Thinking small could be a big boost to the grid

TOM JOHNSON reports for NJ Spotlight | JULY 11, 2019

Distributed Energy Resources Systems - solar, sind and energy storage
Distributed Energy Resources Systems

Distributed energy resources like solar arrays and CHP can help customers save while giving utilities a way to trim spending on local, long-distance infrastructure


If New Jersey is to achieve its ambitious clean-energy goals, it needs to integrate small-scale power systems, like solar systems and energy storage, into the electricity grid, according to a new study by groups working to promote renewable energy.

The study embraced much of the Murphy administration’s clean-energy agenda, particularly electrifying the transportation and building sectors, but also recommended a moratorium on new natural-gas pipelines, an issue pushed by large segments of the environmental community so far ignored by the governor’s office.

The report largely focuses on what is termed distributed energy resources (DER) — solar arrays, small wind systems, fuel cells, and combined heat and power (CHP) — typically connected to local utility distribution wires instead of more centralized transmission wires.

Savings for customers, utilities

Those systems offer the opportunity for customers to trim energy bills, as well as reducing the need for large-scale transmission investments by utilities. They also cut expenditures on utility distribution systems by eliminating the need for new substations and other infrastructure, the report said.

“If New Jersey is smart about how it integrates distributed generation, it can save ratepayers money and provide resilience,’’ said Jeanne Fox, part of the leadership team of the Center for Renewables Integration, a contributor to the study, and former president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. “Use of Distributed Energy Resources, like solar, wind, battery storage, and smart inverters can make a big difference if New Jersey gets hit by another Sandy.’’

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Kushner, Sessions to be subpoenaed in House probe of obstruction of justice

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) arrives for a Democratic caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. (Andrew Harnik/AP)By John Wagner July 11 at 12:50 PM
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) arrives for a Democratic caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. (Andrew Harnik/AP)By John WagnerJuly 11 at 12:50 PM

John Wagner reports for the Washington Post

A House panel voted Thursday to subpoena 12 people with connections to President Trump, including his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and former attorney general Jeff Sessions, as part of an ongoing investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice or otherwise abused his office.

The vote along party lines by the House Judiciary Committee was the latest escalation in a battle between the Democratic-led chamber and the White House over multiple probes of Trump and his administration, including whether the president sought to obstruct the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

“We will not rest until we obtain their testimony and documents so this committee and Congress can do the work the Constitution and the American people expect of us,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said at the outset of Thursday’s hearing.

Trump lashed out at Democrats ahead of the planned vote, suggesting that they should focus on immigration issues instead.

“Now the Democrats have asked to see 12 more people who have already spent hours with Robert Mueller, and spent a fortune on lawyers in so doing,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “How many bites at the apple do they get before working on Border Loopholes and Asylum.”

Trump also chided Democrats for plans to hear testimony from Mueller next week about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of the probe by Trump.

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Georgia homeowners hustling to get solar installed before tax credit drops

Josephine Bennett reports for Georgia Public Radio

Homeowner Eric Byas and Chaia Lews with Creative Solar talk to one of Byas’ neighbors about residential solar power. Josephine Bennett photo

When the Public Service Commission wraps up its once-every-three-year energy plan later this month, it expects to announce a massive increase in solar farms. But when it comes to residential solar, Georgia gets an “F.” 

Despite that failing grade from the nonprofit Solar CrowdSource, installers here are swamped. That’s because at the end of the year the federal government will begin phasing out a 30% federal tax credit for residential solar.

That’s why homeowner Eric Byas just spent $22,000 to put 24 solar panels on the roof of his home in Jones County.

“You know that rebate’s going away this year,” Byas told his neighbor Jeff Fordham.

“That’s why we’re jumping,” Fordham said.

Byas said he installed the panels now to qualify for the maximum 30% federal tax credit. In 2020 it drops to 25% and 22% in 2021.

“I mean, I’ve known about solar for about six or seven years,” Byas said. “We’ve been checking in on it.”

That keeping people like Chaia Lewis with installer Creative Solar working nonstop.

“This is going to be the busiest year in the U.S. to date for solar,” Lewis said. “That’s because of that tax credit phasing out.”

And in Middle Georgia people are also motivated by an additional 25% off thanks to Solarize Middle Georgia. It’s one of many solar initiatives across the state through the nonprofit Solar Crowd Source. If enough people in your area sign up, you all get a discount.

“It’s like a bulk purchasing program and they bring several non-profits in the area into it,” Lewis said. “The city helps us out, and Solarize Middle Georgia is our 8th campaign.”

But that campaign ends at the end of July.

Programs like this are necessary because right now the state of Georgia offers no incentives for residential solar. Vice Chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission Tim Echols said that’s because their focus is on utility scale projects for Georgia Power.

“Most of our solar growth is going to be in those large arrays in middle and South Georgia where we can essentially put solar on the grid below the cost of coal,” Echols said.

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Class action suit against Keurig has implications for other consumer products’ recyclability claims

Katie Pyzyk reports for WasteDive

The company had hoped a California judge would dismiss a complaint claiming its “recyclable” labels are misleading.

A federal judge in California recently ruled that a class action lawsuit against Keurig Green Mountain Inc. — one with interesting implications for recyclability claims about new product streams —can move forward.

The lawsuit was proposed by a California consumer who says the company (now Keurig Dr Pepper) made false claims about its coffee pods’ recyclability, namely that their size, composition, and lack of an end market renders them unrecyclable. The suit points out that while the pods are made of polypropylene — a plastic (#5) accepted for recycling in about 61% of communities nationwide — most domestic MRFs aren’t capable of capturing such small, light materials from the recycling stream.

According to the lawsuit, Keurig adds to the problem by telling consumers they need not remove the pods’ paper filters before recycling. This creates a source of contamination, as it does for numerous other products made from multiple materials that are recyclable only when segregated, including paper envelopes lined with bubble wrap and aluminum cans with plastic shrink wrap sleeves.

Keurig had hoped the lawsuit would be dismissed on the grounds that advertising and labels for the coffee pods encourage consumers to “check locally” about whether the pods are recyclable. It claimed consumers would understand the items aren’t recyclable in all markets, despite being labeled as recyclable. The judge, however, found this defense to be lacking because consumers allege the pods aren’t recyclable through any MRF in the country, so telling them to “check locally” doesn’t make Keurig’s recyclability claims true.

“[C]ommon sense would not so clearly lead a person to believe that a package labeled ‘recyclable’ is not recyclable anywhere,” U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam wrote in the ruling. “[A]lthough Keurig argues that its labeling is sufficient under the Green Guides… the complaint alleges facts that indicate the opposite.”

The Green Guides are the Federal Trade Commission’s advice on the types of marketing claims manufacturers can make about their products’ recyclability. The goal is to prevent manufacturers from making deceptive or overtly false claims. A key part of the Green Guides is a section commonly referred to as the “60% access rule” – companies can make unqualified claims about a product’s recyclability only when a substantial majority (60%) of customers or communities where the item is sold have access to recycling facilities accepting the material. In other words, while a product may technically be recyclable, it won’t necessarily be considered as such in regions without adequate processing or sorting infrastructure.

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Three AGs have a suggestion for PJM

By the Associated Press

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The attorneys general of Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia are urging the nation’s biggest electric grid operator to choose a CEO who will help with “efforts to address climate change” and embrace changes needed to make clean energy programs successful.

The letter signed by Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine was sent last week to a panel searching for a new CEO for PJM Interconnection.

The officials say the new PJM president should have the leadership skills to drive innovations in its markets and operations “to support the necessary shift to clean energy.”

In May, PJM announced the retirement of former CEO Andrew Ott and a search committee to find a new CEO.

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Protest a pipeline in these states and you could face felony charges

Conservative lawmakers have put forward laws criminalizing protests in at least 18 states since 2017 that civil liberties advocates say are unconstitutional

Susie Cagle reports for The Guardian in San Francisco

From the Standing Rock camps in North Dakota to tree-sits in Texas, activists have attempted to stop pipeline construction with massive shows of civil disobedience. Now they could be forced to change those tactics, or face heavy penalties under a wave of new anti-protest laws that civil liberties advocates say violate the first amendment.

Conservative lawmakers have put forward laws criminalizing protests that disrupt the construction and operation of pipelines in at least 18 states since 2017.

  • Seven states have passed laws that ratchet up the penalties for activists protesting or even planning protests of oil and gas pipelines and other “critical infrastructure”
  • At least six more states are considering such laws
  • In each case, misdemeanors are elevated to felonies, and criminal and civil punishments are escalated drastically
  • The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights have mounted challenges against such laws in Louisiana and South Dakota.

“This is a trend that shows no sign of slowing, let alone stopping,” said Elly Page, who has been tracking anti-protest legislation for more than two years as a legal adviser for the International Center for Non-Profit Law.Advertisement

The laws purport to only criminalize violence and property damage in service of pipeline safety, but critics say their greater intent appears to be to deter nonviolent civil disobedience by framing it as potentially violent in itself.

The bills have mostly found fertile legislative ground in places where gas and oil companies already wield significant political and economic power and where anti-fossil fuel protests have been especially successful. But watchdogs say there’s every reason to believe more of these types of laws will be passed, and that they will chill activism otherwise protected by the first amendment.

“This is a miscasting of protesters as economic terrorists and saboteurs when in fact they’re going out and having their voices heard about why these pipelines are problematic for their communities and the environment,” said Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “Even if folks haven’t been charged, the fact that these laws are on the books can seriously chill people and make them fearful of getting their voices out,” she added.

A wave picking up speed

Oklahoma was the first to pass pipeline-protecting legislation in 2017, with a pair of bills that ostensibly protected critical infrastructure from trespass and damage. By the end of the year, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a non-profit coalition of conservative politicians and industry representatives, had developed model Critical Infrastructure Protectionlegislation based on Oklahoma’s laws. Energy industry groups immediately sent a letter to legislators urging them to adopt the bill in their states.

That effort has proven fruitful.

Louisiana passed a version into law in 2018, and the legislative wave picked up speed in 2019. Laws that would increase criminal and civil penalties for protesting against gas and oil pipelines specifically and “critical infrastructure” more broadly have passed this year in Tennessee, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas, and are currently pending in Idaho, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. In each case, the laws provide for more extreme criminal charges and civil penalties for trespass and vandalism against pipelines.

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