RENEW & Clean WI submit comments to support higher buy-back rates for small renewable installations

The comments of RENEW and Clean Wisconsin expess support for the PSC to order utilities to pay higher prices (rates) for electricity they purchase from the owners of small renewable electricity installations, such as wind turbines, solar panels, and anaerobic biodigesters.

The reasons for higher buy-back rates the comments say are:

based on the barriers distributed generators face in a centralized power environment. Past energy policy has had the effect of creating a landscape of economic effects that thwart investment in renewable energy capacity, making progress dependent on future emission, environmental and tax policies. Uncertainty about future policies is likely to cause investors to delay investment in renewable energy until such policies become clear, coherent, and economically rational. The current policy landscape is especially slanted toward larger installations (100 MW or greater) because of their economies of scale. If Wisconsin is to nurture a distributed generation market, the logical place to intervene is through utility buyback rates. All current utility buyback rates for distributed generation, except a few recent experimental rates, provide marginal compensation for distributed generation. This situation is especially acute for variable output renewable generators that supply energy, but not capacity, such as wind and solar electric (in single installations).

For comments of several other organizations, go to the list of submitted documents on the PSC Web site.