With home heating bills jumping up 73 percent this fall, and America’s desire to reduce its dependency on foreign oil supplies and the environmental impact of fossil fuels, the interest in renewable energy is greater than ever.
What renewable energy choices do we have here in Colorado?
Xcel Energy, the main energy supplier in Colorado, has a renewable energy program that ranks third in the country, according to the 2003 National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s annual ranking of leading utility “green pricing” programs. Upon request, Xcel Energy supplies its customers with power derived from renewable energy sources and it offers customers who generate their own power from solar systems at home the opportunity to sell their energy back to the company at retail price.
Xcel Energy, which operates in 12 U.S. states, depends on wind, water and waste to generate renewable energy. However, its main focus in Colorado is wind energy.
The company supplies wind power from two wind farms in Colorado: the Ponnequin Wind farm in Weld County and the Peetz Table Wind farm near Sterling, both in Northern Colorado.
Through a program called Windsource, started in 1996, Xcel Energy offers its customers the possibility to either designate all of their monthly kilowatt-hours to wind, or to sign up for 100 kilowatt-hour blocks of wind. Each block costs an additional $2.50 above regular electricity rates.
The University of Colorado in Boulder became a participant in the Windsource program in 2000. In the largest student-voter turnout in CU-Boulder history, students voted overwhelmingly in favor of an increase in student fees by $1 per semester for four years to purchase wind power from Excel Energy’s Ponnequin Wind farm. The increase in fees raised enough money to purchase the output of an entire wind turbine, the “CU turbine,” which displays the CU Buffs logo.
Even though the program is becoming increasingly popular, only about one percent of the energy provided by Xcel Energy in Colorado is wind energy. But the company has more to offer when it comes to renewable energy. Home owners who can generate electricity with solar power systems can sign contracts with Xcel Energy that are based on the principle of net metering.
Net metering means that customers who provide home-generated power can sell excess electricity back to their utility company for the same retail price they pay, a principle that is mandated by state net metering laws. To date, only about 50 of Xcel’s 3.2 million electricity customers are participating in the net metering program.
“We are really not [doing anything to raise awareness for the program],” said Mark Stutz, spokesman for Xcel Energy. “We are participating in demonstration projects but we just don’t see a lot of interest.” Stutz said that he sees the reason for that in the high construction cost for solar power systems.
