AEP Wants to Ask Customers to Chip in: The Plan
Would Ask People to Volunteer to Pay for Green Energy
Sep 29 - The Roanoke Times
By Jeff Sturgeon, The Roanoke Times, Va.
Sep. 29--Co. customers may soon be able to write a larger check for the
monthly bill to support the generation of electricity with wind, water and
other renewable sources.
The utility said the minimum investment will be $1.50 a month. A typical
residential customer could elect to fully offset his electrical consumption
with green energy by paying about $15 monthly.
The voluntary program, if approved by state regulators, will be open to
nonresidential customers, too.
The company applied July 1 for permission to start this month. But the
Virginia State Corporation Commission is taking additional time to evaluate
public comments, those of its staff and any rebuttal by the company. A staff
report is due Oct. 15.
The SCC is also gathering reaction to proposed increases in electrical
bills, arising from three rate-increase filings. The proposals, if approved,
could mean that by early next year, the typical electrical bill for a modest
home could rise from about $70 to $100 a month.
Appalachian said the portion of its electricity derived from renewable
sources is 2 percent. Those sources are water and wind as opposed to
primarily coal.
The proposed new program, called a Renewable Power Rider, will encourage the
utility to go higher, spokesman John Shepelwich said.
"It pushes us," said Shepelwich, who explained the goal is 12 percent by
about 2020.
Here's how that push will work: In one of its renewable-power strategies,
Appalachian buys electricity from the municipally owned Summersville Dam
Hydroelectric Project in West Virginia.
In addition to receiving the energy, the company receives renewable energy
credits. If Appalachian becomes subject to mandatory renewable energy
standards, it would comply by handing over the credits. Or, it might sell
the credits to another utility that needs some. For now, it is hanging onto
them.
Under the Renewable Power Rider program, Appalachian will empower Virginia
consumers to cancel some of those credits with additional, voluntary
payments included in bills.
That, in turn, theoretically leaves the company in need of more credits.
Purchases of more renewable energy are the expected result.
"The company recognizes that there is a growing interest in the development
of renewable energy resources," the company wrote to regulators.
"It would like to provide its customers the opportunity to support
voluntarily the development of renewable resources in a simple, reasonable
and prudent manner through their monthly bills."
The caveat is, the company doesn't want to risk all of its Summersville
credits.
So it is placing only 10 percent up for cancellation or retirement. If 1
percent of customers participate in the program, the program could hit its
target and the utility intends to close it to new participants.
It wants to hang onto the other 90 percent in case they become saleable for
an attractive price or essential to meet a government renewable energy
mandate.
But this is the first go-around for the program, and the parameters could be
changed, Shepelwich said.
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