I have written 23 columns this past half-year, sharing with this community information that I have from my cat-bird seat as a clean-energy advocate in Idaho and also as a clean-tech investor, in recent years part-time in Silicon Valley. All of the columns are on my website, but here are some positive soundbites from the columns for you for your end-of-the-year review.
Shutting down coal plants early saved Idaho ratepayers $17.2 million (this year rate case).
In March 2019, Idaho Power signed a power purchase contract from a solar farm at $.02175 per kWh (our current retail power rates range from $.08-$.10 per kWh. This solar power is cheap power!!!)
Idahoans can get free lightbulbs and an energy-efficiency kit from Idaho Power just by calling them. All-electric mobile homes can get $600 worth of energy-efficiency services free, as well.
We have really great, naturally occurring renewable energy resources here in Idaho—wind, solar, geothermal. Renewable energy is now the cheapest form of power.
Microgrids, with batteries, solar or other distributed generation, are viable and affordable now; they enable a place like the hospital, or even our whole county, to ‘island’ and survive when the rest of the main grid goes down.
Idaho is also home to top experts POWER Engineers and Schweitzer Electric, who are modeling and installing microgrids all over the world right now. We also have the world’s leader in grid cyber-security research located in Idaho, the Idaho National Lab. They all stand ready to help us in Blaine County.
Michael Bloomberg has previously spent $500 million to shut down coal-fired power plants and he continues this work. Idaho used to have 50 percent of its power come from coal-fired power plants in Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming. My shareholder initiative in 2008 with Idaho Power to reduce its dependence on coal-fired power was successful and, along with many others’ (Idaho Conservation League, the Sierra Club and Snake River Alliance) work, we are shifting out of coal-fired power here in Idaho.
There is $10 billion worth of real estate here in Blaine County. The selling of, building on, investing in, and maintaining that real estate is what underpins our economy; let’s spend some effort and dollars to adapt our Valley to climate-change realities to continue to thrive and keep the value of our real estate.
Other communities like ours have gone to non-wire solutions rather than building more transmission lines. Westmoreland, N.H., Punkin Center, Arizona, Provincetown, Cape Cod, Mass., Martha’s Vineyard, are current examples, and there are many more, from Puerto Rico to Nantucket. Energy storage batteries have made the difference for these communities to provide power when the main power is disrupted; it has also been more cost-effective than a transmission line.
Solar-generated power costs have come down so dramatically in recent years that Blaine County residents could benefit from this cheaper generation from a community solar farm.
The first 800 kWh of energy a residence uses per month costs $.08554 per kWh; the next 800 kWh costs $.1027 per kWh. It pays to reduce your energy use through energy efficiency measures!
To be continued….