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2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 20 – It’s Lonely in Hearing Room A Guest Blog by D. Maurice (“Don”) Kreis, NH Consumer Advocate

2017 NH Business Energy Education Series
Oct 16, 2017 8:06 am
Written by Harold Turner
0 Comments

It’s Lonely in Hearing Room A

Guest Blog by D. Maurice (“Don”) Kreis  Consumer Advocate, NH Office of the Consumer Advocate

Think of this as an on-line personal ad, or maybe an OK Cupid profile.

Handsome, articulate, charming and principled fellow (please excuse the self-aggrandizement; the genre requires it) seeks partner of either gender, with similar qualities, to share intrigue and adventure in pleasant, naturally lit setting on Fruit Street in Concord.  Frequent jaunts to historic downtown setting also required, plus occasional interludes at hotels.

The “pleasant setting” is Hearing Room A at the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).  By “historic downtown setting” I mean the State House. The reference to hotels is an allusion to the fact that meetings of key regional bodies like the New England Power Pool and ISO New England tend to take place in windowless ballrooms in generic hostelries in Massachusetts. There’s no point in sugar-coating this; as anyone who has ever experienced online matchmaking can testify, the truth comes out sooner or later.

So, you may be wondering, why am I trolling for partners on this blog in my capacity as New Hampshire’s Consumer Advocate, tasked by statute with representing the interests of residential utility customers at the PUC?

The answer is twofold.  First, to state the obvious, energy is the lifeblood of the economy that sustains us as individuals.  Second, in discharging its role as the primary regulator of the public utilities that provide us with so much of our energy, the PUC has an explicit statutory mission to be the arbiter between the interests of utility owners and utility customers.

My office plays a critical role in helping the PUC do that; we assure there will be some weight on the “customer” side of the scale.  But here’s a critical point:  Our job is to represent the interests of residential utility customers; we cannot and do not advocate on behalf of commercial and industrial users of energy.

One might think the relationship I seek is doomed.  In a market economy, aren’t consumers and businesses natural enemies, at least when the question is how to regulate business?

Nope. Residential customers and business customers of public utilities have vastly more in common than they might think.  In particular, we have a shared interest in keeping each rate-regulated utility’s revenue requirement as low as possible, which means making sure utility investments are prudent, least-cost, and meet the so-called “used and useful” test – i.e., are actually used to provide the service covered by the rates.

The interests of all customers, of whatever rate class, are likewise united when it comes to getting more work from each kilowatt-hour or dekatherm of energy consumed.  The ineluctable reality is that when it comes to squeezing the next unit of work out of the electricity grid or natural gas pipeline network, megawatts and ‘negawatts’ (i.e., savings from energy efficiency) are fungible.  According to a recent joint utility filing at the PUC, the negawatts are the cheapest option for electric consumers – four cents per kilowatt-hour compared to six cents for natural gas generation, nine cents for renewables and ten cents for nuclear or coal-fired electricity.

Hence the fervent commitment of my office, on behalf of residential customers, to the Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS) approved by the PUC last year.  An EERS means New Hampshire is committed to “all cost-effective energy efficiency,” which in this instance means a 3.1 percent reduction in electric sales in between 2018 and 2020 (and a slightly smaller reduction in natural gas sales) achieved via programs funded by ratepayers through charges on their electric and natural gas bills. We agreed to leave the utilities in place as program administrators for at least those three years, rather than replace them with a third party as has happened in Maine, Vermont and elsewhere.

The math is the same whether you’re a residential ratepayer or a large commercial customer.  Cost effective energy efficiency reduces everyone’s energy bills – that’s the reason for subsidizing them via nonbypassable charges – at the same time individual customer co-pays make economic sense because of the individual bill savings they produce.

One could make similar points about grid modernization, currently on hold at the PUC while the agency ponders the report submitted in March by the stakeholder working group convened to ponder these issues.  All customers would benefit from aggressive efforts to take full advantage of emerging technologies, but the utilities resist these efforts because they inevitably involve opening up the distribution system to solutions and investments made by third parties and even customers themselves.

Additional examples abound – everything from the need for time-varying rates (because appropriate price signals could help reduce costs for all) to the deployment of utility-scale battery storage to the question of whether electric utilities should be allowed to invest in natural gas pipeline capacity, sell the capacity to unregulated merchant generators that are mostly outside New Hampshire, and force all Granite State customers to guarantee the cost recovery.

My point is not to paper over the legitimate differences of opinion that exist, in all quarters, about these questions.  Rather, my contention is that non-residential utility customers are too often absent from the conversation – perhaps based on the mistaken assumption that what’s good for investor-owned utilities is good for investor-owned businesses generally.

Consider that the push to restructure the electric industry – a successful initiative by most accounts, and something the utilities resisted via litigation and otherwise – was driven in the first instance by commercial and industrial customers of the utilities.  Sadly, these days the only non-utility businesses that participate directly in PUC proceedings are not there as customers. They intervene as subsidy seekers, would-be competitors of utilities, or potential providers of services to them.

New Hampshire needs an alliance of commercial and industrial utility customers that can help the Office of the Consumer Advocate do right by all ratepayers.  It may not be the most romantic of partnerships, but it has every prospect of producing longterm happiness – or, in other words, safe and reliable service at the lowest possible cost.

 

Maurice (“Don”) Kreis, head of New Hampshire’s Office of the Consumer Advocate, is a former general counsel of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission who has also served as a hearing officer at the Vermont Public Utility Commission and a professor at Vermont Law School. He writes a regular column for the news web site indepthnh.org called Power to the People.

 

2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 19-What are Zero Net Energy Buildings (ZNEB)?

2017 NH Business Energy Education Series
Oct 3, 2017 9:47 am
Written by Harold Turner
0 Comments

Simply stated, Zero Net Energy Buildings produce as much energy (or more) than they use.  Also referred to as Zero Net, Net Zero or Zero Net Energy (ZNE), I have lived in a ZNE home for over 5 years now and we started “designing” it (at least in my mind) long before purchasing the property it now sits on.  Take a look at the first video we created in October, 2010, shortly after closing on the land, while walking the site right HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGIJdxICg5c .  It’s not too exciting I know, it was windy and the microphone was not great, but it was the beginning of a long process that we can now look back on that was very successful.

Why do it? Because we could! Really, that was the whole point of building a ZNE home way back then; adding an educational website to go with it; and explaining/demonstrating to the public that the technologies and economics required to do it were already available to all of us. Seven years have gone by (fast) since the first logging skidder entered the lot to clear trees for a driveway, and even though ZNE buildings are still not “mainstream” construction today, I am very surprised by how much they have been adopted all over the country…..and the world since then.  I never would have imagined 10 years ago, when we first began searching for land to do this, that the country would evolve this quickly in this direction.  I’m no genius (reminded every day), but I do put my money where my mouth is.

If this topic, or our project, even remotely interests you, here are lots of places you can go to see/learn more about it:

WEBSITE: http://rcmzeroenergy.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/rcmzeroenergy

YOUTUBE:Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/RCMZeroEnergy

NEWSLETTER: http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=439839742a4f304f229273a83&id=e30f67c32a

NESEA: http://www.nesea.org/project-case-study/rose-cottage-project/general

NH HOME MAGAZINE: http://bit.ly/1AKnjna

HOUZZ: https://www.houzz.com/projects/334244/The-ROSE-Cottage-Project

CNET: https://www.cnet.com/news/bosch-pushes-sensor-tech-green-building-and-automated-driving-at-ces-2014/

MARVIN: https://hastingsview.com/2014/01/13/peoples-choice-winner-netzero-and-a-true-team-effort/

BOSCH: https://www.proudgreenhome.com/whitepapers/secrets-to-creating-your-high-performance-home/

PROUD GREEN HOME: https://www.proudgreenhome.com/news/zero-energy-building-construction-moving-to-mainstream/

Did you take a look?

If yes, you got it, it should have been clear that, even back then, we were intentionally demonstrating that something ZNE did not have to be small or unattractive or plain or stark to be ZNE. You don’t have to go “without”, you simply have to do it more efficiently and with tighter design and construction standards…… and also use some technology.  10 years ago, a lot of the early attempts to go Net Zero were not very commercially appealing.  After all, you actually want to live in a home and feel “normal”, and then be able to resell it later if you want to. Today you can go around the country and see all sizes and types and shapes of fantastic buildings that are ZNE, which was also our point when we started.  Builders are now creating entire developments that are Zero Net.  Heck, whole communities are passing resolutions to be “Zero Net” by certain dates in the future. Energy efficient buildings, which by their very nature have low energy consumption, can be complimented with new technologies and renewable energy features to completely negate their total energy needs in the course of a 365 day cycle. In particular, our follow-up newsletters have included links to some of these projects located all over country that are ZNE or near ZNE.

Bingo! It’s simply easier and more cost effective (today) now to accomplish it, after technology pricing points have fallen and early adoption has cleared the way. We installed our solar panels and went live on the grid 9 months before achieving building occupancy, running on our own solar power for the construction of the project ………and consequently have had a surplus in our utility net energy “bank”ever since. Today, nearly 6 years after our solar installation, new solar panels can produce 50% more output at the same size and cost half as much as what we used on this project…….and despite that, we are well past midway of recovering our energy generation and efficiency investments in less than 10 years. Technology innovation is not going to stop, in fact, it is driving our economy and changing our lives every day. It may look a little different in the “built environment”, but there is rapid change there none the less.

ROSE COTTAGE PROJECT -Oct 2012 (Photo by Intrepid Aerial Photography)

Imagine for a moment if your electrical energy and fuel costs were negative every year ……….for 5 years, like ours.  Now add that up for 10, 15, 20, 25 years.  Does that light bulb start to go bright? Anyone (we are really talking corporate America here) who is applying a hard 18-24 month payback criteria to evaluate energy investments simply has it wrong.  I know, let the arrows fly, I’m good at ducking. Please……… calculate your R.O.I. on energy investments, not your payback in years.  In my humble opinion, that applies to all capital projects.  Yes, it is a simpler decision for homeowners to justify the investment, if they have the money, because their planning horizons are longer.  For most home owners, where else do you find double digit investment return opportunities ………investing in yourself, no less.  Businesses have boards and stockholders ……..and even worse, “Wall Street”, looking for quarterly returns to hit quarterly targets.  However, you can’t afford to be your own worst enemy in business either.  You are in new England. You are in New Hampshire. Energy prices over the long term don’t go down ……. they only go up.  New Hampshire energy policies don’t sit on an island either, as the 10-state ISO-NE runs the grid we are part of. Expecting someone else (government, utilities, regulators, politicians, whoever…….) to somehow magically lower your energy costs,without doing harm to someone else in the process, is simply NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. I’m ready to duck again! However, that is the truth as I see it.  It does not win me a lot of friends on my own side of the political isle. Question: Have you looked at how much money your company is paying towards the regulated utility company’s fixed costs for Transmission and Distribution and Capacity?? ……….I rest my case.

ROSE COTTAGE PROJECT- 2014 (Photo by John W. Hession)

Look HERE: http://nhenergy.blogspot.com/2017/09/solar-power-in-nh-part-5-financing.html to find a good solar article and a solar calculator done by Professor Mike Mooiman at Franklin Pierce University here in New Hampshire.  He writes a killer energy blog.  His spreadsheet calculator (which you can download and use) is set up for residential options for solar investments.  It does not include an IRS depreciation or expensing option, which would be included for a “business” purchase.  It also does not include the option of using a combination of debt and equity, which is also used for many “project” financing business models…… but it will help you ballpark a basic project.  Businesses who may be looking to install a solar PV system <100KW have a lot to get excited about in New Hampshire.  Larger businesses who might need a much larger electrical generator should examine co-generation alternatives, especially if you have access to natural gas and don’t have a lot of roof or land area for solar……… too bad for you that nobody was advocating for you at the NHPUC in the most recent net metering rate case!

If you truly want to spend less money on buying fuel and electricity in New Hampshire………….simply buy less.  You buy less by investing in: building and process efficiency; new technologies that don’t use fuel (like air-air or air-water or water-water heat pumps); and technologies to produce some of your own electricity.  Invest in enough of that stuff, and then you can head towards a “zero net energy” balance …..if you want.  Hey, spend less money on your lobbyist!  Remember, it’s not rocket science……….it’s building science!

  

2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 18 – Purchasing Electricity directly from ISO-NE Guest Blog by Gus Fromuth

2017 NH Business Energy Education Series
Sep 14, 2017 8:41 am
Written by Harold Turner
0 Comments

‘Direct-from-grid’ electricity: a cost-saving option

Hands-on purchasing gives larger users a chance to benefit from wholesale pricing

Guest Blog  by Gus Fromuth,   FREEDOM ENERGY LOGISTICS

 

It’s well known that the price of electricity is high in New England, and specifically high in New Hampshire. But even with that reality, there are solutions to mitigate the issue, specifically for heavy users.

During a four-day period from May 4 to May 7, when electricity pricing in the New England wholesale market reached an unusual low, many of the region’s largest wholesale energy users were actually paid to use electricity.

The average price of electricity was negative, so instead of paying for the electricity that they used, they received a credit for the amount that they used. This is something that all large users should be aware of; not many typical users are aware that there is a framework in place to navigate the grid and lessen the constant burden of electricity pricing.

In 2014, ISO-NE implemented policy enhancements to the wholesale energy market that allowed electricity prices to go beyond zero to being negative during certain hours. These changes allowed generators to submit price offers for each hour of the day based on their actual cost of fuel, including negative price offers.

At times of excess energy on the grid, certain generators have made operational decisions to continue producing free and even negative-priced energy rather than shut down and then restart again hours later. It’s called buying direct from the New England Power Pool via hands-on purchasing, and it’s a reality. Large-scale manufacturers are among the businesses that can actually benefit from these market movements.

Freedom Energy Logistics is working with its customers one-on-one to encourage them to take advantage of the “direct-to-grid” purchasing process based on those policy changes at ISO-NE.

One of our customers, Shipyard Brewing Company of Portland, Maine, recently reaped the benefits.

“We’ve been buying directly from the New England Power Pool for almost a decade now and have done extremely well,” said Paul Hendry, plant manager at Shipyard.

Simply said, while energy costs are indeed high, it’s a great time to be purchasing electricity wholesale.

How does this help the general New Hampshire resident? It’s economic development smart. We often hear that the cost of energy is among the leading barriers to businesses locating and operating in New Hampshire. Such positive results of business-friendly policy improvements and creative energy buying strategies are a welcome change in tune.

This article appears in the July 21 2017 issue of New Hampshire Business Review …….with permission to reprint by the author.

Gus Fromuth, managing director of Freedom Energy Logistics, is a founding member of the NEPOOL Market Participant End User Sector.

 

The Freedom Team

E solutions@felpower.com

5 Dartmouth Dr. Ste 301
Auburn, NH 03032

P 603.625.2244
F 603.625.8448

2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 17 – Energy Efficiency Benefits NH Businesses: A Success Story by Brianna Brand

2017 NH Business Energy Education Series
Aug 23, 2017 10:31 am
Written by Harold Turner
0 Comments

Energy Efficiency Benefits NH Businesses: A Success Story

 

Guest blog by Brianna Brand, New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association Program Director

 

Although popular and highly effective, solar panels aren’t the only option to save on energy costs.

 

In fact, energy efficiency is a tried and true method to reduce energy consumption and lower energy costs with a rapid return on investment. Beyond the economic benefits, energy efficiency measures such as improved lighting, weatherization and efficient heating & cooling equipment can actually improve overall building comfort and productivity at home and at work.

 

Look no further for a success story than MilliporeSigma, a global company with 65 manufacturing sites worldwide and more than 19,000 employees. One of their largest manufacturing facilities is located in our own backyard: Jaffrey, New Hampshire, which produces precision filtration devices for use in the food and beverage, ultra-pure water and pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. The Jaffrey plant continuously implements energy efficiency measures targeted at reducing costs while working towards the company’s corporate goal of a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 versus 2006 levels.

 

MilliporeSigma first completed an energy assessment. This process evaluates building energy use and opportunities for improvement. Next, MilliporeSigma developed an implementation plan for the identified energy efficiency measures –resulting in a multi-year project to upgrade the facility – including swapping out fluorescent lighting with LEDs.

 

Lighting is an easy target for cost savings through efficiency improvements, especially considering it’s typically the largest single use of electricity in commercial buildings nation-wide, according to USDOE.  LEDs are a popular choice because they use only a fraction of the energy to produce the same amount of light compared to their fluorescent and incandescent counterparts.  This typically leads to a rapid and attractive ROI.  LEDs can also have an indirect bonus effect on air-conditioned or refrigerated spaces due to their significantly lower heat generation, thus reducing the load on cooling equipment.

 

“LED lighting is at a tipping point where its cost and quality makes for an attractive energy efficiency project at just about any of our facilities,” says Christopher Famolare, Global Manager of Sustainable Operations at MilliporeSigma. To date, 90 percent of the 300,000 square foot Jaffrey manufacturing facility has transitioned to LED lighting. Since it runs a 24/7 operation, in some areas of the facility, the lights never turn off.  So switching to the long-lasting LEDs not only saves on energy costs, but maintenance costs as well.

 

MilliporeSigma considers the LED project a part of its natural progression of investments in the facility, proven to positively influence productivity, employee engagement, and job satisfaction. “It’s a nicer place to work. Our employees can attest to that,” says Chad Gerald, Head of Engineering at the Jaffrey plant.

 

 

The upfront cost of the latest year’s LED lighting project was $177,000 which included the replacement of 2,578 lights. Although a large capital investment, MilliporeSigma secured $40,000 worth of utility rebates to help offset the cost. “We encourage our sites to leverage all available rebate and incentive programs,” says Famolare.

 

Rebates are available for businesses through NHSaves, a collaboration of the four NH electric utilities. The rebate programs are so popular that they are often oversubscribed halfway through the year. NH recently passed a new Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS) to increase the funding and savings goals for the next three years, which will help more businesses save money on energy costs.

 

MilliporeSigma’s Jaffrey, NH facility didn’t stop at LEDs. They took on a project that hits home for their employees – aiming to help employees reduce their carbon footprint and save on fuel costs.  It involved the installation of ChargePoint electric vehicle charging stations, which are made available to employees and visitors free of charge.

 

“We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of electric vehicles at the site from all three shifts,” says Gerald.

 

MilliporeSigma began installing electric vehicle charging equipment at its facilities in 2014 and continues to grow the network as demand increases.  “Around the world, we have installed 42 electric vehicle charge ports and reserved 64 parking spaces for EV drivers, the highest concentration being in the U.S.,” adds Famolare.  Electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular, and expanded charging infrastructure around the state supports this growth. Companies that offer EV charging have a clear advantage when it comes to retention and attraction of talent.

 

Overall, energy efficiency projects like the LED installations at MilliporeSigma are an attractive option for the business sector to save on energy costs. New Hampshire’s recent EERS provides vital funding increases to the currently oversubscribed rebate programs, ensuring more businesses have opportunities to perform efficiency projects.

 

Brianna Brand, NHSEA Program Director

54 Portsmouth Street, Concord, NH 03301

brianna@nhsea.org

(603) 22-NHSEA (226-4732)

 

 

 

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  • 2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 20 – It’s Lonely in Hearing Room A Guest Blog by D. Maurice (“Don”) Kreis, NH Consumer Advocate
  • 2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 19-What are Zero Net Energy Buildings (ZNEB)?
  • 2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 18 – Purchasing Electricity directly from ISO-NE Guest Blog by Gus Fromuth
  • 2017 NH Business Energy Education Series: Vol 17 – Energy Efficiency Benefits NH Businesses: A Success Story by Brianna Brand
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