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Dear Tom,

I agree the so-called "free market" policies of massive subsidies for fossil fuels are keeping us mired in the past while the rest of the world races past us in producing the renewable energy future with its huge market for new technologies and green jobs.

There is no such thing as a free market. Every marketplace there has ever been has had rules. The question is who makes the rules and who benefits from them. The power of Feed-In Tariff policies is that they establish rules for the renewable energy market that open up that market to millions of new players by establishing in law fixed prices that a local utility will pay for each kWh of renewable energy fed into the grid over a fixed contract period - usually 15-20 years. The prices are set in advance to provide a minimum of profitability to anyone who can produce renewable energy. FIT policies also guarantee RE producers a hook up to the gird, so they have a place to sell their energy. With this certainty of a price and a way to get your RE to market, the production of RE skyrockets as do green jobs.

We need a robust FIT policy in Oregona. We've got an opportunity with Oregon's new pilot but it will need improving. Seventeen other states have FIT policies somewhere in the legislative pipeline. Oregon is one of the first. but it will take citizens helping to get it right.

For example, it was just said on the show that the reason our PUC did not permit rooftop owners to sell excess enrgy to the grid is that didn't want to create little utilities. That's not quite accurate. They were hampered by a provision in federal law that prevents states from setting prices for wholesale energy. Volunteers are working to change this law.  To learn more and help advocate for good FIT policies in Oregon, visit www.OregonRenewables.com .

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A better model is a Feed-In Tariff policy funded by electricity ratepayers. Such a policy covers 100% of the cost of generation to a producer over time, and makes it simple and easy to become a producer of RE by removing the red tape.

Funding the transition to renewable energy with a small rate increase is sustainable because ultimately it creates stable energy prices for ratepayers that don't go up as the cost of finite fossil fuels does.

If constructed properly, FIT policies actually drive down the cost of renewables to where they are no more expensive than fossil fuels. Germany has accomplished this goal for groundmounted solar and expects the same for rooftop solar by 2013.

While not yet a genuine FIT policy, Oregon's new Solar Pilot Program, which launched on July 1st,  is a move in the right direction. The 5-year pilot program will be funded by a small rate increase unlikely to exceed $1 per month extra on the average $100 per month electric bill (less than a 1% increase).

From this point on, applicants for "Solarize" projects will have the option to choose either the current "tax-credit plus
cash-grant-from-Energy-Trust-of- Oregon, plus net-metering program OR a net-metering plus production-based-incentive option under the new SPP.

Under the SPP homeowners and others will be paid a fixed rate over 15 years for each kWh they both produce and consume. The pilot currentrly limits the amount a homeowner or small business can produce and get paid for to what they consume and penalizes them if they conserve and produce more than they consume. How much solar energy could we produce if all Oregonians had incentives to produce as much energy as they can and feed the extra into the grid to meet the needs of those who cannot produce renewable energy?

Good FIT policies provide incentives for anyone to maximize production and minimize their consumption.

With good FIT policies for RE in place one can conceive of the day when 100% of Oregon's electricity needs are met from clean, limitless renewable resources.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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Dear Kaliuma,

I completely agree that the success of the "Solairze" projects
indicates just how much interest and eagerness there is out among "regular" people to be involved in producing electricity from renewable sources, whether the motivation is national energy security, ending wars for oil, reducing the effects of climate change or their own energy independence.

What the Solarize projects also show that the closer you come to covering a producer's costs (whether it be a homeowner/entrepreneur or a business) and the simpler and easier you make the process of becoming a renewable energy producer, the more solar will go up.

If we are to deploy renewables to the extent and at the required speed to begin to replace fossil fuels, we must stop depending on people's altruism and start paying anyone who can produce this most valuable of commodities what it really costs them to produce it.

And if we are to move in a massive way to break our dependence on fossil fuels (beyond coal?) then we certainly need to increase the pace at which we deploy all renewables.

We must also make it simple and easy to become a producer of renewable energy.

Funding mass deployment of renewable energy from tax incentives is not a sustainable financing mechanism. As our recent economic downturn has shown only too clearly, funding renewable energy with tax incentives is an unsustainable funding mechanism on a mass scale. That's because each tax incentive we grant is tax revenue we don't collect. Those are tax revenues that otherwise would have been used to pay for education, public safety and human services.

This puts funding of renewables in direct competition with funding for
teachers, police and home health care workers.

Funding any program on a mass scale with tax incentives is not sustainable because it doesn't actually bring us new dollars, but attempts to split a finite pie into smaller pieces.

Oregon's recent experience with the overwhelmingly successful Business Energy Tax Credits, with a tax obligation that then ballooned way beyond expectations is a case in point.

Tax incentives also pose the problem of disappearing in poor economic times when as the economy shrinks, tax liabilities shrink as well.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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