ENERGYGuide Reaches Agreement with Sterling
ENERGYguide.com, a leading resource for reducing energy costs, recently announced an agreement with Sterling Planet, Inc. to
offer consumers and businesses reliable, 100 percent green electricity coast-to-coast in the 48 mainland states and Washington,
D.C.  ENERGYguide.com allows consumers to replace 50 percent, 75 percent or 100 percent of the conventional electricity they purchase each month with green electricity available through Sterling Planet.  The company said conventional sources include nuclear power plants and plants that burn fossil fuels. The "green" alternative is generated using clean, renewable sources such as solar power, wind power, small hydro, geothermal and biomass.  ENERGYguide.com said it is a complete online resource for free, unbiased advice about contemporary energy choices. Consumers are now able to enter their ZIP codes to find, analyze and select the best electricity and natural gas options.  All energy offers are displayed, allowing consumers to select an energy provider based on such factors as type of offer and origin of power, along with a personalized estimate of their costs and savings. Consumers can also directly purchase energy-efficient products for their home online at  http://www.ENERGYguide.com  .  Contact: Karen McGrath, Collaborative Communications, phone 617-520-9112. Source: Business Wire 3/12/2001 via EIN Renewable Energy Today 3/14/2001.

L.A. to Draw 10 Percent of City Power from Renewable Energy
The Los Angeles City Council approved on March 2nd the purchase of electricity produced from renewable energy to supply 10 percent of the city government's needs. The purchase, amounting to 50 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, is one of the largest U.S. purchases of so-called green power. Combined with previous commitments from LA World Airports and the city's water system, Los Angeles government agencies will be buying more than 70 million kilowatt-hours per year of green power. The purchase agreement will take effect in July, and the power will be provided by the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water (LADWP). See the LADWP press release at:  http://www.ladwp.com/whatnew/dwpnews/030501b.htm  .  Source: EREN Network News -- 3/14/01.

UtiliCorp to Buy Power from KS Wind Project
UtiliCorp United recently announced it will provide its Kansas and Missouri electric customers with power from the largest wind
project ever constructed in Kansas.  The company said it will purchase the entire output from a 110-megawatt (MW) wind farm being constructed near Montezuma, KS, by FPL Energy, a non-regulated subsidiary of FPL Group, Inc. Eighty MW will be provided to customers in UtiliCorp's regulated service areas. The company said 80 MW is enough energy to provide the annual power needs for 20,000 homes. UtiliCorp will market the remaining 30 MW to regional wholesale electric customers.  Construction of approximately 165 wind turbines at the project site will begin this spring and be completed by the end of 2001.  "Wind power technology has improved substantially making it more economical to distribute wind energy to our Kansas and Missouri customers," said UtiliCorp senior vice president James Miller. "In addition, the increased cost of natural gas on U.S. commodity markets has made wind generation an economical component in our energy generation mix."  Electricity from the wind farm will be distributed to customers in UtiliCorp's Kansas service territory through its WestPlains Energy division and in Missouri through its Missouri Public Service division. The company said that no extra surcharge resulting from wind power purchases is being added to customers' electricity charges.  FPL Energy, a leading producer of electricity from wind, will own and operate the wind farm which will be built three miles east of Montezuma in southwestern Kansas. The company is a leading independent producer of clean energy, including natural gas, wind, solar, geothermal and biomass generating facilities in 12 states.  Contact: George Minter, UtiliCorp, phone 816-467-3772.
Source: Business Wire 3/14/2001 via EIN Renewable Energy Today 3/19/2001.
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For more information: http://www.eren.doe.gov/greenpower/   or   http://www.thegreenpowergroup.org/
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Winds of Change
High natural gas prices and the specter of California's power shortages are breathing new life into wind-generated electric power across the Southwest.  Southwestern Public Service, which serves 106,000 residential and business customers in the eastern portion of New Mexico, has just agreed to buy electricity from a new wind ranch at White Deer, near Amarillo, Texas.  SPS this month signed a 15-year contract to buy power from a wind facility called Llano Estacado Wind Ranch that is due to be completed in
November.  Austin-based Cielo Wind Power LLC will build the 80-tower facility, which will generate 80 megawatts of electricity daily, enough to power over 26,000 homes. By contract, a Duke Energy natural gas turbine plant that will be built near Deming will be capable of generating about 600 megawatts a day.  "It will cost more than (power produced) from coal-fueled plants but less than power from natural gas-fueled plants, in this time of high natural gas costs," said Gary Gibson, president of Southwestern Public Service, in a statement. SPS has been offering wind-generated power to New Mexico customers since 1999. The utility's "Windsource" program allows customers to choose to buy power from a 660-kilowatt wind turbine near Clovis.  Company officials plan to include electricity from the new wind farm in its overall power mix. They have not figured out how that will affect customer
bills, but the average SPS customer who has opted for power from the Clovis turbine pays about $5 more a month.  "For this region, this is a pioneering effort -- in part, simply because of the size of Llano Estacado Wind Ranch," Gibson said. "It will be the largest
wind-generation complex in a broad region lying from north of Odessa and Midland, Texas, all the way to Wyoming."  New Mexico's largest utility also is exploring wind power. Public Service Company of New Mexico is participating in a two-year study with the state Energy Conservation and Management Division to identify potential sites for wind-power generators. The company is considering six sites on the eastern plains between Clayton and Clovis.  "It takes over a year's worth of data to know if a site is suitable," said
Michael McDiarmid of the state Energy Conservation and Management Division. Already several wind power developers including Cielo Wind Power have shown interest in the New Mexico sites, McDiarmid said. The high cost of natural gas has even put PNM onto the same side of the fence as environmental groups such as the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy to support bills in the current Legislature that offer tax credits to businesses and individuals who produce energy through renewable sources. Besides cost, wind generation is attracting particular attention in the desert Southwest because it doesn't use water, unlike electricity generated by coal, gas, oil or nuclear fuel sources.  "Cielo's wind generation will allow SPS to avoid using about 160 million
gallons of water annually," Gibson said in a statement. In December, Sandia National Laboratories announced it will buy enough
wind-generated electricity to provide 12 percent of the power needs of the Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.  Sandia will buy the wind power from SPS, which will build a second turbine at its site near Clovis. While the slightly higher-cost wind power remains voluntary for many customers, the Colorado Public Utility Commission recently ruled that Xcel
Energy (the parent company of SPS) had to include energy from a new wind farm in its overall power mix. The company has contracted to build a 162 megawatt wind farm in Lamar, Colo., with Texas energy giant Enron. Vaughn Nelson, director of West Texas A&M University's Alternative Energy Institute, who has researched wind energy since the early 1970s, said he was pleased with recent commercial development plans for wind power. He said the cost of wind-generated electricity compares favorably with
building new conventional power plants. Joe Peter, vice president of Cielo, said the turbines will stand on 226-foot-tall towers built in plants near El Paso and Dallas-Fort Worth. The turbines are from the Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi and each turbine         produces 1 megawatt of electricity a day. The three rotating blades have a diameter of 184 feet.  The blades will revolve 21 times per minute whenever the wind blows between 8 and 56 mph. The wind ranch will be on 14 farms and ranches near White Deer. Landowners will receive a royalty payment just as they would for an oil or natural gas well.  Cielo has about 597 megawatts of wind power under development for Texas and neighboring states including New Mexico, he said. Texas law requires 2,000 megawatts of wind power for the state by 2009, Peter said. The Panhandle could supply that amount over the next five to seven years, Peter said.
Source: Albuquerque Journal via Power Marketers 3/12/2001.

Neutrogena to Install $1.4 Million, 200 KW Solar System
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and the Neutrogena Corporation have announced that Neutrogena, a Johnson & Johnson company, will install a 200-killowatt (KW) solar power system at its corporate headquarters near the Los Angeles International Airport, at a cost of $1.4 million. When completed in July, the solar system will help reduce energy consumption by 20% monthly. Source: Business Wire 3/6/2001 via Utilicast NewsBriefs 3/5/2001.

Energy Crisis Gives Boost to CA Solar Industry
Solar panel manufacturers and dealers in California recently reported an increase in sales of 10 to 100 percent. As the state's energy
crisis has worsened and electricity prices have increased, state and local solar power grant programs have received thousands of
applications.  "We can't get them in fast enough," said Bilt-Well Roofing and Solar owner Steve Radenbaugh.  Officials with the California Energy Commission (CEC) said the state has seen a 500 percent increase in grant applications for the state's $56-million solar rebate program. With the increased interest in the program, Governor Gray Davis has pledged another $50 million to keep the program running.  In the Los Angeles area, the number of residents who have requested applications for the city's $80-million solar rebate program has jumped to nearly 1,000 per month. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) solar program manager Angelina Galiteva said the number of calls to the program has increased from five per day to 150 per day.  The state offers numerous rebates for solar power systems. CEC will reimburse $3 per watt or 50 percent of the system's cost for residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial building owners. LADWP will pay $3 per watt for solar energy systems manufactured outside of Los Angeles, and $5 per watt for systems manufactured within city limits.  Source: Los Angeles Times 3/6/2001 via EIN Renewable Energy Today 3/14/2001.

Enron Expects Lamar, Colo., Wind Farm to Be Operational by 2002
Energy and telecommunications giant Enron hopes to have its Gobblers Knob wind farm operating in the summer 2002.  Gob Gates, senior vice president for business development of Enron Wind, said the company is in talks with Xcel Energy for a contract to purchase power from the wind farm, which will be located near Lamar.  The Colorado Public Utilities Commission recently ordered Xcel to add the Enron project to its list of future power sources. Xcel, which has a wind farm of its own in northern Colorado, has been charging customers a premium to designate wind and other renewable energy as the source of their electric power. Wind generally costs more than conventional power sources like gas and coal-fired generators and Xcel originally rejected Enron's bid to supply power from its new wind farm because it was too expensive.  The PUC didn't accept Xcel's estimates but did say if the power did turn out to be more expensive, Xcel could recover the cost in its rates. Gates said Enron would lease the land, which currently is used for grazing. The project is expected to generate 162 megawatts when the wind is blowing.  Gates said it will employ between 20 and 30 people in addition to a substantial construction crew when the turbines are installed. Enron builds its own turbines.  When it expands its own wind farm, Xcel plans to use turbines built by Vestas, a Danish company that has said it plans to move its U.S. operations to Pueblo soon.  Source: John Norton, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo. 3/16/2001 via Western Newsclips 3/16/2001
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For more information on Renewable Resources go to:  http://www.eren.doe.gov/repis/
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Pre-Certification Work Complete for Distributed Generation In Texas
The Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT) approved the pre-certification standards for distributed generation (DG).  The final document (dated 2/01/01) is available on the Web at:  http://www.puc.state.tx.us/electric/projects/22318/22318.htm  .  These standards were developed out of the Pre-certification Working Group which consisted of many of the utility and DG industry parties that were involved in the development of TexasÆs DG rules.  Pre-certification (analogous to type-testing) allows PUCT-approved, nationally recognized testing laboratories (NRTL) to designate specific models as safe to interconnect to the Texas power distribution grid.  To further simplify the process, the PUCT developed a DG interconnection manual for project developers.  The final
version of the 100+ page manual, which was written by Distributed Utility Associates and Endecon Engineering, can be found on the Web at:   http://www.puc.state.tx.us/electric/projects/22061/020801dgmanual.pdf  .  For more information, contact Ed Ethridge of the PUCT at (512) 936-7340 or ed.ethridge@puc.state.tx.us.  Source: IREC Interconnection Newsletter - March 2001.

National and State DG Interconnection Websites
The past year has seen a proliferation of information available on distributed generation interconnection.  Here is a sampling of Web sites you may want to check out. (A number of these have been featured in past newsletters.)  DOE Distributed Power Program (NREL)  http://www.eren.doe.gov/distributedpower .  DOE Distributed Energy Resources  http://www.eren.doe.gov/der/  .  National Association of Regulated Utility Commissioners (NARUC) http://www.naruc.org/Committees/ere/elecrel/dg_index.html  .  Regulatory Assistance Project   http://www.rapmaine.org/  .  IREC Connecting to the Grid http://www.irecusa.org/connect.htm  .  IEEE P1547  Group  http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc21/1547/  .  DG Discussion Group  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributed-generation/  .
And, a few states have their own DG interconnection sites: California   http://www.energy.ca.gov/distgen/  .  New York  http://www.dps.state.ny.us/distgen.htm .  Texas   http://www.puc.state.tx.us/electric/projects/22318/22318.htm  .  Wisconsin  http://www.renewwisconsin.org/dg/dg1.html  .  Illinois  http://www.icc.state.il.us/icc/ec/docs_arch.asp#com  .  Source: IREC Interconnection Newsletter - March 2001.
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For more information on Educational Resources go to: http://www.thegateway.org
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Environmental and Energy Study Institute Holds Congressional Briefing
On March 7, 2001, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute held a congressional briefing featuring Dr. Robert Watson (chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) with opening remarks by Congressman John Olver (co-chair of the House Climate Change Caucus). During the briefing Dr. Watson used a power point slide show, these slides are now available (in full color) online at  http://www-esd.worldbank.org/bobw/  .  A word of caution: download time for these power point files may be long.
Source: Christopher Berendt, Energy & Climate Program, Environmental & Energy Study Institute, Phone: (202) 662 -1886, Fax: (202) 628-1825
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For more information on legislative activities go to: http://www.kannerandassoc.com/fedenergybills.html
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Green Power Reports Available From the NWCC
The National Wind Coordinating Committee has a number of excellent reports including:  Green Power Marketing Publications,
Permitting Wind Energy Facilities, State Policy Option Publications, Avian/Wind Publications, Transmission Publications, Wind Energy Issue Papers.  These reports are free and can be downloaded at: http://www.nationalwind.org/pubs/default.htm  .
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For more information on marketing and research go to:  http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/emaa/index.html
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LADWP Issues RFP to Solicit Proposers in PV Industry to Team in Response to CEC PIER Grant
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power just issued an RFP to solicit proposers in the Photovoltaics industry to team
with them in response to the CEC PIER Renewable Energy Program Area Grant RFP.  The LADWP RFP is due March 27 @ 2:00 pm.  Interested parties should contact Ms. Charise Leonares (213) 367-4922 or via e-mail at cleona@ladwp.com for copies of
the RFP.

CRS to Support the Public Power Renewable Energy Action Team
The Public Power Renewable Energy Action Team (PPREAT) -- a new collaboration of California municipal utilities aimed at utilizing renewable resources to help ensure the continued competitiveness of public power in the face of changing electricity markets -- has selected the Center for Resource Solutions to provide administrative and management support to PPREAT.  PPREAT will undertake a variety of programs in support of its mission.  The first is imminent -- PPREAT will respond to the CEC PIER Renewable Energy Program Area Grant RFP ($40 million dollars, due date April 20).   PPREAT will be applying for at least $6 million dollars a year for a three year period to develop a variety of programs aimed at bringing renewable energy resources into the resource portfolios of municipal utilities.  A key aspect of the CEC PIER RFP is encouraging collaboration between utilities and renewable energy technology partners.  On behalf of PPREAT, CRS has begun collecting ideas from the renewable energy industry on potential projects individual renewable energy companies would like to undertake with PPREAT.  If you are interested in submitting a bid to the CEC as part of the PPREAT proposal, please contact Kirk Brown at CRS at 415-561-2100 or e-mail at  kirkbrown@resource-solutions.org . For more information on CRS see their Web site at:  http://www.resource-solutions.org  .

Wind Power Projects
The Bonneville Power Administration requests proposals for new large-scale wind power projects, with a minimum of 15 average megawatts (about 40 to 60 megawatts of nameplate capacity) per project.  The agency is soliciting for a total of roughly 1,000 megawatts of wind power, which would supply the needs of about 150,000 households.  For more info, call George Darr, BPA, at (503) 230-4386. Source: The Seattle Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Energy 3/8/2001.

Federal Energy Management Program
The U.S. Department of Energy requests proposals for projects that will promote Federal leadership in energy management and increase awareness of energy efficiency in the Federal sector.  Specific activities would include but not be limited to:  Promoting the use of energy-saving technologies and sustainable energy technologies by Federal agencies and industries, developing comprehensive energy efficiency technology transfer programs that emphasize sustainable energy technologies for Federal agencies, and developing outreach materials, such as posters, graphics, brochures, world wide web sites, and other products that promote Federal energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy technologies.  FY01 funding not available, however, FY02 funding estimated at $450K - $500K.  15% cost share required.  Proposals due 3/28/01.  For more info, go to: http://doe-iips.pr.doe.gov/  .  Refer to DE-PS01-01EE10781-8A.  Source: The Seattle Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Energy 3/8/2001.

Alternative Fuel Refueling Station Data Collection
On behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, Clean Cities Program, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has created and maintains the Alternative Fuels Data Center and makes information accessible through a variety of information dissemination systems, including the Internet. NREL seeks sources interested in assisting its efforts to ensure that the alternative fuel refueling station information is as accurate and up-to-date as possible.  This is request for interest in this work, this is not a request for proposals.  Responses due 3/19/01.  For more info, contact Kathee Flanagan Roque, NREL, at kathee_roque@nrel.gov.  Refer to Sol# DW280.  (CBD 2/20/01) .  Source: The Seattle Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Energy 3/8/2001.
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For more information on funding solicitations go to: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html
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