When President Obama unveils his climatepolicy proposal in the coming days, he should focus on the one key element of successful climate and energy policy. It’s not about utilities or incentives or numbers, it’s about ownership. Climate-protecting energy policy succeeds when communities can keep their energy dollars local by directly owning and profiting from…
When I wrote two weeks ago that Master Limited Partnerships are a Lousy Policy for Solar, Wind, and Taxpayers, I was aware that it wasn’t a widely held view. The piece has done more than provide another viewpoint on the complicated corporate structure, it has ignited a significant debate across the renewable energycommunity about…
Over the weekend the campaign for a municipal utility option in Minneapolis, MN, got another boost: the endorsement of the city Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. The campaign’s goal is to increase clean, affordable, reliable, and local energy deployment in the city through meaningful negotiations with the utilities over their expiring franchise contracts in 2014, or by exercising…
The Solar OpportunityThe coming of solar grid parity offers an opportunity for millions of Americans to go solar affordably. But it also means a potential transformation, a democratization of an electricity system long domi- nated by centrally-controlled utilities and centralized ownership and production of electricity. When solar can undercut grid electricity prices, it may also undercut this…
