Xcel filed with the PUC against co-located Community Solar Garden's above 1 MW. Is Xcel’s
real motivation to slow the Community Solar Garden program down so that it does
not infringe upon their market share?
Co-locating CSG’s gives the
overall CSG projects the same shared infrastructure benefits, cost efficiencies
and economies of scale aspects that Xcel frequently uses to justify their
preference of utility scale solar over residential. The PUC order actually
recognized the benefit of co-locating CSG projects. It specifically states:
“multiple community solar garden sites may be situated in close proximity to
one another in order to share in distribution infrastructure.” Why would Xcel be against co-location when it takes advantage of
shared infrastructure and drive down prices for customers? When it comes to community solar energy which Xcel doesn’t own,
control and sell to others then they are willing to forfeit those economies of
scale they say they value.
XCEL’s REAL MOTIVATION
Although articles in the mainstream media might not spell it
out, there is a rather obvious reason why Xcel is uncomfortable enough with
CSG’s. When anyone decides to subscribe to a Community Solar Garden, Xcel
essentially loses that former customer for the 25 year time period as far as
energy supply. A devotion to maintaining market share is the reason Xcel so
wants to instead build their own large-scale solar fields that mimic a central
station power plant. Xcel can get their customers to pay for it and they get to
keep them as full customers.
Xcel/ NSP also used to fight small-scale and locally owned wind
for much the same reasons. Xcel prefers renewable energy to be structured
in a way that allows them to buy on bids using customer ratepayer dollars so it
can be added to their base of assets. Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) thrive on
this base of assets because they are guaranteed profits by the PUC about a 10%
rate of return. Xcel began 'rate basing' the wind farms, very parallel to what
they are trying to do with utility scale solar today. As a result, much of the
original locally owned wind operations have been driven into bankruptcy.
A SLOWER PACE FOR COMMUNITY SOLAR GARDENS
It must have sent a shock to Xcel when large customers like
Ecolab, Inc. and Macalester College announced plans to offset their entire
energy consumption through subsription to community solar gardens. About the same time Xcel Energy suspiciously made some quite significant changes to the language their community solar garden website. Their website in
February read:
“There is no limit to the number of solar gardens which can be
placed on a property, but no single garden can exceed the 1 megawatt PV system
cap. While there is no program restriction on multiple gardens in one area,
there could be technical limitations that could require expensive distribution
system upgrades.”
Then shortly after, they vastly simplified the corresponding language in the
latter version of the same website in order to make room for their pursuit of a setting 1 MW aggregate size limit:
“The maximum solar garden system size is 1MW AC. The
system size is based on the sum of the inverter(s) maximum AC output.”
Why this change in language?
Xcel intended to have a more gradual phase-in of community solar than the 420 megawatts in CSG applications they received the first week of their program. What Xcel said in the April 28 filing was “If all current gardens in the queue were developed, the company would add nearly all of its planned distributed solar resources, not over 15 years, but in a single year.”
Xcel intended to have a more gradual phase-in of community solar than the 420 megawatts in CSG applications they received the first week of their program. What Xcel said in the April 28 filing was “If all current gardens in the queue were developed, the company would add nearly all of its planned distributed solar resources, not over 15 years, but in a single year.”
Xcel basically wants to slow it down. They are fine with people
having community-owned solar power, but just not have so much of it that they
will no longer need Xcel. IOU’s in general fear a future where they're no
longer needed. Xcel would do well to embrace a future in which they claim less
than a monopoly on generation. Even with distributed generation, utilities like
Xcel still have a purpose in being the central entity primarily responsible for
transmission & distribution, reliability, grid management, etc.
THE WISCONSIN PROGRAM
Xcel Energy in Wisconsin shows what it is like when they
voluntarily choose to offer Community Solar, which is the first-ever community
solar to its customers in Wisconsin. But they plan to offer community solar on
a much smaller scale than the 80 megawatts they agreed to be willing to do in
Minnesota. Absent a state statute in Wisconsin, Xcel gets to do community solar
its way which is a maximum of 3 megawatts of solar power through three or four arrays in their
Wisconsin Service territory. Here is another big difference on community solar
in the neighboring states. While Xcel projects that Wisconsin community solar
customers would receive credits of 6.9 cents or 7.4 cents per kilowatt hour,
Minnesota community solar participants are expected to receive 12-15 cents per
kilowatt hour. The same Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) that approved
increased fixed charges to solar homeowners approved this community solar
proposal. http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2015/04/30/xcel-pursues-community-solar-in-wisconsin-but-on-small-scale/s
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