Compiled by Staff

Fort Collins City Council Backs Net Metering for Electricity

Generating electricity will continue to pay off for some customers of Fort Collins Utilities. The City Council on Tuesday gave initial approval to an ordinance formally putting net metering into city code. The program allows customers who generate electricity to get compensated when the energy they produce exceeds what they consume. The ordinance passed unanimously. The council also approved an ordinance setting standards for connecting electrity-generating facilities to the city’s power system.

Council member Lisa Poppaw said the net-metering program “protects our system without limiting our future.” Net metering allows a home or business that generates power through a renewable source - such as solar, wind, fuel cell, biomass or geothermal energy - to be paid for putting excess electricity into the power grid.

The ordinance would limit net metering to 120 percent of a customer’s annual consumption. The figure matches the limit set by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for customers served by investor-owned utilities, city officials said.

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Colorado May Consider ‘Community Solar Gardens’ Law

State Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, plans to introduce a bill this session that would make it legal to build community “solar gardens.” Now, homeowners must install solar panels on their own property to take advantage of rebates and incentives offered by Xcel Energy and, perhaps more important, to have the electricity created by those panels show up as credits on their energy bills.

“The intent of (the bill) is so people can have the benefit of what they would get if they had solar panels on their rooftops,” Levy said. “It’s for people who are renters, who live in condominium projects and don’t have rooftops, people whose lots are shaded, people whose houses aren’t the right orientation — a whole variety of things.”

Community solar gardens — which could be organized by homeowner associations, independent investors or even between two neighbors — would allow people to buy a portion of a solar array that’s not located on their property.

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CSU Gets 2-Megawatt Solar System

Colorado State University is getting a new, 2-megawatt solar power system that’s thought to be the largest such system on any U.S. university campus. The university on Friday will dedicate the 8,000-panel system, which covers 15 acres and can supply up to 10 percent of the electricity needs of CSU’s Foothills Campus. The project was announced in August 2009, although terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

It’s the second solar power system that CSU has put in operation. CSU’s Pueblo campus dedicated a 1.2MW solar power installation in 2008. Foothills Campus, where CSU’s Global Health Research center and other laboratories are located, is about four miles northwest of the main Fort Collins campus adjacent to Horsetooth Reservoir.

In August, CSU said the system will be owned and operated by renewable energy developer Renewable Ventures, a San Francisco-based subsidiary of Spanish company Fotowatio, which is owned by GE Energy Financial Services, Landon Group, and Qualitas Venture Capital. Renewable Ventures was formerly known as MMA Renewable Ventures and was involved in the 2MW solar power plat at Denver International Airport.

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Abound Solar Nets $12.6 Million Tax Credit from the DOE

Abound Solar in Loveland announced that it would be getting $12.6 million in the form of a tax credit from the U.S. Energy Department, via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (also known as the economic stimulus program, or ARRA).

The credit was reportedly awarded through a competitive selection process that examines how many “green” jobs a firm creates, the cost effectiveness of its operations, the speed at which it implements manufacturing processes, and the overall benefit in terms of greenhouse gas reduction.

For Abound, founded in 2007 as AVA (Air Vacuum Air) Solar after 15 years as a Colorado State University (CSU) technology incubator, the award is yet another catalyst to aid it in its development and perfection of a proprietary, largely automated process that creates thin-film photovoltaic modules via cadmium/telluride (CdTe) deposition on a glass substrate, rather than using conventional silicone, using semiconductor technology.

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RePower Systems to Supply 20 Wind Turbines for Minnesota Project

Denver-based REpower Systems AG has received a contract from National Wind LLC to supply 20 wind turbines. The REpower MM92 type turbines have a rated power of 2.05 MW (megawatts) and a hub height of 100 meters. The turbines will be used in the first phase of the Lake Country Wind Energy project in central Minnesota. All phases of the project will total 340 MW..

Following the successful construction of projects in Washington, Oregon, Indiana, Michigan and California, these are the first wind turbines that the U.S. subsidiary of Hamburg-based REpower Systems AG will deliver to Minnesota. “The US market is gradually starting to recover”, says Per Hornung Pedersen, CEO of REpower Systems AG. “This order and the other signed contracts in the last few months show that our North American business is slowly picking up again.”.

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