BPA Fee Increase Could Quash Community Wind - Your Comments Needed

-- Deadline Passed --

Perhaps you received notice recently from your power provider that Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is proposing a rate increase for its customers. What you may not have heard is that BPA is also proposing a significant increase in the cost for wind power integration.

If approved, it could cost up to an additional $320,000 per year to integrate a 10 megawatt wind project into a BPA line. This could cripple small-scale community wind projects which cannot pass on that cost to the utilities and cannot afford to absorb the cost in the project itself. Only the large-scale, corporate-owned mega wind farms would be able to cope with this rate increase.

Since its inception in 2001, Oregon Rural Action has worked on behalf of small-scale, community-based and distributed renewable energy projects. The sole wind turbine seen in our logo is testament to that focus. We have also ceaselessly promoted prospering rural economies and local control in the face of corporate dominance. This proposed rate increase is therefore concerning in that it could seriously undermine efforts to further the type of small-scale renewable energy development that leads to local control and thriving rural economies.

As a federal agency, BPA holds a public comment period where those affected are afforded the opportunity to comment. Here is your chance to do so.

What You Can Do

Submit your comments to the BPA website to let them know that their proposed increase in the fee for integration of community wind projects concerns you. The deadline for comment is May 15.

The online form is found at: http://www.bpa.gov/applications/publiccomments/OpenCommentListing.aspx

You may also mail your comments to: BPA Public Engagement Office - DKE-7, Bonneville Power Administration, P.O. Box 14428, Portland, Oregon 97293. Please include the project name “2010 BPA Rate Case” with your comments.

Talking Points

• By transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, we should not recreate the same flawed economic structure that leads to exploitative industries that do not return their profits to the communities in which energy is extracted.
• Community-scale renewable energy development represents a preferred solution over corporate  projects for thriving rural economies.
• Small 10 MW (or less) projects cannot absorb the costs of the proposed integration fee increase and still pay off bank debts.
• The WECC does not track 10 MW projects because it believes they are too small to need that level of control.
• Community projects that sell power to regulated utilities under PURPA have avoided cost increases.
• Unlike larger projects, community wind power is not shaped and therefore does not need BPA's services in the same way.
• Community wind projects (10 MW or less) should be exempted from any integration fee increase.

Background Information

Corporate wind can generally be defined as large-scale projects, often 50 megawatts or larger in capacity, which are developed, installed and operated by non-local owners or commercial utilities. In contrast, community wind can be generally defined as locally-owned and operated small-scale projects of 20 megawatts or less. One megawatt is enough to power about 30 family homes.

In 2008 NuWire investor reported on the growing trend of community wind: “The key feature of community wind, as it has been dubbed, is that “local community members have a significant, direct financial stake in the project beyond just land lease payments and tax revenue... Typically, those involved in a joint-ownership include local farmers, schools, utilities, businesses and investors. Because all of these participants have an incentive to improve the areas where they live, it is no surprise that community wind provides many social benefits to those within proximity.”

According to Northwest Community Energy community-scale projects benefit the community by providing greater economic benefit, increased local awareness of and involvement in renewable energy, and strengthened communities in a changing energy industry and economic climate.

In a study comparing ownership models of wind, researchers Kildegaard and Myers-Kuykindall at the University of Minnesota, report that community wind “has [up to] 5 times the economic impact on local value added, and 3.4 times the impact on local job creation, relative to a corporate-owned development.”

Much wind development in Europe has taken place on a community-scale, whereas in the United States this is less true. The difference is due to public policy. According to NuWire Investor, “With improvements to public policy, the democratic energy ownership of community wind is destined to become an enticing energy strategy.”

Still, there are successful examples already of community wind projects, such as in Montana, Washington, and Texas. In order to see more of these community-scale renewable energy projects come to fruition, we need to let BPA know that their proposed fee increase for wind integration would have a severe negative impact on a more diffuse and sustainable energy system.

The Bonneville Power Administration is headquartered in Portland, Oregon and is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Energy. BPA serves the Pacific Northwest through operating an extensive electricity transmission system and marketing wholesale electrical power at cost from federal dams, one non-federal nuclear plant and other non-federal hydroelectric and wind energy generation facilities. BPA provides about half the electricity used in the Northwest and operates over three-fourths of the region’s high-voltage transmission.

Submit your comments now.

Further Reading

Read Oregon Rural Action's Energy Policy Position
Read Oregon Rural Action's Transmission Line Policy Position
Read "Community vs. Corporate Wind: Does It Matter Who Develops the Wind in Big Stone County, MN?"

To submit your comments, please go to http://www.bpa.gov/applications/publiccomments/OpenCommentListing.aspx.