Last week Xcel Energy announced that Boulder is about to become the nation’s first “Smart Grid” city. What could this mean for energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission programs in Boulder — and will it take effect in time to help the city meet its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol goals, due in 2012?

Smart Grid is Xcel’s program to try to make the electric power grid more efficient and resilient through the use of information technology. According to the utility’s Smart Grid strategy and vision, “Our long-term smart grid concept imagines an evolved energy grid with layers of functional, sophisticated intelligence built in intelligence that will foster communication and integration among the grid’s various components and processes. This would enable the grid to better monitor, manage, and even balance itself.”

…Not a bad idea. In recent years, problems with how the national and regional power grids operate have caused or exacerbated major blackouts.

Locally, this could mean that Boulderites might be able to access richer information about their information use, so they can make smarter decisions about when and how to use power…

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Dave Newport, director of the Environmental Center at CU, isn’t into renewable energy credits.

“One, RECs suck,” he said. “Two, RECs suck, and three, RECs suck. Anything I do is better than a REC. It was the tool of choice when that was the only tool in the toolbox.”

University of Colorado-Boulder students have set aside $50,000 to ultimately go to the Carbon Fund, an initiative coming from the Governor’s Energy Office.

“At this point we’re just pledging to work with them,” Newport said. “They don’t have a product yet, but they will.”

He said that the local carbon offsets that the Carbon Fund will offer are a step beyond the RECs that CU had been buying from Community Energy. Newport said that it’s hard to explain RECs, because they don’t go directly to new projects, but pay — in a way — for projects that have already started.

“No real behavioral change comes with a REC,” he said. “[A] turbine’s gonna turn when the wind hits it, not when money hits it.” But with the Colorado Carbon Fund, which plans to sell carbon offsets generated by local projects, he said, “You’ll be able to touch and feel your specific project.”

Kind of like adopting a highway, a carbon offset purchaser could know which Colorado-based project they were helping to fund.

Another benefit for CU getting involved early with the Colorado Carbon Fund is that Newport sees growth not only for the CCF, but also for the university. “We may get to the point where our students can develop local projects and [we] could be a seller of local offsets to the Colorado Carbon Fund.”

Colorado.gov

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter.

Last Thursday, the University of Colorado, Boulder, was one of more than 1,000 colleges, universities, high schools and other educational institutions around the U.S. to participate in Focus the Nation’s national teach-in day.

Despite morning transit hassles caused by very icy roads after the mini-blizzard of the night before, I was able to make it over to the campus to check out a couple of CU’s events. (Here’s the full lineup of CU events.) I was a little late getting to Governor Bill Ritter’s kick-off talk, but I did catch most of his remarks.

As expected, Ritter touted the state’s Climate Action Plan, blue ribbon panel on transportation, his 2007 executive orders on greening state government, and (of course) the CU student government’s recent decision to shift $50,000 from wind energy credits to as-yet-unspecified carbon offset projects to be funded by the newly unveiled Colorado Carbon Fund.

The Governor’s Q&A was a bit more revealing…
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Today’s Daily Camera features two editorials by associate editor Clint Talbott on Boulder’s latest greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

In Open that Database!, Talbott supports and amplifies my earlier request for the complete emission inventory database from the city. (Thanks!) Regarding the city’s claim that this database is proprietary, he wrote:

“In diplomatic terms, Gahran objected to the denial, arguing that the full inventory is a public document. She is right. The data upon which the city will measure the progress of its tax-funded emissions program is clearly a matter of public concern. It should be treated as a matter of public record.”

As I noted this morning, we seem to be making progress toward getting access to that inventory — not direct access at this point, but the city is will to supply data in answer to specific questions. That’s a start, and it’s my impression that the city intends to work with us on that in good faith.

However, I still intend to push for direct access to the database. I explained that in a comment I posted to Talbott’s first editorial… (more…)

Amy Gahran

Electrician and entrepreneur Jeff Jones, wiring up my Saver Switch today.

Several weeks ago, Xcel Energy called me to see if I wanted to sign up for their Saver Switch program. That’s when they install a remote-controlled switch on my outdoor central air conditioning unit, which they use to cycle my cooling off for up to 15 minutes at a time on up to 15 hot summer days per year. This helps the utility manage peak electricity demand and hopefully avoid blackouts or brownouts. For that, I get a $25 credit on my September or October utility bill each year I have the switch.

That sounded like free money to me, so I said sure! Today, my Saver Switch finally was installed.

The installer was Jeff Jones, an electrician with Hunt Electric (Xcel’s installation contractor). I had a great conversation with Jeff — turns out he’s got a local business that specializes in renewable energy and off-grid solutions for residential and commercial buildings. He’s trying to convince the state of Colorado to offer more incentives for developers to include renewable measures like photovoltaics in new-construction housing developments. He also dabbles in biofuels, especially ethanol-powered vehicles.

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xcelenergy.com

The lone residential utility rebate for Colorado I found on Xcel Energy’s web site today.

According to the city government’s Climate Action Plan, utility rebates are a key strategy to make energy-saving projects happen in Boulder, Colorado. These rebates are when our local utility, Xcel Energy, pays or reimburses part of the cost of energy-saving measures for residential, commercial and industrial customers — effectively lowering the cost and speeding the payback of these projects. The city expects Xcel to kick in, through rebates, more than $10.3 million toward the cost of local energy efficiency measures by 2012.

As I wrote earlier, Boulder doesn’t have a whole lot of time to meet its self-imposed goal of cutting its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 350,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2012. In order to achieve those savings on schedule, Boulderites must start saving energy now.

Utility rebates can help motivate individuals and organizations to take action to save energy — IF people know about them, and if the program rules and processes are simple enough to encourage participation (rather than cause confusion and frustration).

Those can be pretty big “ifs,” as I just found out when I visited Xcel’s web site…
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