By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
After years of inaction, Missouri has finally moved forward on an ambitious energy agenda.
It should help consumers use less electricity and save money, spur utilities to produce more renewable power and better control harmful emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Voters last November jumpstarted the push by endorsing the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative, which requires utilities to provide more electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
This month, the Missouri General Assembly followed up by sending a solid energy efficiency bill to Gov. Jay Nixon. He should sign it, and then utilities ought to push ahead with new plans to save energy.
A large number of businesses, utilities and environmental groups supported the legislation.
Utilities want to be able to charge slightly higher rates, in part to cover the costs of programs designed to promote energy efficiency.
Consumers benefit with more access, for example, to programmable thermostats or to rebates on more efficient air conditioners.
The new bill recognizes that utilities have few incentives to offer energy-efficiency programs if they simply cut into revenues and profits. That’s where the slightly higher rates would come in, after a thorough review by the Missouri Public Service Commission.
Ultimately, utilities and consumers win if there’s less need to build big, costly power plants, especially those that use coal and harm the environment. As David Warm, executive director of the Mid-America Regional Council, put it, “Every megawatt of energy saved through efficiency is a megawatt utilities don’t have to produce, resulting in fewer emissions.”
Meanwhile, utilities need to also move ahead in following up the good decision by voters last November to back the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative.
The goal for utilities is to use renewable power to produce up to 15 percent of the state’s needs by 2021; the current figure is less than a measly 1 percent. The plan will help trim the state’s use of dirty coal. For that to happen, utilities such as Kansas City Power & Light — which backed the initiative — must fulfill a commitment to build more wind energy farms.
Missouri is embarking on more wisely using energy in the future. The results should be long-term savings on electricity bills and cleaner air throughout the state.
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The future of energy.....
Park your car in your garage with the car running and close all the doors. Now just sit there.......how long do you think you are going to last?
The green economy is coming and the USA is way behind. Electricity generated by renewable sources is the future of energy. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably ill informed, or a paid lobbyist for the oil and coal industries.
Distributed generation with wind and solar power and load dependant power storage/release facilities such as A123 Systems "H-APU" or industrial concepts such as Renewable Energy Recombined Hydrokinetic are the future of energy.
Baloney on this 'saving consumers' money
This makes no sense - so the utilities will raise rates to make up for the less energy used - how exactly does this benefit the consumer? Also, these 'alternative energy' mandates obviously relying on tax subsidies to make these competitive with coal and other current sources, which again costs consumers through the use of their tax dollars to prop up uncompetitive energy sources.
Yael, did you already forget that the sham stimulus act passed earlier this year included a passage that would allow "decoupling"? You did?? Well, the beauty of it is right here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123266431226307785.html
"The biggest winner was Duke, the power company that has been leading the charge for decoupling, which breaks the link between energy usage and utility profits. Under the plan, utilities are guaranteed enough revenue to make a profit, no matter how much electricity customers use. If demand comes up short, customers would pay a higher rate to cover the shortfall. In a conventional rate scheme, the utility takes a loss when demand falls short."
"Rep. Jay Inslee (D., Wash.) said that the public ultimately benefits if utilities no longer have to worry about whether energy-efficiency will cause a drop in profits."
Yes, the governor would have to request this from state commissions, but given that a lot of states are run by liberal Democrats who have bought into the nonsense of global warming, it'll happen in a lot of states eventually. The utilities love it - the greenies go and sell the idea of saving energy to the public, who install energy-efficient appliances (like Energy Star-certified, which are more expensive than their less-expensive counterparts, an additional expense to the consumer) in their house and yet see their rates increase to cover the loss in utility profits due to less energy use. So overall, while some consumers will see a drop in their monthly bills if they're very energy efficient, the actual total cost of energy spread out over all customers and accounting for the additional premium to use non-cost-effective energy supplies to solve a non-existent problem is going to be paid by all. All this is, is a slick pass-through to consumers by utilities in league with alternative energy companies and greeniac proponents to ram down our throats their flawed visions of how life should be.
They won't be satisified until we're back in the caves, except of course we won't even allowed to build a fire because the smoke would be classified as a pollutant and could harm those with asthma.
--> Global warming is the new eugenics <--
(No subject)
Win- Win for Everyone
The cost of generating electric power varies daily from lower cost off peak to higher cost on peak. Maybe the Missouri Public Service Commission, Mid-America Regional Council, and the Utility companies should get together and designed real-time-pricing for electric power. Then the customer could get the pricing signals that tell the customer to shift power usage from on peak when it costs more to off peak when it costs less. A win for customers who would spend less. A win for the Utilities who save on peaking costs.