Minnesotans' Renewable Energy Experience May Be What Coloradans Will Discover
Oct 27 - The Pueblo Chieftain
Oct. 27--DENVER -- If Minnesota's experience in requiring more renewable energy is any example, then Colorado residents will see a decrease in electricity rates if the same standards are approved Nov. 2, House Speaker Lola Spradley said Tuesday.
Together, they claimed that not only did Minnesota's new standards not
increase electricity rates for its residents, as power companies in Colorado say
it will, but it actually reduced them for residential and business customers
alike.
"What renewable energy did in Minnesota was it contributed to our
state's low electric rates and brought them down even more," said Jim
Bernstein, who was Minnesota's Commerce Department commissioner under former
Gov. Jesse Ventura.
"Xcel went kicking and screaming into the process in Minnesota just like
they're doing here, but eventually they came around. One of the best benefits
that we found is how quickly and how efficiently renewable energy products like
wind and solar can be built," Bernstein said.
Opponents of Amendment 37 -- which would require power companies to get at
least 10 percent of their electricity by 2015 from such renewable sources as
wind, biomass, hydroelectric and solar -- say Minnesota's experience can't be
compared with what will be required in Colorado.
Mac McLennan, chairman of Citizens for Sensible Energy Choices opposing the
amendment, said the Colorado ballot question calls for using more expensive
solar power equipment than Minnesota and isn't as permissive on hydropower
requirements.
"Taking pieces of mandates from state like Minnesota, New Jersey and
California and forcing them into a poorly drafted ballot initiative only
reinforces the fact that Amendment 37 is the wrong solution for Colorado,"
McLennan said. "Minnesota, for instance, allows large hydropower (plants)
to count as renewable energy and doesn't mandate that utilities buy solar power
and subsidize the cost of installing the solar panels."
Opponents said the only similarity between Colorado's Amendment 37 and
Minnesota's Renewable Energy Objective, is its 10-percent-by-2015 goal and a
program to allow utilities to buy renewable energy from other power companies
that exceed that goal.
Regardless, Bernstein and businessman Paul Burke, chairman of the board of a
St. Paul-based medical supply company, said opponents' claims that the amendment
will increase costs to consumers in Colorado isn't true.
"Utilities that ignore the risks of relying on fossil fuels and fail to
develop renewable energy are shifting future costs onto their business
customers," Burke said. "Requiring of utilities to get started with
low-cost renewable electricity is the best way to hedge against future unknowns
(in fossil fuel prices)."
As Spradley has been saying for months, Bernstein also said that after the
Minnesota Legislature approved its renewable energy requirements in 2001, jobs
were created in rural parts of that state at biomass plants and wind farms.
He said the 15 other states that have approved similar requirements have seen
similar results.
"At least a thousand jobs were created in Minnesota as a result of
adopting that standard and no jobs were lost any place else," Bernstein
said. "Coal plants generate considerable controversy. No one welcomes a
coal plant into their back yard. But when we talk about renewable energy, people
say, 'Please put it in my back yard.' Putting wind power (on farms and ranches)
generates profits for them . . . and keeps ranchers and farmers on the
land."
Xcel Energy, which operates in Colorado, Minnesota and nine other states, has
asked the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for permission to build a new
750-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Pueblo.
Spradley said her amendment isn't intended to replace the need for that plant
or any other.
"We're not trying to treat this any differently than they treat the cost
of a coal plant, or the cost of a natural gas plant," Spradley said.
"The only difference here is once it's done, you don't have any additional
costs, because the fuel doesn't cost anything. I think we're going to need both.
This is not an either/or. We are increasing our demand of energy and our
lifestyles increase our use of energy."
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