and institutional users of power can contribute $2.50 per 100 kilowatt-hours.

Electric utilities forward all of the payments -- which are tax-deductible -- to the program. Some companies began offering the program in late July, and others are introducing it this fall.

Duke Energy, Progress Energy and Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation are among the companies participating, although all electric utilities in the state support it.

The program, administered by Advanced Energy, a nonprofit organization, will use the money to help develop the power in-state. The program has two years to meet the paid-for demand, said Bob Koger, president and executive director of Advanced Energy.

Already, Koger said, the agency has received a good response by companies wanting to build generating plants. Some could use methane gas that collects in landfills and other wastes.

"We're going to make sure we have a mixture," he said. "We're not going to let any one product predominate."

Program officials say they aim for 1 percent of electric customers to participate in the first year. Early results show the average payment finances 2.6 blocks of power, said Sharon Gladwell, an NC GreenPower spokeswoman.

Thirty-one other states also have a green-power program, but North Carolina's is the first in which all electric utilities are participating or plan to do so, she said.

'Green power' gets a plug
A leading environmentalist organization, Environmental Defense, praises NC GreenPower and is represented on its board. Some other environmental groups, however, consider it flawed.

"It sounds good on paper," said Scott Gollwitzer, staff attorney of Appalachian Voices of Asheville. "But when you really start examining the product, it gives you pause."

Appalachian Voices says energy conservation could do more to protect the environment than developing alternative sources, all of which carry some ecological drawbacks. Some, it says, are even harmful to the environment, such as using hog and other animal wastes, as is being contemplated by GreenPower.

Gollwitzer said Appalachian Voices tried to incorporate conservation into GreenPower's mission, but was ignored.

Appalachian Voices also criticizes GreenPower's economic model as a "corporate welfare" subsidy. The program for high-volume commercial users, the organization points out, isn't limited to new energy sources. It could also support the three dozen or so independent hydroelectric producers in the state.

Long-term contracts with utilities under the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act have recently expired for many of the hydroelectric producers, who as a result have faced a severe financial shortfall, said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Smith's organization, which was active in the early phases of NC GreenPower, is "cautiously supportive" of it, Smith said.

"It's an important leading edge for more environmentally friendly sources of power, for public education and awareness," he said.

Like Appalachian Voices, however, the group is concerned about the program's large-volume commercial product. The Center for Resource Solutions of San Francisco, a leading accreditation agency for green power on whose board Smith sits, has certified only NC GreenPower's residential product, he said.

Smith said the state could use a so-called "renewable portfolio standard," a requirement that electric companies provide a certain amount of power from renewable sources.

"The utilities are scared to death of that," he said.

But there's nothing wrong with developing demand for green power at the customer level, he added.

"People want to support this type of power development," he said. "Hopefully, there will be a very strong response to it."