Power to the People

New Haven School Gets Grant From Utility

2012-01-30T18:23:00.000-05:00

Congratulations are in order for students at New Haven's Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School for Science, Technology and Communications.

An entry submitted by students at the school came in second in Connecticut Light & Power's Youth Video Contest. The video "Light and Power" earned the school a $1,000 grant from CL&P.

The contest required middle school students to create a video of 90 seconds or less demonstrating the importance of safe, reliable energy to Connecticut, our communities and our daily lives.

Students from The Sherman School in Sherman took first place and received a $3,500 grant for their video, "What Would We Be Without CL&P?"

"Congratulations to the winners and all of those who submitted videos," said Jim Muntz, president and chief operating officer of CL&P. "Everyone did a great job communicating in some very interesting and creative ways how vital electricity is. The judges had some tough choices to make."

State Fills Energy Procurement Post

2012-01-26T16:26:00.000-05:00

The state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) has hired the vice president of a Waterbury-based manufacturing industry trade group to serve as the agency’s first-ever power procurement manager.

Jeff Gaudiosi of Windsor (shown at left) will start his new, $92,041-a-year job for the DEEP on Feb. 10th. Gaudiosi, 39, has worked with the Manufacturing Alliance of Connecticut (MAC) since 1997.

Gaudiosi said his new job will be a challenge “because we’re bringing the state into an area where we’ve never been before.

The procurement manager’s job was created last year as part of Public Act 11-80, sweeping energy legislation that was approved by Connecticut lawmakers.

His job involves developing plans for the efficient purchase of electric power for consumers who still buy their electricity through the state’s legacy utilities, The United Illuminating Co. and Connecticut Light & Power. In an effort to lower electric rates for the so-called “standard service” customers, Gaudiosi will be responsible for devising annual plans that make a portfolio of power contracts available to UI and CL&P.

Vermont Yankee Owner Scores Victory in Court

2012-01-20T18:50:00.001-05:00

Efforts by state lawmakers to shutdown the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant were dealt a setback Friday when a federal judge ruled that the facility can remain open beyond its original shutdown date later this year.

The Associated Press reports that the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha is a victory for the plant's owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. The ruling comes following a three-day trial in September in which officials for the utility company argued that Vermont's efforts to close the plant (shown at left) are prohibited by federal law.

In an unattributed written statement, Entergy officials had this reaction to Friday's ruling: "We're pleased with the decision, which Judge Murtha issued after a thorough review of the facts and the law."

The case is being watched closely by opponents of nuclear power around the country because a finding in favor of Vermont officials would likely have set a legal precedent in future court battles. Entergy is also a prominent player in the nuclear power industry in the Northeast, operating the Pilgrim plant in Plymouth, Mass. and Indian Point in Westchester County, N.Y.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a 20-year extension of Vermont Yankee's license last March. But Vermont law requires the lawmakers there to support the extension as well and a bill to grant legislative approval was rejected by the state Senate and was not acted upon by the House.

The New Haven Register's sister paper, the Brattleboro Reformer, has more on the judge's ruling as well as efforts by Entergy to have the case moved to a federal court.

Cheryl Hanna, a professor of constitutional law at the Vermont Law School in South Royalton, told the Register that the message Judge Murtha's decision sends, both to lawmakers from the Green Mountain State and elsewhere, is that "there has to be legitimate articulated reasons beyond health and safety concerns that you're looking to use to shut down a nuclear plant."

"Vermont lawmakers didn't do a particularly good job articulating their reasons for want to shut down Vermont Yankee beyond the safety concerns," Hanna said. "Federal law prohibits safety concerns from being the primary motivation in going to court to shut down a nuclear plant."

Connecticut Gets Additional Low Income Energy Assistance Funding

2012-01-19T16:34:00.000-05:00

The state's Congressional delegation announced Thursday afternoon that Connecticut is getting an additional $19 million in funding from the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

The latest release of LIHEAP funds to Connecticut is in addition to the $59 million that has been given to the state since last October.

The money that Connecticut received from LIHEAP comes from the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

"There are low-income families, children and seniors across the country that need help paying to heat their homes," said Jeanin Chaffin, director of the agency's Office of Community Services. "We recognize the importance of getting these funds out quickly so that families can get the help they need during the winter."

Clean Energy "Matchmaking" Event Scheduled For Jan. 5th

2011-12-23T19:05:00.000-05:00

With an acronym like REEBA, you might think you've stumbled upon a country music blog.

But fear not.

REEBA is the Renewable Energy & Efficiency Business Association. The group and the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund plan to start 2012 out on a positive note by hosting a joint clean energy “matchmaking" event at the Rocky Hill Marriott.

The Jan. 5th event is from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. The purpose of the forum is to provide an opportunity for companies, colleges and universities, municipalities, institutions and landowners interested in clean energy generation products and energy efficiency measures to speak directly with providers.

Representatives of solar, fuel cell and energy efficiency companies will be on hand to meet with attendees.

The event provides opportunities to learn about new clean energy-related financial incentives available under Public Act 11-80, which was passed by the state legislature during the 2011 legislative session. Connecticut Light & Power Company and the United Illuminating Company, Nexamp, Inc., Ameresco and UTC Power will make brief presentations at the event regarding available clean energy incentives.

The event will consist of nearly 30 vendor booths showcasing company information, and more than 50 additional companies providing information and networking opportunities.

For more event information or to register, visit REEBA's web site or contact Jackie Rowe at 860-240-6140.

Murphy Turns Up The Heat On Boehner, Pelosi Over Federal Heating Aid Cuts

2011-12-16T22:39:00.007-05:00

Connecticut Congressman Chris Murphy, D-5, sent letters Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi arguing against the inclusion of significant cuts to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in a year-end appropriations bill.

Congressman Chris Murphy

The cuts contained in H.R. 2055, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, would reduce LIHEAP funding by $1.2 billion in 2012. That represents a 25 percent reduction in funding which would mean an estimated $18.7 million in cuts to block grants for Connecticut, Murphy said in statement.

"A 2010 study found that Connecticut’s poorest households spent 70 percent of their annual income on their home energy bills," Murphy's letter said in part. "For the tens of thousands of Connecticut households that will apply for low-income energy assistance this winter, there’s no margin for error when it comes to staying warm."

Murphy told Boehner and Pelosi that during October, he circulated a brief survey about possible LIHEAP cuts at community action agencies across Connecticut where low-income energy assistance applications are accepted. More than 1,200 agencies responded to the survey and Murphy said 98 percent of the respondents reported they did not support cuts to LIHEAP funding during the current heating season.

Murphy said he has proposed a piece of legislation - called the Guaranteed Energy Assistance Act - to restore potential funding shortfalls for the program through a supplemental fee on oil drilling in federally-owned waters.

Connecticut Light & Power Steps Up Communications Efforts With Towns

2011-10-30T21:36:00.005-04:00

Having been stung with criticisms in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene, Connecticut Light & Power is looking to do a better job keeping municipal officials in the 149 communities it serves informed about power restoration efforts.

Jeff Butler, CL&P's president and chief operating officer, said starting Monday, the utility will provide out daily briefings to municipal leaders about work that is specific to their communities.

CL&P has also made good on other promises that it made in the aftermath of Irene, said Mitch Gross, a spokesman for the utility.

It has assigned at least one crew to the vast majority of towns without power as as result of the storm, Gross said, with a primary focus of working with officials to address emergency situations as well a facilitate the reopening of municipal roads. The utility has provided a liaison to every community that has requested one, he said.

Governor Mallloy's Panel Reviewing Response To Irene Has A Big Day Ahead

2011-10-21T19:29:00.011-04:00

Tuesday could be an informative day for the panel appointed by Gov. Dannel Malloy in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene to assess Connecticut's preparedness for natural disasters.

The meeting, which will be held at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford starting at 10 a.m., will include testimony from two meteorologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who will discuss the typical qualities of hurricanes that make it to New England and the storm surges they produce.

Members of the panel will also hear from Adam Whelchel, director of science for The Nature Conservancy. Whelchel will discuss a state of the art computer program developed by The Nature Conservancy with help from NASA's Goddard Space Institute and NOAA.

The program enables users to project future flooding impacts under different sea level rise and storm scenarios for specific neighborhoods around Long Island Sound.

Officials from The United Illuminating Co., Connecticut Light & Power and Dominion Energy, which owns and operates the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, will also be providing testimony. They will discuss storm associated risk assessments involving the state's electric distribution and transmission networks as well as its power plants.

Public Input Sought On Wind Power Regs

2011-09-23T16:40:00.005-04:00

The first step towards developing regulations governing where wind farms can be built begins Oct. 13th with a public forum at the Connecticut Siting Council.

The forum, which will be held at the Siting Council’s headquarters at 10 Franklin Square, is an effort “to get an idea from the public what they think is important,” said Linda Roberts, executive director of the state agency.

“When we actually formulate the regulations, it’s going to be a more formal proceeding like a contested hearing,” Roberts said.

The Siting Council, working in concert with other state agencies has until July 1, 2012 to establish the regulations. The establishment of the regulations was ordered by the legislature through Public Act 11-245, which was approved by lawmakers in July of this year.

Lawmakers passed the public act after controversy erupted over a pair wind farm applications the Siting Council dealt with earlier this year. One, involving a project in Prospect, was approved while another associated with two wind farm sites in Colebrook was approved.

A pair of lawsuits have been filed appealing the Siting Council's approval of the wind farm sites in Colebrook.

The Oct. 13th forum will be held in two shifts, the first from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and the second from 6:30 p.m. yo 9 p.m.

Middletown Ceremony To Mark New Standards For Gas Pipe Purging

2011-09-22T18:15:00.004-04:00

Members of Connecticut's congressional delegation will be in the state on Monday to announce the development of a new safety standard designed to prevent the kind of explosion that occurred at a Middletown power plant under construction in Feb. 2010.

U.S. Representatives Joe Courtney, D-2, and Rosa DeLauro will be at Middletown's City Hall at 1 p.m. to announce the release of a new National Fire Protection Association standard. The new standard covers the cleaning and purging of flammable gas piping systems.

The explosion at the Kleen Energy Power plant killed six workers and injured at nearly 50 others. It was determined by investigators that the explosion at the Kleen Energy Power plant was caused by a process known as a "gas blow," in which highly pressurized natural gas is used to clean debris from pipes.

The highly pressurized natural gas was discharged into the atmosphere without the proper controls, causing the explosion (shown in photo above).

The new standard covers not only "gas blows" but a broad range of activities that involve the fuel. Those activities include cleaning, repair, replacement and removal procedures at power plants and well as other activities in commercial, industrial and institutional settings.

Opel Solar Signs Deal To Provide Tracking Devices For Projects

2011-09-15T17:12:00.002-04:00

A Shelton-based solar energy equipment maker has been selected to provide some of its devices for a number of projects being done in Northern California.

Terms of Opel Solar’s deal with Denver-based Conergy U.S. were not immediately available, the companies said in press release issued Thursday. Conergy’s German corporate parent is one of the world’s largest solar energy manufacturers and the deal with Opel Solar calls for the Connecticut company to provide its TF-800 series of single axis trackers for the projects, the first of which was started in August.

Opel Solar’s devices allow the panels that collect the sun's energy to turn and follow it as it moves across the sky.

“Conergy chose OPEL trackers for this project because of their combination of cost efficiency and quality,” said David Vincent, Conergy’s project development manager.

State Utilities Should Have Learned Their Lesson

2011-09-06T09:26:00.001-04:00

The Greeks called it "hubris" and an Old Testament passage warns that pride "goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

Perhaps officials at Connecticut Light & Power and The United Illuminating Co. would be well served to consider what the Greeks and the Old Testament said about getting a little too cocky once they've restored the power statewide.

Both utilities put out press releases over the weekend, essentially congratulating themselves on a job well done for restoring power in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene. And to their credit, UI and CL&P had gotten the outage levels down to less than 1,000 between them.

But as Monday slowly faded into early Tuesday morning, the level of outages surged to over 6,700 between the two utilities. CL&P, in a Tweet sent out earlier this morning, is blaming the surge on Tropical Storm Lee and says the increase in outages is "unrelated" to Hurricane Irene.

Common sense would suggest otherwise. Especially since there's nothing like a hurricane to put tress in a weakened state that makes them susceptible to further limb damage or toppling over completely.

Connecticut residents and municipal have grown increasingly frustrated with CL&P and UI in the aftermath of Irene. For some, it's the result of not having electricity for more than a week; for others, the frustration was the result of poor communication between the company and its customers.

But one thing is certain: Like most New Englanders, Connecticut residents place a high value on getting the job done and getting it done right. Those who seek to compliment themselves need to check their pride at the door or suffer the consequences in the court of public opinion.

Weekly Television Program Looks At the Future For Growth in Energy Jobs

2011-09-04T09:21:00.007-04:00

Click here for the latest Platt's Energy Week television program for Labor Day weekend. What makes this week's program worth your time is that the show has two segments on energy jobs.

One looks at the future outlook for energy jobs with a view from organized labor. The other segment focuses on a renewed effort by some of the nation's large electric utilities to hire military veterans.

The Last Ones Standing (In The Dark)

2011-09-02T10:40:00.003-04:00

I never thought I'd see post-Irene power restorations get to this point, but as I'm writing this, there are seven towns that have only one customer without electricity.

You've heard the line, "Will the last one out please turn out the lights?" Well, what the customers in these four towns are waiting for is the polar opposite of that, except for the fact that both tend to conjure up negative images.

The "Last One Out" line ihas become a catch phrase used when a business is laying off people or is closing its doors for good. And few things are more depressing than being the last one without in a community that has finally returned to a state of semi-normalcy.

Sure, there are probably a variety of factors beyond the control of the customer and the utility doing the restoration that make someone the last one standing in the dark. And somebody has to be the last customer to have their power restored.

But that doesn't mean they have to like it.

Westport Plugs In To Electric Vehicle Charger Network

2011-08-22T18:12:00.004-04:00

Connecticut Light & Power debuted the first of its municipal charging stations for electric vehicles in Westport on Monday.

The charging station is located in the Luciano Park Commuter Lot on Charles Street and parking pass-holders can charge their electric vehicles for free. The 240-volt charging station there can fully charge a Chevy Volt in four hours.

The station was installed by CL&P as part of a study to determine how electric vehicle owners use and charge their cars. Similar stations are planned for West Hartford and Mansfield and Torrington.

“We’ve worked hard to make Connecticut an early market for EVs,” said Jeff Butler, CL&P’s president and chief operating officer. “We’re excited to see towns like Westport take advantage of the opportunity to become a leader in clean technology.”

Dan Esty, commissioner of the state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, lauded the company's research initiative.

“By anticipating and supporting the market for new plug-in EVs, we can all benefit from a cleaner, lower-cost and locally available fuel alternative,” Esty said. “Connecticut is well positioned to lead in the deployment of electric vehicles and related infrastructure, and this initiative is a step towards achieving our goal of being a national leader.”

The Connecticut charging stations will be part of a network of more than 30 locations that data will be collected from across three states. CL&P's sister companies Western Massachusetts Electric Co. and Public Service Company of New Hampshire have already installed charging stations at company offices in Springfield, Mass. and Manchester, N.H. respectively.

All three companies are part of Berlin, Conn.-based Northeast Utilities. To further raise awareness of electric vehicles, NU has developed a regional on-line resource called “Plug My Ride” to connect consumers and other groups interested in electric transportation.

And They Wonder Why People Worry About Nuclear Power Plants............

2011-08-09T15:48:00.006-04:00

The Associated Press is reporting on a disturbing foul-up at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Waterford. As a colleague said to me when mentioning this story, "It's like something out of "The Simpsons."

Here's the AP story:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that operators at the Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut failed in numerous ways - including an operator who pressed the wrong button numerous times - while testing turbine control valves last February that caused a power surge.

As a result, federal regulators said they will impose more oversight at the Millstone Power Station in Waterford. The plant, on Connecticut's southeast coast, is the only nuclear power plant in the state. Officials said at the time that the Feb. 12 surge posed no public danger.

The NRC said an operator noticed an increase in pressure at the plant, which is owned by the Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Resources Inc., and incorrectly pressed an "increase" button instead of a "decrease" button. When the pressure did not fall the operator pressed the "increase" button three more times and then pressed the "decrease" button twice.

Those actions resulted in a rapid, unintended rise in reactor power, regulators said. A senior operator added to the problem by failing to notice reactor power was rising and withdrew control rods, the NRC said

Bill Dean, region administrator at NRC, said plant safety at Millstone (shown at left) was not affected due to the incident, but regulators hold control room operators to the highest standards.

"This inspection finding signals the need for plant personnel to step back and learn from this event in order to prevent it from occurring again," he said.

Has NU-NStar Merger Hit A Snag?

2011-07-18T08:39:00.003-04:00

The Boston Globe is saying it has.

Specifically, the Globe is reporting this morning that the administration of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is seeking to have that state's utility regulators delay action on the merger until at least next year. The Globe's story, quotes an NStar spokeswoman as saying that a substantial delay could jeopardize the deal.

If that were to happen, it wouldn't be the first time that action by a regulatory body had a hand in bringing NU merger plans to an end.

New York City's Consolidated Edison sought to acquire Northeast Utilities in a $7.5 billion deal that was first announced in October 1999. But, amid criticism from state officials and consumer advocates, the deal fell apart in March 2001.

In that case, Connecticut utility regulators approved the proposed merger, but imposed conditions that may have caused Con Ed to balk at the deal. In the NU-NStar deal, Connecticut regulators have refused to hear the case, a decision that has prompted a court challenge from the state's Office of Consumer Counsel.

Is New York Really No Longer In An Indian Point State Of Mind?

2011-07-15T09:08:00.006-04:00

An interesting debate going on in New York, where there is some serious discussion of the state's future without the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which is shown in the photo below.

Connecticut residents should follow this with interest. A large chunk of the western part of Connecticut might face evacuation in the event of nuclear accident of a significant size and scope.

By Jim Fitzgerald
Associated Press

BUCHANAN, N.Y. — Imagining New York's energy supply without the Indian Point nuclear power plants, some see dirtier air, higher utility bills and an increased risk of blackouts.

Others see a lower risk of catastrophe from a terror attack or natural disaster.

And some see a long-term opportunity for alternative sources like solar panels on Manhattan rooftops and wind farms in the waters off New York Harbor.

The two reactors in Buchanan, 35 miles up the Hudson River from midtown Manhattan, provide about a quarter of the power used in New York City and Westchester. The plant began operating in the 1970s and licenses for the two reactors are set to expire in 2013 and 2015.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has declared his resolve to block relicensing; his aides recently met with the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear. "We know he wants to shut it down," said company spokesman Jim Steets.

Critics have focused for years on preventing any relicensing for Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3. (Indian Point 1, from the 1960s, was mothballed in 1973.) Opposition spiked after the 2001 terror attacks, when one of the hijacked airliners flew right over the plant. Leaks of radioactive water, problems with emergency sirens, and the earthquake and tsunami crises at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have intensified the battle.

Of particular concern are evacuation plans in an emergency. An evacuation of 50 miles around Indian Point — the recent U.S. recommendation for American citizens around the Japanese plant — would mean moving out more than 17 million people, including almost all of New York City.

The governor, who lives 12 miles from Indian Point, has said he considers the plant "an unnecessary risk."

"I'm not against nuclear power but I am against nuclear power in this plant in this location with this density in Westchester County, with its proximity to New York City," he said.

Nuclear plants are regulated by the federal government, not the states. But Cuomo does have a weapon — a state water permit, so far withheld, that's required for the new licenses.

Vermont is also battling to close a nuclear power plant, one also owned by Entergy.

The governor and Legislature there are pushing to shut the Vermont Yankee plant when its license expires in March. Sarah Hofmann, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service, said replacement power is not an issue there, although Entergy predicts higher consumer costs if it's shut down.

Much of the concern about the effects of a sudden Indian Point shutdown comes from New York City.

A new study commissioned by the city's Department of Environmental Conservation concluded in a preliminary draft that New Yorkers would pay more, the grid would become less reliable and air pollution would increase because most replacement power would come from fossil fuels.

That draft, leaked last week, estimated energy costs would rise up to 10 percent, not including any subsidies to new energy providers, upgrades to the grid or the costs of 1,100 jobs lost at Indian Point.

Leaders from several state agencies responded with a statement saying the figures in the study could also support the conclusion that closing Indian Point "is commercially feasible, does not compromise reliability, and has little impact on cost." They said consumers would pay 5 percent more at most.

The officials also said Indian Point's reliability was assured until 2020. The city study and a forecast from Con Edison, the city's primary distributor, both predicted that without Indian Point, reliability problems would start in summer 2016 — after the second reactor's license expires.

The dates are important because of the time needed to build new power plants. Experts estimate it would take three to five years for construction of a natural gas-fired power plant, even with new regulations pushed through by Cuomo that have streamlined the approval process.

It's still difficult to find a place to put a plant, especially in a densely populated area.

"The city administration has not encouraged any new plants to be built because of the political headaches that it causes," said Jerry Kremer, chairman of the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, an industry group. "There is nothing of any substance in the pipeline which is going to provide additional power for the downstate region."

Philip Musegaas, a program director at the environmental group Riverkeeper, a longtime Indian Point critic, strongly disagreed, saying the region is well prepared to do without the nuclear plant.

He said that new transmission cables will bring in power from New Jersey and Quebec, and that energy efficiency projects are already dampening demand. The new regulations pushed by Cuomo will encourage smaller plants and boost wind and solar energy development, he said.

"This idea of an immediate energy shortage is just not reflected in the facts," Musegaas said. "If these measures that I've mentioned continue to progress over the next four years, we will have a stable energy supply and we can transition out of Indian Point."

Eventually, he said, wind and solar projects close to the city can be major contributors. He cited an ongoing City University project that found solar energy from the city's rooftops could meet half its demand. He said there was "tremendous potential" for wind-powered generation offshore.

Musegaas noted that whenever Indian Point closes, it's likely to leave behind another problem — its radioactive waste, currently stored on site in pools and casks. President Obama has refused to approve Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas as a disposal site and there is no other long-term plan for the nation's nuclear plants.

Cricket Valley Energy, an affiliate of Advanced Power Services, plans a 1,000-megawatt gas-fired plant in Wingdale, N.Y., about 65 miles north of the city, projected to open in 2015. Company officials said Indian Point's future was not a factor in the investment.

Another gas-powered plant with a 650 megawatt output is planned by Competitive Power Ventures Inc. in Wawayanda, about 50 miles from Manhattan. Spokesman Steve Sullivan said it could be open by 2014.

There is a good chance that Indian Point will be running beyond its expiration dates even if it doesn't have a new license. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that if its hearings — likely to start next year — go beyond the deadline, the plant would be allowed to stay online.

The same would apply if the state denies the water permit and Entergy challenges that ruling in court.

In the hearings, New York and environmental groups are alleging, among other things, that Entergy has not detailed how 20 more years of operation would affect buried pipes and cables and the domed "containment" buildings that house the reactors.

The water permit relates to Indian Point's use of Hudson River water — it takes in as much as 2.5 billion gallons a day — to make steam and cool the reactors. The permit has been withheld because the current cooling system kills nearly a billion organisms a year, including the endangered shortnose sturgeon.

The agency said Indian Point can operate legally if it converts to a water-recycling system known as closed-cycle. But Entergy said that would cost more than $1 billion. It claims its proposal — a new screening system that would keep most fish out — makes more sense.

No compromise seems close. Steets, the Entergy spokesman, said his company is not interested in a deal like that at the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey, where the state backed off a demand for cooling towers when the owner, Exelon, agreed to close the plant 10 years before its 2029 license expiration
\

Northeast Utilities Quarterly Dividend Announced

2011-07-12T17:16:00.002-04:00

Northeast Utilities said Tuesday that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of 27.5 cents.

The dividend is payable on Sept. 30th to shareholders of record as of the close of business on Sept. 1.

The company, which is the corporate parent for Yankee Gas Services and Connecticut Light & Power, has roughly 177 million shares outstanding. NU raised its quarterly dividend to its current level in February; prior to that the dividend had been a little over 25.6 cents per share.

NU’s utility companies in Connecticut, western Massachusetts and New Hampshire have more that 2.1 million electric and natural gas customers.

Area Town Near The Top In Energy Efficiency Challange

2011-07-07T18:14:00.007-04:00

Following the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge may never attain the popularity of following a baseball pennant race. But it has attracted enough interest in one New Haven area community that has enabled that town to move into third place in the energy efficiency competition.

Cheshire is third among the 14 towns taking part in the competition. trailing only Westport and Ridgefield. Bethany, the only other New Haven area town taking part in the competition is in last place, according to the standings listed Thursday on the Neighbor to Neighbor web site.

The goal for each of the participating towns is to get at least 1,000 people in each community to cut their energy usage by at least 20 percent. Each person enrolled in the program can score points for their community and help reduce their home energy bills by taking certain steps to reduce their energy consumption.

Towns with the highest scores will receive premiums such as electric car-charging stations and solar-powered LED lighting systems.

Despite its strong showing in the competition thus far, Cheshire isn't resting on it laurels. A workshop on how to join the program and reduce home electric bills will be held July 20th at 7 p.m. at Temple Beth David on Route 10.

Registration is required to attend this workshop. For more information, e-mail Pat Brosnahan at Office@TBDCheshire.org or call 203-272-0037 by July 18th.

Right Back Where We Started From

2011-07-05T17:54:00.004-04:00

The Nuclear Energy Institute is praising legislation Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has introduced that would create two federal interim storage facilities to begin consolidating used nuclear fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants.

The Nuclear Fuel Storage Improvement Act (S. 1320), comes in the aftermath of the Obama administration's decision deny funding for the permanent nuclear waste repository that the federal government had already approved for Yucca Mountain in Nevada (shown at left).

That decision, which many contend was the result of pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) leaves the U.S. government without a permanent storage facility to accept used fuel from commercial nuclear facilities as required by federal law.

It is way too soon to say where these interim storage facilities might be located or even if the bill will pass.

But any state with a nuclear power plant - including Connecticut - ought to be worried. Because once these interim facilities have been sited, it will be that much more difficult to develop one central repository.

There are two places where spent nuclear fuel is stored in Connecticut. Some of it is at the site of the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Waterford; the other spent fuel storage location is in Haddam Neck, on the site of the decommissioned and demolished Connecticut Yankee plant.

Alex Flint, senior vice president for governmental affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said Tuesday that “the events in Japan this year at Fukushima Daiichi have focused renewed attention on used fuel storage."

"While America’s used commercial fuel is stored safely and securely at each commercial reactor, federal law requires that the federal government move the fuel to a repository," Flint said in a statement. "“Central storage is part of an integrated used nuclear fuel management system that will provide safe and secure stewardship of this material while allowing research on advanced fuel treatment technology options, and development of a permanent repository for ultimate disposal of used nuclear fuel or resulting byproducts."

Of course, you don't see Mr. Flint volunteering to have any spent fuel repository in his backyard. And that's part of the problem with this interim plan: What state or region is going to "volunteer" to host one of these things, as Nuclear Energy Institute suggests is going to happen.

Even with incentives to host such a facility and the potential for job creation that Nuclear Energy Institute contends will likely follow, it seems highly unlikely that any political leader would volunteer his constituents for such a role.

Just ask Harry Reid.

NU-NStar Meger In Regulatory Redux

2011-06-30T16:47:00.005-04:00

While Connecticut consumer advocates attempt to force Northeast Utilities and NStar to have their merger receive a full review here in the Nutmeg State, utility regulators in neighboring Massachusetts are getting for a second round of hearings with the companies.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) will resume its hearings on the merger on Tuesday, said Al Lara, a spokesman from NU. The hearings in the Bay State started at the beginning of the year, but were put on hold in late March as the DPU sought more information from the two companies.
NStar is headquartered in Boston.

At the time, NU officials had expected the hearings in Massachusetts to conclude in August. It was not immediately clear on Thursday whether that timetable was still realistic.

Meanwhile, Connecticut officials are still battling to force a similar review here. Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen went before the state's Department of Public Utility C ontrol in March seeking to convince regulators to conduct full hearings.

But the DPUC rejected that request on June 1 and now Connecticut's Office of Consumer Counsel is appealing the regulatory agency's decision in Superior Court in New Britain. If that appeal, filed Thursday, doesn't work out, it's a good bet that there will be further legal maneuvering on the part of the OCC.

This flurry of activity raises a simple, but important, question: What happens if the merger gets approved by Massachusetts regulators, but is still tied up in the Connecticut's courts?

Is completing the merger in a timely manner so important to the merger partners that they might offer Connecticut officials some concessions in return for making the legal challenge go away? After all, the merger was announced last October and a prolonged delay in the merger might make investors a little squeamish.

The answers to these questions will become clearer as the summer drags on.

UIL Holdings Kicks Off A Series Of Meetings Tonight In Orange

2011-06-27T23:03:00.008-04:00

UIL Holdings is taking its show on the road, starting Tuesday night in Orange.

The company, which operates The United Illuminating Co. and three natural gas utilities, is holding the meeting at the High Plains Community Center to help answer questions that customers may have about their energy bills, said James Torgerson, UIL’s president and chief executive officer. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

UIL Holdings also owns Southern Connecticut Gas, Connecticut Natural Gas and Berkshire Gas Co. in Massachusetts. All three utilities were acquired last year from the U.S. operating unit of Spanish energy giant Iberdrola.

"We’re excited about this opportunity to introduce our customers, new and old, to UIL and its utility operations in New England," Torgerson said.

Following Tuesday night's meeting, four more gatherings are scheduled between now and mid-October. Here's a list of the meetings, where they will be held and subject matter that UIL Holdings officials are expected to cover:

July 19 - Bridgeport City Council Chambers, Lyon Terrace. Topics: Storm Response & Infrastructure Planning, Safety.

Aug. 16th - Miller Senior Center, 2901 Dixwell Ave., Hamden. Topics: Power & Gas Procurement, Anatomy of Your Bill, Alternate Suppliers

Sept. 13 - Elmwood Community Center, 1106 New Britain Ave., West Hartford. Topics: Environmental Benefits of Natural Gas, Winter Pricing Forecast, Payment Assistance Programs

Oct. 11 - Hampton Inn Community Room, 184 Shelburne Road, Greenfield, Mass. Topics: Environmental Benefits of Natural Gas, Winter Pricing Forecast, Payment Assistance Programs.

UIL Holdings serves 690,000 electric and natural gas customers in 66 communities in Connecticut and western Massachusetts.

Fairfield County Solar Firm Merging With Colorado-based Company

2011-06-22T14:26:00.008-04:00

Anyone needing further evidence that renewable energy is becoming big business need look no further than today's announcement that Wilton-based Alteris Renewables and Real Goods Solar announced a plan to merge on Monday.

The deal calls for a swap of stock, with Colorado-based Real Goods Solar issuing 8 million share of its unregistered stock to those who have an equity stake in Alteris, which installs wind power generation units as well as solar systems. Based on Tuesday's $2.48 closing price of Real Good Solar's shares, which trade on the NASDAQ Stock Market, the value of the deal would be $19.84 million.

The amount of shares Alteris equity holders will receive could increase if the company's financial performance over the remainder of 2011 meets certain milestones.

The deal is expected to close sometime in the third quarter of this year, the companies said.

Real Goods Solar installs generation systems at homes and business in California and Colorado. Alteris does business in four of the six New England states as well as New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

“The Northeast and the West represent the two fastest growing markets for solar installations in the country, driven by high energy prices and government incentives in each region,” said Steve Kaufman, former chief executive officer of Alteris and a new board member of Real Goods Solar.

Alteris has 30 employees in Connecticut and 150 total. But its Connecticut roots go beyond being headquartered in Fairfield County.

The company was founded in Vermont in 1980 as Solar Works, according to its web site, but began a series of acquisitions at the start of the last decade. One of those acquisitions was Guilford-based SunSearch in 2008. Later that year, SolarWorks would merge with a Rhode Island-based company and take on the name Alteris Renewables.

Alteris was been named to the Inc. Magazine 500 list of fastest growing companies in each of the last two years.

Energy Efficiency Efforts in Cheshire Spotlighted on CPTV Program

2011-06-14T17:29:00.004-04:00

Connecticut Public Television's cameras will be trained on Cheshire later this month as part of a three-part series on energy conservation efforts around the state.

The series, "Empowering Connecticut" will air all three of its half hour episodes back-to-back on June 23rd beginning at 8:30 p.m. Cheshire is featured in one of the segments because of the town's involvement in the statewide Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge.

The competition, which involves Cheshire and 13 other communities around the state, is designed to see which can reduce their energy consumption the most. The goal is to get at least 1,000 people in each of the communities to cut their energy usage by 20 percent.

Towns with the highest scores will receive premiums such as electric car-charging stations and solar-powered LED lighting systems.

The segment featuring Cheshire also involves the town's Energy Commission, which serves the community in an advisory capacity.

The series is hosted and produced by environmental journalist, Christina DeFranco, and has WTNH's Bob Wilson serving as a featured contributor.

Empowering Connecticut showcases Connecticut residents, businesses, and communities that are finding creative and comparatively inexpensive ways to conserve energy. The series is produced in partnership with the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund.

Shown in the photo above (left to right) are: CPTV Photographer Michael Dunphy, Segment Produce Virginia Fisher, Neighbor to Neighbor Community Organizer Crystal Nosal, Reporter Bob Wilson and Michael Ecke, a student volunteer from Cheshire High School.

Energy Legislation Faces Debate, Vote Today

2011-06-06T10:01:00.006-04:00

If there's not a whiff of deja vu floating through Connecticut's legislative chambers in Hartford this morning, there ought to be.

Lawmakers are scheduled to debate and take a vote on an omnibus energy bill, Senate Bill 1, that would make sweeping changes to the way the state deals with energy issues. Trouble is, it was a year ago at about this time that lawmakers were taking up a similar bill with the same goals.

Last year's bill passed, but was vetoed by then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Supporters of that legislation weren't able to cobble together enough votes to override the veto.

This year's omnibus energy bill includes the following key elements:

- Forming a Department of Energy and Environmental Protection by merging the departments of Environmental Protection and Public Utility Control.

- Creating a procurement manager’s position to buy power more flexibly for customers who still purchase their electricity through The United Illuminating Co. and Connecticut Light & Power.

- Studying the impact that the regional electric grid operator, ISO-New England, has had on the state’s electric rates.

- Establishing a fund outside of ratepayer dollars for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects.

- Promoting growth in solar generation statewide, while legally capping the financial impact on consumers.

- Providing low-cost financing for energy-efficiency improvements such as new boilers and furnaces.

- Instituting energy research and technology development centers at Connecticut universities.

There were three major criticisms of last year's attempts at passing a broad energy bill.

One was that it covered too many issues at once, which made it difficult to fully understand and focus on all the details. Another was that Republican lawmakers claimed that much of its development was done private without trying to build a consensus among lawmakers in both parties.

Finally, full fledged efforts to get it passed were made at the 11th hour of the legislative session, even as lawmakers were dealing with other major issues.

And while some of the criticisms mentioned above could be applied to any piece of legislation in any year's legislative session, it has become apparent that lawmakers haven't learned their lesson from last year.

Instead of trying to lump all of the goals of S.B. 1 into a single piece of legislation, break them up into separate bills. It would be better to have some of what is proposed in S.B. 1 become law than none of it at all.

And don't wait until the last minute. A fair number of other important bills have already passed; why does energy legislation always have to wait until the last minute?

Let me put it another way: If lawmakers have already managed to pass budget legislation - as contentious an issue as there is out there right now - how come they can't manage action on energy issues?

Sources at the Capitol told me late Friday that this vote was to have been taken over the weekend. I'll leave it to people with sharper political minds than mind to address why that didn't happen.

But what I do know is that lawmakers need make this a priority now.

Con Edison Subsidiary Complete Solar Facility

2011-05-23T14:11:00.004-04:00

Consolidated Edison is best known around Connecticut as the company that walked away from a deal to acquire Northeast Utilities more than a decade ago.

But one of areas that New York City-based company appears to have successfully branched out into is developing solar power generation. One of the company's subsidiaries, Con Edison Development, announced Monday that it has begun operating New England's largest solar generation facility in a business park in southeastern Massachusetts.

Con Edison Development installed than 8,000 crystalline silicon panels at the New Bedford Business Park, which straddles the border between New Bedford and neighboring Dartmouth. The panels began generating two-megawatts of power in mid-March.

That kind of generation capacity is enough energy to provide power to 2,000 households.

Massachusetts has seen a spike in development of solar power generation facilities since lawmakers there passed the state's Green Communities Act and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard of 2008. The statutes allow utility companies to enter into contracts with renewable energy developers and set a mandated, statewide target of 400 megawatts of solar generation.

"This project represents a giant step forward toward creation of an emissions-free environment," said Mark Noyes, vice president of Con Edison Development. "Con Edison Development is proud to be working with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the New Bedford Business Park to reduce greenhouse gases while we promote America's energy independence.”

OPEL Solar Makes Another Sale

2011-05-03T15:51:00.007-04:00

It has been a busy spring for Shelton-based OPEL Solar International.

The solar power equipment maker announced a deal in late March to sell one of its units for use at an Aquarion Water Co. treatment plant in Shelton. And on Tuesday, OPEL Solar was at it again, announcing it had signed a deal to provide a 95-kilowatt solar generation unit for a waste water treatment plant in Newtown.

The municipally-owned plant is getting $325,000 in grant money from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. The money will be used to cover a portion of the cost of installing the solar panels, according to company officials.

OPEL Solar energy systems have a tracking technology that allows the solar panels to shift as the sun moves in the sky.

The Newtown installation will use single-axis trackers, which result in higher energy production for each photovoltaic panel. That, in turn, provides a significantly lower cost per kilowatt than conventional fixed-panel solar systems.

In the case of the OPEL Solar equipment being installed in Newtown, the ability of the panels to shift and follow the sun increases the project's energy production approximately 28 percent over a traditional stationary array.

Ansonia High Joins the "Solar System"

2011-04-22T17:51:00.014-04:00

You can forgive the students and teachers at Ansonia High School if they start singing "Let The Sun Shine In" on a daily basis in the near future.

That's because the school is being outfitted with $1 million solar power generation system.

A New York City-based company, SunLight General Capital, is installing the generation system on the roof of the school at no cost to Ansonia. The project is expected to generate nearly 230,000-kilowatt hours of electricity each year.

That's enough energy to power between 20 and 25 homes for a full year.

SunLight General has a power purchase agreement with the city, which means that the company financed the purchase of the solar array and owns the equipment.

It will sell the electricity generated by the solar power system to the school at price lower than local utility rates.

Over the 15-year life of SunLight General's contract with the city, Ansonia will save an average of $14,000 per year in electricity costs. The high school is the city's largest consumer of electricity.

In addition to the money that SunLight General provided for the installation of the solar panels, the project also received a grant of more than $400,000 through the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative funding pool.

Texas Wind Turbines Offer Interesting View of Renewable Energy's Progress in America

2011-04-12T11:07:00.010-04:00

When writing entries for this blog, I try to stay focused on energy issues here in Connecticut.

But I couldn't help noticing an item that arrived in my e-mail last week concerning wind power generation.

The University of North Texas has received $2 million grant from the Energy Conservation Office in the Lone Star State to install wind turbines on campus.The money will be used to install three wind turbines that will be used to provide power to the school's new football stadium (an artist's rendition is shown above) and other buildings in that part of campus.

The web page the school has devoted to the construction of the stadium, which will open this September, doesn't show how close the turbines would be to the facility.

The turbines are scheduled to be in place and operational by the end of the year, according to school officials. They are designed for low wind conditions - the average wind speed in North Texas is about 12 miles per hour, according to school officials - and produce a noise level of 55 decibels at a distance of 131 feet away.

"Our university has a 50-year legacy of environmental research and sustainability," V. Lane Rawlins, the president of the school, said in a written statement. "We're proud to be the first university in Texas to install wind turbines on campus.

For those who advocate in favor of wider use of renewable energy, an announcement like this has to be encouraging to see. The idea of wind turbines being used to power, of all things, a football stadium in the heart of America's oil country might seem far fetched to some.

And even though this is taking place halfway across the country, the symbolism of what the University of North Texas is doing should not be lost on Connecticut residents.

Here in Connecticut, residents in Prospect and Colebrook are fighting hard to keep a company from installing wind turbines in those communities. A bill is even being considered by Connecticut lawmakers that would declare a moratorium on wind power development while state officials conduct further study on where wind farms should be located.

Wind power turbines being erected next to a football stadium deep in the heart of Texas suggests that perhaps mainstream America is taking the idea of wind power more seriously.

Insurance Company Gets Charge Out of Alternative Energy Vehicles

2011-04-06T17:28:00.003-04:00

The Hartford Financial Services Group is betting that electric cars will become more prevalent than they are now, both in Connecticut as well as nationwide.

The insurer is installing electric recharging stations at three of its corporate campuses in the Hartford area. And it is modifying its homeowners insurance products to include several new features designed to appeal to those support "green" lifestyles.

“These new charging stations are an exciting and innovative way for The Hartford to show its commitment to Connecticut, its residents and the environment,” said Liam E. McGee, The Hartford’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Electric vehicle charging stations will soon be an integral part of the American infrastructure, both at the workplace and in the home. Installing electric vehicle charging stations and providing insurance coverage for them demonstrates our support for developing the electric vehicle market and our commitment to a cleaner environment.”

McGee's remarks came at a press event Wednesday in Harftord to promote these renewable energy initiatives. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy was among those on hand to celebrate The Hartford's announcement.

Of all the thousands of employees The Hartford has in Connecticut, only one - Ken Nelson (shown above) - already has an electric car. Nelson and his car were in the spotlight Wednesday as he demonstrated how other company employees will be able to recharge their vehicles, free of charge.

Heather Lodini, a company spokeswoman, said several other employees are on waiting lists to purchase electric vehicles because of their limited availability in the state.

In conjunction with the installation of the charging units, The Hartford is add several to its homeowners policies. Those new features include:

- Electric Vehicle Charger Coverage: The devices are now clearly included as covered property for new and existing customers that have the units in their homes.

- Green Rebuilding Coverage: Offers additional coverage for using environmentally-friendly materials or processes to make repairs after a loss that the insurer pays for. It also covers making necessary replacements with more energy-efficient or environmentally-friendly property.

Both features will be widely available by the end of the year, company officials said. And hopefully by then, Nelson will have some company at The Hartford's recharging stations.

Nuclear Power Used to Evoke Passions

2011-04-02T20:34:00.013-04:00

The daily focus on the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan makes me to wonder what has happened to anti-nuclear energy movement in the United States.

New England was once a hotbed of anti-nuclear activism, years before anyone ever heard of Three Mile Island. Anyone remember the Clamshell Alliance?

Thirty four years ago next month, over 2,000 protesters from the group occupied the construction site of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, which is shown in the distance in the photo at left.

By 1987, both of Connecticut's largest utilities - The United Illuminating Co. and Northeast Utilities - had a $1.1 billion investment in the plant, the New Haven Register reported at the time.

Seabrook opened 21 years ago last month, but not before Public Service Co. of New Hampshire was driven into bankruptcy. PSNH's bankruptcy in 1987 made it the first investor-owned utility company to do that since the Great Depression.

NU acquired PSNH out of bankruptcy court in 1990 and still owns the company.

Nuclear power will continue to be a part of our energy mix for the forseeable future. But in light of what has happened in Japan, it seems rather odd that nobody is speaking out more forcefully about nuclear safety.

Consumer Advocates Wary of Potential Merger

2011-03-29T11:09:00.004-04:00

Note: This story also appears in print editions of today's New Haven Register.

Consumer advocates are concerned that a plan to merge the state Office of Consumer Counsel into the state Department of Consumer Protection will leave resident utility ratepayers and the poor with a diminished voice.

The 14-person agency, which represents utility users in rate cases, is currently independent, even though it is located in the same New Britain building as the state Department of Public Utility Control. Under the plan put forth by Gov. Dannel Malloy’s administration, the OCC would become part of the state’s consumer protection agency and would have two of its staff positions eliminated.

“The idea (behind the consolidation plan) is to have one central place where consumers would go when they have a problem,” said John Casa, under secretary for legislative affairs at the state Office of Policy and Management. Casa was uncertain about the amount of money that would be save by consolidating OCC with the Department of Consumer Protection, but said the “short term savings will be less than what we’ll see long term.”

OCC is funded by a charge on ratepayers’ utility bills. Consumer Counsel Mary Healey (shown at left) said the agency’s funding source was designed that way when lawmakers established it in 1975, to protect it from the whim of changing political administrations.

“Every few years somebody wants to get rid of us, but we don’t waver from what we do,” said Healey who became the state’s Consumer Counsel in 2001. “We’re specialists in utility matters and we belong as an agency that’s independent.”

She said it is not immediately clear if ratepayers would continue to fund the OCC if it were merged with the Department of Consumer Affairs, which gets the money it operates with from the state’s general fund.

John Howat, a senior policy analyst the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, said the move the Malloy administration is proposing “would keep the average consumer from getting a fair shake in cases before utility regulators.” What’s happening in Connecticut with OCC is part of a national trend in which government consumer advocacy organization are having their budgets reduced, are being merged into large state agencies or are being eliminated entirely, Howat said.

“It’s critical for consumer to have an independent representative in rate cases, one that is free from electoral politics that takes place every time a new administration comes into office,” he said.

Call Luther Turmelle at 203-789-5706 or follow him on Twitter @LutherTurmelle.

Evidence That Some of Us Are No Longer in a Recession

2011-02-24T18:38:00.003-05:00

Need any evidence that the recession continues to hit some segments of our economy unequally?

Then check out Northeast Utilities latest earnings report, hot of the presses Thursday afternoon. Hartford-based NU saw its fourth quarter profits increase by 52 percent in 2010, while its full year earnings were up 17.5 percent over 2009.

NU, the parent company of Connecticut Light & Power, said Thursday that it earned $129.3 million or 73 cents per share in the fourth quarter compared to $84.7 million or 48 cents per share during the same period last year. Full year earnings increased from $330 million or $1.91 per share in 2009 to $387.9 million or $2.19 per share last year, company officials said.

"We are pleased with the performance we delivered to our customers and shareholders in 2010," Charles Shivery, NU’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Our financial performance improved over 2009 due in part to strong cost controls."

Shivery (who is pictured above) went on to say that the company's impressive earnings performance came even as energy rates paid by customers of NU's subsidiary utilities continued to decrease and at a time when approximately $1 billion was invested in strengthening and expanding its energy infrastructure in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Spending that kind of money on infrastructure improvements at a time when energy rates are going down doesn't begin to explain the company's double digit profit increases or why NU's stock hit a 52-week high earlier this month. But since Shivery didn't make himself available for comment so he could offer a more nuanced explanation of the company's performance, the reporting of your humble energy writer will have to do for now.

One reason for the earnings growth is that it came across all of NU's business segments and through all of its subsidiaries.

The company’s distribution and generation segment saw earnings increase by nearly 93 percent from $39.2 million in the final three months of 2009 to $75.5 million during the same period in 2010. During all of 2010, the company earned $206.2 million in that business segment, compared to $159.2 million in 2009.

Yankee Gas Services Co. saw its fourth quarter earnings more than double, bringing in $16.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared with $5.7 million during the same period in 2009. Full year earnings in 2010 rose nearly 56 percent to $32.7 million, compared with $21 million in 2009.

NU’s earnings were released after the close of trading in U.S. financial markets. Shares of NU’s stock trade on the New York Stock Exchange and closed at $33.17, down 13 cents from the previous day’s trading.

Malloy's Awkward Move Toward Consolidation

2011-02-09T10:31:00.007-05:00

The news that Gov. Dannel Malloy wants to merge the state's Department of Environmental Protection with the Department of Public Utility Control was delivered late Tuesday afternoon almost as an afterthought.

If Malloy is to succeed as governor and navigate Connecticut through the current economic quagmire, there's no question that it will take some consolidation at the state level. Reducing the size of state government is one way of reducing the state's enormous deficit.

But Malloy's method for unveiling this decision doesn't bode well for what the future holds of the administration, at least as it relates his ability to deliver a key message and sell it to the public.

Malloy's announcement was made via press release at the close of business for state government on Tuesday. There may have been legitimate reasons for making the announcement at that time, but even in today's 24-hour media cycle, such timing makes it difficult to get comprehensive answers about the consolidation plan.

Ben Barnes, Malloy's budget director, was supposedly made available via telephone later in the evening to answer some questions. But Malloy owes it to the public to release news of such an important plan at a time when it can be fully scrutinized in the light of day.

Unless, of course, the Malloy administration doesn't want the plan fully scrutinized at this point. And that may present a problem in trying to sell his plan to folks like Frank Panzarella.

Panzarella, who is an organizer for the ratepayer advocacy group Fight The Hike, said he is "a little leery about this new agency that is being proposed."

"I'd have to see more of the details, but my general feeling is that when you consolidate several agencies into one larger one, something gets lost and falls by the wayside because there aren't enough people to keep track of everything," Panzarella said.

Fight the Hike has supported efforts in the past by some state lawmakers and former Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to create a statewide energy authority. Panzarella said the difference between that proposal and what is now being promoted by Malloy is that an energy authority would have been focused solely on energy issues and would have had a needed level of expertise.

"Until I'm shown otherwise, I'm skeptical that Gov. Malloy's proposed agency can achieve that," Panzarella said.

Malloy said in a statement included in Tuesday's announcement that the consolidation "will allow the state to act cohesively in two vitally important and directly related policy areas, particularly in terms of economic development, siting, permitting and other issues."

“Under this new agency, we will better integrate and coordinate our state’s energy and environmental policy in order to strengthen our ability to protect the environment; to clean, conserve and lower the cost of energy; and to set the table for rapid and responsible economic growth.”

The new agency would be called the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). Malloy said the state’s energy policy will become centralized in the agency through the creation of two new bureaus: the Bureau of Energy Policy and Efficiency and the Bureau of Utilities Control. The Bureau of Energy Policy and Efficiency will be responsible for the development and analysis of energy policy as it affects all of Connecticut’s citizens and businesses through its Division of Energy Policy and Program Development.

The bureau’s Division of Government Energy Management will be responsible for the effective management of energy costs and energy usage by and within state government buildings and facilities. Existing staff from the Office of Policy and Management Energy Unit will be transferred into this bureau.

DEEP’s second energy bureau, the Bureau of Utilities Control, will be formed by transferring the Department of Public Utility Control into the agency. The DPUC will continue to be responsible for conducting management audits of the public service companies as well as scheduling, coordinating, and issuing legal notices, and conducting public hearings and adjudicating all contested cases.

Solar Energy Industry Setback

2011-01-11T17:20:00.007-05:00

New England's effort to become more of a player in the renewable energy marketplace took a hit Tuesday as Evergreen Solar, a company that received $58 million in aid from the state of Massachusetts in 2008, announced that it was closing its plant at the former Fort Devens military base northwest of Boston.

The closing of the manufacturing plant, which will occur by the end of March, will put 800 people out of work, the Boston Globe is reporting in its story.

The forces that the Globe story addresses that led to the closing can't be good news for Connecticut, which has long had designs on attracting renewable energy companies to the state.

One segment of the renewable energy market where Connecticut does have an advantage, though, is the fuel cell business. The state already has a number of well established fuel cell companies located here, like Proton Energy Systems in Wallingford and UTC Fuel Cells in South Windsor.

Inability of Connecticut Residents to Afford Utility Bills is Widespread

2011-01-10T22:21:00.010-05:00

The state's high energy costs have a trickle down effect to Connecticut's low income families and senior citizens, according to a report released Monday.

Operation Fuel's report, "Home Energy Affordability Gap" shows that the difference in fiscal 2010 between what the less fortunate in the state can afford to pay for energy and what their utility bills actually amounted to is a statewide problem, said Patricia Wrice, executive director of the Bloomfield-based organization (shown at left).

Nearly 50,000 households sought help from Operation Fuel in during the fiscal year that ended last June 30th, she said. The study found that the gap between household energy costs and what people can afford to pay was about $2,000, Wrice said.

"There's this stereotype, this perception that energy affordability is only limited to urban areas," Wrice said. "But you have some affluent communities that are hurting as well."

The 218-page report - prepared by Roger Colton, a partner with Fisher, Sheehan & Colton Public Finance and General Economics, of Belmont, Mass. - breaks out numbers on the energy affordability gap according to the state's Congressional Districts.

Connecticut's Third Congressional District - which includes such wealthy New Haven suburbs as Guilford and Woodbridge - had the largest gap in terms of energy affordability in fiscal 2010, according to the report. Of the $480.05 million statewide gap between energy costs and residents ability to pay, the Third Congressional District's aggregate share - the sum total of all its towns - is $103.88 million or 22 percent of the entire Connecticut total.

The state's First Congressional District, which includes such upscale Hartford suburbs as West Hartford and Glastonbury, fared only slightly better than the Third Congressional District. The First District's aggregate share of the affordability gap was $103.12 million or 21 percent of the total. according to the report.

The release of the report coincided with hearings on whether the state needs a energy rate aimed at low-income households and the elderly. Richard Soderman, director of legislative policy and strategy for Northeast Utilities, said many factors need to be considered before such a rate is approved by lawmakers.

"Obviously, any program that provides a discount to some consumers can result in higher rates for other consumers," Soderman said. "A larger discount or a greater the number of eligible participants will result in a more significant the impact on others."

Boston-based Energy Firm Doing Work For Six New Haven-area Towns

2010-12-21T09:54:00.009-05:00

Six New Haven area communities have hired SourceOne, a Boston-based energy management company, to achieve energy savings of at least 5 percent in each of the towns.

Branford, Durham, Guilford, Killingworth, Madison and Westbrook hired SourceOne using money from a $250,000 grant from the State Office of Policy and Management. The towns have formed a regional energy commission and applied for the state grant.

SourceOne was selected from a field of seven finalists, according to company officials. The company has a Hartford office to serve its Connecticut clients.

The company will perform the following services for the towns:

- Energy audits.
- Renewable energy assessments.
- Grant/incentive research.
- Short and long term energy conservation projects as well as project planning.

Vincent Martin (shown above), president of SourceOne, said the company will tailor its services "to meet each town’s long-term needs, as well as the requirements of the regional energy commission."

"We have an excellent track record in the New England area, and we are excited by this opportunity,” Martin said.

SourceOne manages more than 850 megawatts of electric power, 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and $500 million of utility bill processing.

Solar Panel Maker to Open Office in Cheshire

2010-12-17T17:51:00.002-05:00

A Chinese company that makes solar panels for the utility, residential and commercial markets will open its second North American office in Cheshire.

It was not immediately clear Friday where in town Solarfun Power Holdings plans to open its office, when that opening might occur or how many employees would staff the facility. The company, which is headquartered in Shanghai, announced its plans in a press release put out on Friday.

Jerry Sitko, the town's economic development coordinator (shown above), was not available for comment, on the company's plans. And members of the community's Economic Development Commission said they had not been briefed on the company's plans, although an agenda item on Solarfun Power is on the agenda for the group's next meeting on Tuesday.

"Supporting the growing North American market remains one of our top priorities," said Bruce Ludemann, Vice President and General Manager of Solarfun North America. "As the demands of the utility, commercial and residential markets continue to expand, we're working to provide customers additional access to Solarfun's high-quality and reliable products and project development support."

Solarfun also has a facility in Costa Mesa, Ca. To see a brochure on the company, click here.

Lawsuit Against State Utility Regulators to be Heard on Monday in Superior Court

2010-12-03T21:13:00.006-05:00

A Superior Court Judge in New Britain on Monday is expected to hear the merits of a citizen lawsuit against a plan approved by state lawmakers earlier this year to borrow against money collected on customers electric bills.

Judge Patty Jenkins Pittman will hear arguments from State Senator-elect Joe Markley (shown at left) that borrowing against the Competitive Transition Assessment (CTA) charge on customers electric bills amounts to a hidden tax. The CTA was created to pay for costs associated with Connecticut’s 10-year old deregulation of the electric industry

Markley, who is from Southington and was elected in November to represent the state’s 16th Senate District, filed the lawsuit earlier this year against the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC). The DPUC has jurisdiction over the charges that appear on customers’ electric bills.

"The DPUC is not a taxing authority," Markley said "What we’re dealing with now is a tax to bridge the gap in the current state budget. It has nothing to do with the electric companies any more."

The CTA was a charge to help the state’s dominant power providers, The United Illuminating Co. and Connecticut Light & Power, recover so-called "stranded cost" when they were forced under the deregulation law to sell off their power plants under the state’s deregulation law.

Stranded costs are expenses the companies incurred, with DPUC approval, whose continued recovery was jeopardized by the law that allowed customers to choose their electric supplier.
The CTA is scheduled to end when those stranded costs are paid off. That was supposed to happen this year for CL&P and in 2013 for UI.

But because the state lawmakers voted to borrow against the money collected through the CTA, "we’re now in the position of having to pay over a number of years for money that has essentially already been spent," Markley said.

"It’s a very poor precedent," Markley said. "I want clarity and transparency in government."

Joining Markley in court on Monday will be Paula Panzarella, who is representing the New Haven-based group, Fight the Hike. Panzarella has filed a motion to join as a plaintiff in Markley’s lawsuit.

"Electric rates in Connecticut are the highest in the continental United States," Panzarella said. "Customers were to get a modicum of relief when the CTA expired. Instead, the legislature renamed the charge Economic Revenue Recovery Bonds (ERRB) and decided to use the fee to cover borrowing."

Moving Toward a Renewable Future

2010-11-30T19:03:00.005-05:00

Former New Haven Register staffer Randy Flaum is now assistant managing editor for visuals at the York (Pa.) Dispatch.

Today, on YouTube, Randy posted this video of a farmer from central Pennsylvania, William Fay, who explains why he decided to install a wind turbine on his property and solar panels on his barn.
I found the video interesting, even though I haven't done any comparative analysis between the renewable energy incentives offered in Pennsylvania versus those offered here in Connecticut.

What struck me about the video that I've linked to above is that when average folks like Mr. Fay start embracing renewable energy -warts and all - it is a hopeful sign that perhaps we will see more people here in the Land of Steady Habits follow suit.

It also should serve as a reminder to our political leaders in Connecticut that the state also has a wide variety of companies doing business in the alternative energy sector.

At a time when the state is losing jobs from legacy industries, lawmakers and our new governor-elect ought to be doing whatever they can to keep moving toward to a field that has a future.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmmm.......

2010-11-29T23:27:00.004-05:00

Saw this New York Times story over the weekend and for a moment, I actually thought that maybe the folks at the Onion may have hijacked the pages of the Grey Lady for the weekend, figuring that folks were too busy shopping and watching football games to notice

But not having seen any highly publicized request by British Petroleum for a retraction to the Times story, I've reached an inescapable conclusion: Either the company is getting some colossally bad public relations advice or they've taken complete leave of their senses.

Unlike some people, I have no wish to see the company go belly up. Too many jobs are at stake, both here in the United States and around the world.

But instead of devoting financial resources to a project that has no hope of being seen as a balanced look at what happened during this summer's massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico, how about focusing the company's financial resources on improving safety measures so that something like this never happens again?

Or better yet, maybe BP should increases its investments in a variety of renewable energy projects. If executives at the company really want to change their image, that 's a good place to start.

It won't come cheap and it won't happen overnight. But real contrition and a rehabilitation of a company's image never does.

Environmental Group Calls for More Fuel Efficient Cars

2010-11-24T15:44:00.007-05:00

A report released by a state environmental group this week contends that Connecticut drivers would save $2.4 million filling up their gas tanks over the long Thanksgiving holiday if all those driving had more fuel efficient cars.

The findings in the new Environment Connecticut study are based on estimates that roughly 195,000 families will be on the road this Thanksgiving, said Joe Blass, a spokesman for the West Hartford-based environmental group. Using that number, Blass said Wednesday that the study found that motorists could save $2.4 million in fuel costs if the average car on the road got 60 miles per gallon.

As it is, with the average American car getting 26.4 miler per gallon, those same Connecticut motorists will spend $4.34 million for gas over the long holiday weekend. And 803,000 fewer gallons of gas would be used by those drivers.

"This Thanksgiving, Connecticut families should be focused on clearing their plates, not clearing out their wallets at the gas pump," said Blass. "Cleaner cars would keep roughly $12 in each Connecticut family’s wallet this Thanksgiving—enough to bring a few extra pumpkin pies to dinner."

The release of the study comes as the Obama administration is developing new fuel efficiency and global warming pollution standards for cars and light trucks for model years 2017 through 2025.

Environment Connecticut is part of a large coalition of groups urging the administration to make 60 mile per gallon cars the norm instead of the exception to the rule.
But Blass acknowledged that even with the support of Obama and other political leaders, American automakers over the last generation have been slow to growing sentiment for vehicles with higher fuel mileage.

"We think the 60 gallon per mile average by 2025 is something Americans would enthusiastically support," Blass said, citing a recent national survey in which roughly three-quarters of the people survey would support such a measure. "We will have more electric cars on the road by then, which will help increase the miles per gallon average."

The Nissan Leaf, which is expected to begin arriving at Connecticut dealerships sometime early next year, has received a federal Environmental Protection Agency rating that is the equivalent of 99 miles per gallon, it was announced Wednesday.

The Connecticut Fund for the Environment has joined Environment Connecticut in supporting the 60 mile per gallon average by 2025.

"Not only are the vehicles on our roads the largest single source of global warming pollution in the state, but emissions from passenger vehicles are a significant contributor to these increased health risks facing Connecticut residents," said Charles Rothenberger, a staff attorney with the New Haven-based environmental group. "Because so much of our State’s hazardous air pollution comes from mobile sources, CFE strongly supports increased efficiency standards. Reducing vehicle emissions with cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars is an essential strategy to reducing health threatening toxics and other pollutants in the air and placing us on a path to a sustainable future."

You can read the full report by clicking here.

Magazine Weighs In On Electric Cars

2010-11-22T10:01:00.005-05:00

In the midst of all of the hype that electric cars have been getting in the media, U.S. News & World offers this thought provoking article on why they may not produce a wide spread shift in consumer tastes the way some people think.

There are some points made in the article that I agree with, especially when it comes to price. The sticker price of these cars needs to come down a great deal over the next five years if this country is ever going to achieve a critical mass of these cars on the road.

But overall, I think electric vehicles are a good idea, provided that we keep their role in perspective.

Electric vehicles are not going to be a silver bullet in ending America's reliance on foreign oil, especially since many power plants that produce the electricity the cars will run on are oil-fired. Electric cars are but one option in what must be a long term campaign to reduce our consumption of oil.

Clean Energy Fund Offering $12.86 Million for Renewable Power Projects

2010-11-14T21:12:00.008-05:00

The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund has launched a program that will provide $12.86 million in funding to promote the installation of renewable energy generating equipment at commercial, industrial and institutional buildings around the state.

The On-Site Renewable Distributed Generation Program is a revised version of a previous program that the Clean Energy Fund had in place. The funding is issued in the form of grants that can be used to lower the cost of installing new renewable energy generating equipment at commercial, industrial and institutional facilities.

The types of technology eligible for the grants include: solar photovoltaic, wind, fuel cell, landfill gas, waste heat recovery, low-emission advanced biomass conversion and certain hydropower technologies.

"The new program funding and competitive review process allow us to build on the progress we have made to date supporting the installation of over 200 renewable energy generating systems at commercial sites throughout Connecticut," said Dale Hedman, acting president of the Clean Energy Fund. "Our support is a vital ingredient, helping make on-site renewable energy generation a financially viable option for businesses and institutions.”

The Clean Energy Fund is seeking a request for proposals from companies and institutions that would be interested in being considered for the grants. Eligible applicants include for-profit companies, not-for-profit companies, municipalities, and state and federal government agencies.

Eligible applicants can apply for funding under the “Best of Class” category or the “Public Buildings” category.

To be considered for funding, interested parties must submit their applications by Feb. 28, 2011. Final funding decision will be announced next April.

To find out more information about the application process, interested parties can take part in a Dec. 6th information session at 1 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Clean Energy Fund's office at 865 Brook St. in Rocky Hill.

New Study on Connecticut's Coastal Economy Renews Calls to Reduce Off Shore Oil Exploration Efforts

2010-11-10T10:15:00.006-05:00

A West Hartford-based environmental group is using a new report released this week renew its call for the Obama administration to permanently back away from an expansion of oil exploration and drilling off of America's coasts.

The Environment Connecticut study found that coastal tourism and fishing businesses generate $4.63 billion annually and provide nearly 90,000 jobs. And that's just a small portion of the total impact those industries have on the Northeast as a whole: These businesses generate $62.3 billion and employ over 1.15 million people.

Environment Connecticut officials say that if a spill of the same magnitude as BP's Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico were to occur in the North Atlantic, it would cover 650 miles of coastline.

“As we saw this summer with BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, oil drilling is still a dirty and dangerous business that usually brings some spilling," said Joe Blass, a field associate with Environment Connecticut . "The potential returns from offshore drilling are not worth the risk of destroying our coasts and taking away more of our jobs."

The federal government last month lifted a ban on deep water oil drilling it had put in place after the BP spill. But oil industry have accused government officials of dragging their feet when it comes to issuing the necessary permits to resume the work.

The Environment Connecticut study also claims that the annual value of tourism and fishing along the Northeast coast, including Connecticut, is nearly 12 times higher than the annual value of any oil or gas that might be found there.

“Long Island Sound is the cultural and economic heart of this region,” said Leah Schmalz, Director of Legislative and Legal Affairs for Save the Sound, a Program of Connecticut Fund for the Environment. “As this report highlights, its value not only lies in its critical ability to promote traditional New England industries, like commercial shell fishing, tourism, and trade, but also in its intrinsic value as a home to citizens and wildlife alike.”

Connecticut Utility Regulators Develop Procedure to Monitor NU Meger

2010-11-03T18:34:00.006-04:00

Despite the fact that Northeast Utilities is the parent company of the Connecticut Light & Power, the state's largest electric company, the agency that oversees regulated utilities in Connecticut won't be required to sign off on NU's deal to acquire NSTAR, which was announced last month.

That's because of the way the deal between Hartford-based NU and NSTAR - which was announced Oct. 18th - is structured, according to Phil Dukes, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control. State law only requires the DPUC to rule on a merger when "a change in control of utility occurs and the transaction involves public service companies and assets outside of Connecticut," Dukes said.

"NU isn't considered a utility," he said. "It's a holding company."

That may seem like splitting hairs to average folks like you and I, but according to Dukes, it's the way the law is written.

For those with long memories, the way the law is written would explain why the DPUC was required to act upon the proposed 1999 merger between New York's Consolidated Edison and NU. The terms of that deal would have made ConEd the controlling company, Dukes said, so Connecticut utility regulators had to rule on the merger.

ConEd abandoned the deal in March 2001 after the DPUC imposed requirements on the merger that the New York company found unacceptable.

But although Connecticut officials aren't required to act upon this latest merger - that task falls to Massachusetts utility regulators because that's where NSTAR is headquartered - it doesn't mean the DPUC doesn't care about it, said Kevin DelGobbo, who chairs the DPUC.

"With the merger of NU and NSTAR, NU will become the largest utility company in the Northeast," DelGobbo said. "It is imperative that ratepayer interests in Connecticut are protected and that the viability of The Connecticut Light and Power Company and Yankee Gas Services Company (utility companies that are owned by NU) are preserved."

Under an agreement approved by NU officials, the DPUC will receive regular presentations on the transaction, updating its status before Massachusetts regulators, Dukes said.

"Any materials they file with any agency, they have agreed they will file with us as well," he said.

All materials relating to the transaction filed with the DPUC will be maintained on a section of the the agency's website. Click here to go directly to that portion of the DPUC web site.

If the merger of NU and NSTAR is approved, the combined company will operate six regulated electric and gas utilities in three states and will have nearly 3.5 million electric and gas customers. NU will have nearly 4,500 miles of electric transmission lines, 72,000 miles of electric distribution lines and 6,000 miles of gas distribution lines.

State Gets First Look at Nissan Leaf

2010-09-27T16:22:00.005-04:00

HARTFORD - Connecticut residents will get their first look at Nissan’s entry into the electric vehicle market on Tuesday.

The Nissan Leaf (shown at left), which isn’t expected to arrive in Connecticut showrooms until the second half of 2011 at the earliest, will be on display at 10 a.m. outside the Connecticut Science Center at 250 Columbus Boulevard.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell will be on hand to promote with Nissan officials to talk about Connecticut is doing to prepare for the arrival of electric vehicles. Rell will also sign a collaborative agreement to help advance electric vehicles in the state during Tuesday's event.

The manufacturer's suggested retail price for the Nissan Leaf is $32,780.

The Chevrolet Volt is the first mass market electric vehicle that will be available to Connecticut residents. The Volt is schedule to arrive at Connecticut dealerships before the end of the year.

The manufacturer's suggested retail price for the Chevy Volt is $41,000.

Gateway Community College To Host Alternative Fuel Vehicle Event

2010-09-20T00:42:00.003-04:00

Gateway Community College's North Haven campus will host the local edition of the National Alternative Fuels Vehicle Training Consortium's nationwide, education program on Oct. 15th.

The event, Odyssey Day, is designed to help educate the public about alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles. Some of newest alternative transportation technology available will be on display at the event and those who attend will be able to get the latest information on Connecticut's innovative transportation and renewable energy projects .

Over 600 people are expected to attend, including local high school students and their teachers.
The event is free to the public

For more information, call the school at 203-285-2324.

Positive Energy Chief Executive Sued By State

2010-09-18T10:49:00.005-04:00

More bad news for Positive Energy President and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Ventura, according to a consumer affairs blogger affiliated with the New Haven Register's web site.

Ctwatchdog.com blogger George Gombossy (shown at left) is reporting that Ventura is the subject of lawsuit initiated by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's office. The lawsuit is on behalf of State Banking Commissioner Howard Pitkin to collect on a $100,000 fine that the agency imposed on Ventura more than two years ago for submitting false information on a loan application when he worked as a loan officer.

Positive Energy is a reseller of electric energy. The company is under investigation by the state Department of Public Utility Control.

DPUC Commissioner Accused of Shoplifting..

2010-09-16T17:20:00.005-04:00

The Associated Press is reporting this afternoon that Farmington police have charged state Department of Public Utility Control CommissionerAmalia Bzdyra with shoplifting.

The 52-year-old Bzdyra. who is a Wallingford resident, was charged Wednesday with sixth-degree larceny. Police say she stole $253 worth of rings and clothing at Lord & Taylor in the Westfarms Mall, according to the AP.

Bzdyra (shown at left) is one of five appointed commissioners who regulate Connecticut's utilities. Her term runs through June 2013, according to her DPUC bio.

She was released on $1,000 bond and is due in Hartford Superior Court on Sept. 22.

Byzdyra did not respond to a message left at her Wallingford home by the New Haven Register.

DPUC spokesman Phil Dukes declined to comment Thursday.

Bzdyra immigrated to the United States in 1965, after the government burned books at the school where her mother worked.

She was appointed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell to serve on the DPUC in Dec. 2008 and confirmed by both houses of the General Assembly in February 2009. Before that, she served as the deputy commissioner for the Department of Social Services as well as the chairwoman of the state’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.

Renewable Energy Rebuffed at White House

2010-09-10T12:26:00.003-04:00

Given the President Obama's stated commitment to moving this country toward greater usage of renewable energy sources, the news contained in blog entry in today's New York Times is rather curious.

Okay, granted, the idea of some guy showing up at the White House and asking them to put solar panels on the roof may have been a publicity stunt. But the folks in the Obama's administration ought to be savvy enough to know that questions don't go away when you ignore them.

If' there's a legitimate reason for not installing solar panels at the White House, then come out and say it. But I also think there would be tremendous symbolism in such a move that might spur average Americans to follow suit.

Wallingford to Get Hydrogen-Powered Vehicle

2010-09-08T19:35:00.008-04:00

It turns out that last week's news that Proton Energy Systems has reached an agreement with Toyota Motor Sales USA to bring 10 of the automaker’s hydrogen-powered vehicles to Connecticut was also good news for the town of Wallingford, where the company is based.

Proton Energy Systems has offered the town the use of one of those vehicles - 2009 Toyota Highlander (shown in photo above). Mayor William Dickinson Jr. put an item concerning the offer on next Tuesday's Town Council agenda for discussion.

Dickinson wasn't available for comment on Wednesday about how the vehicle will be used if town officials agree to accept the offer. But officials from Proton Energy are scheduled to attend the meeting to make a presentation on how the vehicle works. Proton Energy Systems makes equipment used to derive hydrogen from water.

The cars will arrive in Connecticut in mid-October, around the time that a hydrogen refueling station opens at Proton Energy’s Technology Drive headquarters, Rob Friedland, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said last week. Four of the cars will be made available for use by Proton Energy employees, while the rest will be given to a still-undetermined group of community leaders to use, he said.

The refueling station at Proton Energy, which will be solar-powered, will cost $2 million. Proton Energy and its sister company, SunHydro, announced in January that the Wallingford refueling station would be the first of a dozen that the two companies will develop on the East Coast.

Update: Mayor Dickinson says the hydrogen-powered vehicle will be used by the town's Health Department. He says the town has the use of the vehicle for a six-month period.

Network for Recharging Electric Vehicles Growing

2010-08-26T11:04:00.002-04:00

With the first consumer market electric cars scheduled to arrive at Connecticut dealerships by the end of the year, the network of recharging stations continues to grow.

Recharging stations are being developed, not only in Connecticut, but in neighboring states as well. Providence television station WPRI has this report on Rhode Island's first recharging station.

Turning the Tide for Renewable Energy

2010-08-26T10:43:00.004-04:00

When it comes to the public perception of renewable energy sources, solar and wind power get the most attention. But now some in the energy industry are exploring the value of harnessing the power of the ocean's tides.

Maine Public Broadcasting takes a look at one such project in this report. Given the amount of shoreline that the state of Connecticut has, perhaps its time to give tidal power a longer look closer to home.

Competition Promotes Energy Efficient Home Building

2010-08-24T18:31:00.004-04:00

Three New Haven area home building projects are among 17 competing in The CT Zero Energy Challenge, a program sponsored by the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund and the state Energy Efficiency Fund.

An Essex house that is being constructed by the Madison-based Celebration Development Group, a project in Madison designed by Guilford-based CK Architects and a Killingworth home being built by Consulting Engineering Services of Middletown are all part of this year's competition. The design and build competition involves both single and multi-family homes built in Connecticut between May 2009 and December 1, 2010.

Completed homes will be ranked based on a performance score determined by the presence of energy-efficient features that curb overall energy use. Winners, who will be announced on Dec. 8th, will be given cash prizes.

The Killingworth house being developed by Consulting Engineering Services is a 3,600 square foot single family home with a detached garage and barn, said George Keithan, who is president of the company.

“In addition to focusing on insulation, only the most energy-efficient appliances and lighting fixtures on the ENERGY STAR® scale were installed, and compact fluorescent lamps or LEDs were the sole types of lighting used throughout the house,” Keithan said.

The CK Architects entry is a 4,300 square foot residence with an additional 330 square feet of conditioned basement space. The Essex home being built by Celebration Development Group has four bedrooms and is just under 3000 square feet.

The state's Energy Efficiency Fund promotes efficient energy use and helps residents and businesses save on their electric and natural gas bills.

Utility Regulators Investigating Positive Energy

2010-08-13T23:32:00.003-04:00

The saga of Positive Energy just gets more interesting by the day.

The Middlebury-based electricity aggregator is being investigated by the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control. DPUC Spokesman Phil Dukes confirmed the existence of an investigation to the New Haven Register on Friday afternoon.

News of the investigation was first made public by ctwatchdog.com blogger George Gombossy in this story on Friday morning.

The curious thing about the DPUC's admission that an investigation of Positive Energy is underway is that it didn't come until after Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called for state utility regulators to look into the company on Thursday. Gombossy reported that the DPUC began its investigation last week after being contacted by a tipster that Dukes declined to name.

I can understand the DPUC not saying anything about an investigation at first.

After all, it's difficult to conduct an effective investigation into alleged wrongdoing under the glare of media coverage. But once Gombossy, whose blog appears on the New Haven Register web site, reported on Aug. 8th that the DPUC was not aware of Joseph Ventura being the president of Positive Energy until after regulators approved the company's license, officials of the state agency should have acknowledged that they had begun an investigation.

Because Ventura's name was not on the application that Positive Energy filed with DPUC in Feb. 2009 to become an aggregator of electricity, regulators had no way of knowing that the state Department of Banking had fined him $100,000 for lying on a mortgage application at a time when he was working as loan officer.

Blumenthal Wants DPUC To Investigate Positive Energy

2010-08-12T19:59:00.005-04:00

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Thursday he wants state utility regulators to investigate Middlebury-based Positive Energy for allegedly falsifying its state license application.

Blumenthal claims a Department of Public Utility Control investigation should so look into whether Positive Energy delayed and diverted contracts, potentially costing customers hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in lost discounts.

Blumenthal's petition to the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control comes just four days after consumer affairs blogger and veteran journalist George Gombossy reported that DPUC officials were apparently unaware that Positive Energy President Joseph Ventura had recently been fined for making false statements in a mortgage application when they gave the company its license to sell electricity to customers in the spring of 2009. Gombossy's ctwathcdog.com blog appears on the New Haven Register's web site,

Blumenthal said Tuesday his office has also learned of allegations from former Positive Energy employees and company investors that Ventura allegedly delayed processing customer requests to switch electricity suppliers in order divert them to another company. If true, as many as 30,000 to 40,000 consumers could have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in discounts, according to Blumenthal.

“These allegations – falsifying a state license application and delaying contracts – are serious and significant, potentially costing consumers hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in discounts,” Blumenthal said. “I urge the DPUC to investigate and take action - license revocation, restitution to consumers and monetary penalties - if warranted by the facts."

Positive Energy is licensed by the state as an electric power aggregator. That means the company buys power from electric generators and resells it at a discount to consumers.

Positive Energy investors met with Blumenthal’s office earlier this month and alleged that Ventura told customers they were signing with supplier Viridian Energy, Inc, but never actually processed the contracts, the Attorney General said. Instead, Ventura waited months until another supplier, ResCom Energy, LLC, received its state license and then signed them with that company, according to the investors.

Ventura responded to Blumenthal's petition to the DPUC with a written statement that was released via the company's public relations firm, Hartford-based Sullivan & LeShane.

“Positive Energy Electricity Supply Company, LLC is a growing Connecticut business with a base of 40,000 customers, the overwhelming majority of whom have been pleased with the savings and service they have received from Positive Energy arranging their electricity supply," Ventura said in his statement. “Despite published reports stating otherwise, Positive Energy gave full and accurate disclosure of each of its current officers and directors when applying to the DPUC to be an electricity aggregator in Connecticut. Additionally, in applying to DPUC, Positive Energy properly disclosed all relevant and pertinent information on its mission for Connecticut and the people involved in it."

Ventura said the fine issued against him by the Connecticut Banking Department "was concerning my personal mortgage loan, and at no time did it involve Positive Energy, its customers, the DPUC, or the state’s electricity market."

“The Attorney General’s allegations concerning delaying of placing customers with suppliers are based on grossly overstated information provided by a terminated employee and a disgruntled investor," Ventura added in his statement. “While we at Positive Energy are confident we can refute all of the Attorney General’s allegations, we also believe an investigation based on the allegations to date would be an unwarranted waste of the DPUC’s time and money, as well as ours. What’s more, it would threaten a growing business that provides a vital service in the emerging energy market to thousands of customers.”

According to the Sunday post on Gombossy's blog, when Positive Energy filed documents with the state's Department of Public Utility Control in Feb. 2009, Ventura was not listed as the head of the company. But by April 2009, when the company had received regulatory approval to become an aggregator of electricity in the state, Ventura was listed as the president of the company, Gombossy wrote.

The Connecticut Department of Banking in 2008 ordered Ventura to pay a $100,000 fine for lying on his mortgage application at a time when he was a mortgage loan officer, according to Gombossy (shown at left).

Negative News on Positive Energy

2010-08-08T16:31:00.013-04:00

The folks at Positive Energy may want to consider a name change.

The Middlebury-based company is offering power generation alternatives to residential and commercial customers of the United Illuminating Co. and Connecticut Light & Power Co. But there has been little positive news about the company from Connecticut's press corps this summer.

First there was the news in June that the company hired former WTNH and WVIT consumer reporter Mike Boguslawski as vice president of consumer affairs. That decision was one that I criticized in a previous posting on this blog as a questionable attempt to cash in on Boguslawski's former public recognition in the state and give the company some consumer friendly cachet that it might not deserve.

Now, one of the state's top consumer issues reporters, George Gombossy, has uncovered some embarrassing details about the company and its president, Joseph Ventura. Gombossy, whose ctwathcdog.com blog appears on the New Haven Register's web site, reported Sunday that Connecticut utility regulators were apparently unaware that Ventura had recently been fined for making false statements in a mortgage application when they gave the company its license to sell electricity to customers in the spring of 2009.

According to Gombossy, when Positive Energy filed documents with the state's Department of Public Utility Control in Feb. 2009, Ventura was not listed as the head of the company. But by April 2009, when the company had received regulatory approval to become an aggregator of electricity in the state, Ventura was listed as the president of the company, Gombossy writes in his blog.

The Connecticut Department of Banking in 2008 ordered Ventura to pay a $100,000 fine for lying on his mortgage application at a time when he was a mortgage loan officer, according to Gombossy.

Ventura has told Gombossy he is seeking to appeal the agency's fine but has declined further comment on his problems with the Banking Department as well as his not being listed as the head of the Positive Energy in the company's original DPUC filing.

DPUC Spokesman Phil Dukes told Gombossy he did not know if the agency's commissioners might have changed their approval of Positive Energy as an aggregator had they known of Ventura’s involvement with the firm or of his civil conviction. Now that Positive Energy already has a license, Dukes told Gombossy he did not believe that the license would be revoked based on the latest information uncovered about the company.

But the DPUC might want to rethink that decision. Some in the agency have privately told me that ever since he became chairman of the Department of Public Utility Control last year, Kevin DelGobbo (shown at left) has been concerned about how the public views the deregulation of electric power providers in the state.

Deregulation has proven to be controversial ever since it was rolled out in 2000. That's largely because overall electric rates in the state are the second highest in the nation, trailing only Hawaii.

On the other hand, about 468,000 consumers in the service territories of United Illuminating Co. and Connecticut Light & Power now purchase their electricity from alternative suppliers. So some people are saving money, even if those savings are based on some of the highest electric rates in the land.

But DelGobbo was concerned enough about the tactics of alternative power suppliers that in August of last year, he held a special meeting with the companies.

Officially, Dukes characterized DelGobbo's meeting with alternative power providers as a reminder of the importance of maintaining high ethical standards with the state's consumers.

“This is a golden opportunity for the industry to put its best foot forward,” Dukes said at the time. “We don’t want to see a repeat of what happened when choice came to the telecommunications industry and there were problems with slamming.”

But as someone who was a party to the meeting told me, "he (DelGobbo) basically told them there was a new sheriff in town and that they had better toe the line."

In the interest of fairness, Ventura deserves the opportunity to prove that he and Positive Energy didn't try to mislead the DPUC. But based on DelGobbo's past actions, this might be a good time for state utility regulators to take some kind of formal action that would allow them look a little deeper into the events surrounding Positive Energy licensing.

Opel International Raises $7.55 million

2010-07-22T18:43:00.007-04:00

OPEL International, which makes solar energy equipment, has completed a securities sale that brought in $7.54 million, company officials announced Thursday.

The company will use the money to increase its inventories and make infrastructure improvements that will help to meet the growing demand for OPEL International's photovoltaic solar panels and other equipment it makes that is used to produce energy from the sun's rays.

The Shelton-based company had said in June that it had hired a Toronto-based investment bank, IBK Capital to oversee the stock offering. OPEL International officials said at the time that they chose IBK Capital to serve as the lead investment bank for the offering because William White, president of the financial institution, has a long standing relationship with the company.

White raised $19 million in early funding for OPEL International between Dec. 2005 and Dec. 2007.

For more information on this story, see Saturday's New Haven Register or go to www.newhavenregister.com

An Update On Power Line Upgrades

2010-07-15T20:08:00.005-04:00

Lost in Thursday's news that The United Illuminating Co. wants to invest at least $60 million in power line upgrade projects that Connecticut Light & Power is undertaking is how those projects are progressing with very little fanfare.

The last time UI and CL&P partnered on a power line project was the Middletown-to-Norwalk upgrade that started in 2006 and became operational in late 2008. But battle over what route the project would take - and how it would be deployed - attracted in statewide attention for several years before construction started and resulted in numerous lawsuits.

This time around, the power line upgrades that CL&P’s corporate parent, Berlin-based Northeast Utilities, is undertaking have a much lower profile.

The first in a series of four interconnected power line upgrade projects that NU collectively calls the New England East West Solution is scheduled to begin construction sometime between now and the end of September, according to Al Lara, a CL&P spokesman.

The Greater Springfield Reliability Project will run between Bloomfield and Ludlow, Mass. and include 36 miles of 345-kilovolt power lines and 5 miles of new or reconstructed 115-kilovolt power lines, Lara said Thursday. For a map of the route the Greater Springfield Reliability Project will take and other information about the upgrade, click here.

Of the three other power line upgrade projects that also come under the New England East West Solution moniker, two of them are in Connecticut.

One, the so-called Interstate Reliability Project, stretches 41 miles along a winding route that goes from Willimantic through 10 other eastern Connecticut communities. The 345-kilovolt lines that will be put in place as part of this project will link with transmission line improvements being made in Rhode Island by another utility, National Grid.

Construction of the Interstate Reliability Project will start sometime next year, Lara said. For more information on the route that the Interstate Reliability Project and other details about the upgrade, click here.

The other Connecticut portion of the New England East West Solution is know as Central Connecticut Reliability Project. It calls for 36 miles of 345-kilovolt transmission lines between Watertown and Bloomfield.

Lara said the Central Connecticut Reliability Project won't be in operation until sometime in 2015. For more information on the route that the Central Connecticut Reliability Project and other details about the upgrade, click here.

A Bogus Attempt To Cash In On Bogey's Fame

2010-06-18T15:35:00.003-04:00

Middlebury-based Positive Energy, which provides Connecticut consumers with an alternative to purchasing electric power generation through Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating, must have a desperate need for customers right now.

That's the only conclusion that I can draw from the company's announcement this week that they have hired former WTNH and WVIT consumer reporter Mike Boguslawski as vice president of consumer affairs. Clearly, Positive Energy is trying to trade on the local celebrity of the man that Connecticut television viewers used to call "Bogey."

Joseph Ventura, president and chief executive officer of Positive Energy, said that initially Boguslawski will bring attention to Positive Energy offers through advertising and engaging current and potential customers.

"Bogey was an easy choice to represent the company,” Ventura said. “He has been known as the people’s advocate in Connecticut for a long time. He has a reputation for always looking out for other people’s welfare, just as Positive Energy is always looking out for our customers’ welfare.”

But as anyone who watched Boguslawski's schtick knows, the man wasn't a traditional consumer reporter in any sense of the word. And I don't mean that in a positive sense, either.

Consumer reporters are supposed to extensively research the stories that they do. That way, they can determine whether a consumer's complaint is legitimate and whether the merchant who is the subject of the complaint has a track record of anti-consumer behavior.

But Boguslawski's reporting never played it that way.

The vast majority of his work consisted of him taking a single complaint and going to merchant against whom the complaint was made. Invariably, faced with prospect of being called out on television for shoddy treatment of a customer, the merchant would make agree to resolve the problem with the individual consumer.

"Bogey" would then give the merchant an on-air pat on the back along the lines of "Good for you Acme Inc." and the close with his trademark line. "I'm Mike Boguslawski and I'm in your corner."

There's no question that Boguslawski had an audience; you don't last more than two decades in the highly competitive business of television news without some kind of following.

But his so-called "consumer advocacy" had everything to do with the cult of personality and an ability to use local television as a bully pulpit.

Real consumer advocacy is practiced by people like George Gombossy, whose ctwatchdog.com web site is affiliated with the New Haven Register and other newspapers around the state. Gombossy does his research and is tough on those who engage in anti-consumer practices; Boguslawski is like a lap dog by comparison.

But I digress from the real issue here: Why would a successful company like Positive Energy hire someone like Boguslawski who hasn't even worked in this market for more than a decade? Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it also makes people forget.

The company has over 38,000 residential and commercial customers and over 400 employees. How many more new customers can a man who is hardly a household name in Connecticut any more possibly attract for Positive Energy?

Boguslawski, who was born and raised in Bristol, said in a written statement that "people in Connecticut know Bogey, and they know what they are getting with me.”

“They are getting honesty, integrity and someone who will fight for them," Boguslawski said. "It would not be my decision to represent any company unless they represented the best option for consumers of Connecticut.”

In his job with Positive Energy, Boguslawski won't have much opportunity to fight for the consumer, unless of course the company has a lot of complaints from customers.

Let's be frank: He's there to woo them to sign up with Positive Energy and draw a salary doing so. To suggest anything else is misleading and represents the kind of behavior that a real consumer advocate would find highly objectionable.

Shelton Solar Firm Bullish Despite Economic Conditions

2010-06-04T19:32:00.004-04:00

While overall economic conditions may seem dreary, the chief executive officer of OPEL Solar says the sun is shining on the Shelton-based company, at least if interest in industrial scale power systems is any indication.

Lee Pierhal (shown at left) said interest in those systems, which OPEL Solar produces is coming from both North America and beyond.

"Since late 2008 when the credit markets first crashed, we have seen a significant increase in requests for quotes on both our solar panels and our ground-based and rooftop tracker systems." Pierhal said. "Clearly,this bodes well for both OPEL Solar, as a leading supplier of solar products and systems, and the solar power industry at large.”

The company has a $1.2 million system of 770 solar panels installed on the roof of Plainville's Linden Street Elementary school that was paid for with money from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund and a federal tax credit. But nearly three-quarters of OPEL Solar's business comes from foreign countries.

Pierhal said he believes the increased interest in the company's products is the result of the completion last October of a 330-kilowatt utility grade solar power plant in Spain and its plans to participate in a 1-megawatt project in Portugal with a renewable energy company there.

OPEL Solar uses solar energy systems that have a tracking technology, which allows the solar panels to shift as the sun moves in the sky. Some of the tracking technology is manufactured by a contractor in Derby that has added about 25 jobs last year to keep up with the demand, according to company officials.

Instead of using solar panels that are made of silicon, which is the current standard for the industry, OPEL Solar has developed a technology that uses large plastic lenses to focus the sun’s rays on cells made of the compound gallium arsenide.The plastic lenses, which can withstand high levels of heat, act like a magnifying glass in focusing suns rays on the smaller gallium arsenide cells.

Will UI Play Let's Make a Deal?

2010-05-26T19:05:00.009-04:00

Still hearing lots of chatter about UIL Holdings' $1.3 billion acquisition of Southern Connecticut Gas (SCG), Connecticut Natural Gas (CNG) and Berkshire Gas in Massachusetts.

It is a bold move in light of the current economy, especially considering the outcome of an attempt that UIL's United Illuminating Co. made about two decades ago to size up the natural gas market.

UI struck a deal with PanEnergy Corp. that gave the Texas-based natural gas marketer access to the New Haven-based company's customers, according to Al Carbone, a UI spokesman. Carbone said the deal didn't work out as UI officials had expected, although he wasn't able to explain how and when the arrangement between the two companies ended.

PanEnergy merged with North Carolina-based Duke Energy in 1997. UI and Duke Energy went into business together a year later, with the Connecticut company buying a 33-percent interest in the Bridgeport Energy power plant, a 520-megawatt generating plant.

UI sold its stake in Bridgeport Energy back to Duke Energy for $71 million in the first half of 2006.

There's no reason to believe that just because things didn't work out between UI and PanEnergy that the same thing will happen in this latest deal. But UI officials need to do a really good job selling this deal to Connecticut utility regulators.

To the average ratepayer, this deal is a story is about a comparatively small local utility getting a whole lot bigger. And bigger isn't always viewed as better by Connecticut folks; hardly a day goes by that I don't hear people wistfully talking about when SNET - Southern New England Telephone - was an independent company.

UI officials can counter with the argument that this deal take SCG and CNG out of the hands of Spanish energy giant Iberdrola and returns them to local ownership. And while there is a fair amount of political capital in that argument, UI needs to do more.

The company needs to go before the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control and offer an arrangement in which it offers to declare some kind of moratorium period on rate hikes. Make an offer that the moratorium will not just be for the natural gas utilities, but for UI's core business of distributing electricity as well.

Such an offer might seem crazy. But don't dismiss it too quickly, because there is a precedent for such a move.

The DPUC mandated a rate freeze of at least five years for water customers in Ansonia, Derby and Seymour when the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority completed its acquisition of Birmingham Utilities in 2008. Would it make a similar request of UI?

That remains to be seen, but UI could get a lot of good will from customers, regulators and state lawmakers if it doesn't wait for the DPUC to make the first move. And while good will doesn't show up on a balance sheet, it never hurts to stockpile a little of it for when times get tough.

Just ask British Petroleum.

UIL Holdings in Blockbuster Energy Deal

2010-05-25T08:28:00.009-04:00

The corporate parent of The United Illuminating Co. announced this morning that it is acquiring Connecticut's two largest natural gas utilities and a sister company from Massachusetts in a deal that amounts to $885 million.

UIL Holdings is actually paying the US affiliate of Spanish Energy giant Iberdrola almost $1.30 billion for Southern Connecticut Gas, Connecticut Natural Gas and Berkshire Gas. But as part of the terms of the deal, the final sale price will be $885 million because of $411 million in debt associated with the three Iberdrola companies.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011. More details to come throughout the day.

Use of Electric Cars Gets Boost From Israeli Initiative

2010-05-16T11:40:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to share this interesting item I found on YouTube about Israel's effort to increase usage of electric cars by its citizens. Could something like this work in America, or does the size of our country (and the lack of infrastructure) make this impossible to pull off?

State Senate Passes Energy Bill

2010-05-04T23:10:00.004-04:00

Just when you thought it was safe to believe that state lawmakers were going to squander another opportunity to make some alterations to Connecticut's energy policy, word comes out of Hartford tonight that the Senate voted 20-14 to pass a bill that might do just that.

The bill now moves to the House of Representatives, who have until the end of tomorrow's session to either act upon the energy bill or let it die without a vote.

What isn't clear coming out of the vote late Tuesday night is how much of the bill that State Senator John Fonfara, D-Hartford, and Vickie Nardello, D-Prospect, crafted remains intact.

A e-mail sent out to the media from the Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE) shortly before 11 p.m. makes no mention of some of the key elements of the Fonfara-Nardello bill, like the creation of a Connecticut Energy and Technology Authority that would replace the Department of Public Utility Control or a reduction of consumers electric bills by 15 percent.

Instead, CFE Staff Attorney Charles Rothenberger (shown above) focuses his comments on new energy efficiency standards and a program that would provide consumers to take out low-interest loans to make their home more energy efficient. Does that mean that significant changes were made to the Fonfara-Nardello bill in order to gain passage from the Senate?

We'll find out more on Wednesday as the General Assembly's 2010 session enters its final hours.

State is Highly Ranked By Fuel Cell Industry Group

2010-05-03T19:00:00.003-04:00

A Washington, D.C.-based non-profit outreach group has released a report that ranks Connecticut second in the entire country when comes to being top places for fuel cell companies to do business.

The study released by Fuel Cells 2000 ranks New York, Ohio and South Carolina behind California and Connecticut in its selection of the top five states. The organization looked at how supportive each state is in terms of policies regarding fuel cells and hydrogen and also looked at how many of the renewable energy devices are installed there.

"They all (the states that were top ranked) recognize that establishing a fuel cell-friendly climate brings environmental benefits and jobs to their state,” said Jennifer Gangi, program director, Fuel Cells 2000.

Connecticut received its high ranking because the state has high profile installations of the devices, offers substantial financial support for fuel cell power generation systems and is the headquarters for several major fuel cell manufacturers, Gangi said.

To see the full report and methodology behind the rankings, go to http://www.fuelcells.org/statereport.html

Interest in Large Scale Solar Farms Growing in New England

2010-04-05T10:07:00.004-04:00

Some interesting news out of western Massachusetts over the past couple of months regarding solar power.

Western Massachusetts Electric Co. (WMECO), a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, announced plans in mid-February for the first of a series of solar generation sites on two pieces of land owned by the Springfield, Mass.-based utility and the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority. Once completed, the solar panels installed at the eight acre site will be able to generate up to 1.8 megawatts of electricity.

Once the necessary permits are obtained, WMECO officials say they expect construction of the project will get started during the second half of this year.

A little more than a month after WMECO announced its plans, the Springfield Union-News and Sunday Republican reported that a Chicago-based developer of power projects is proposing building a 20-megawatt solar facility in a 120 acre cornfield in Monson, Mass., which is located east of Springfield and just a few miles north of Stafford, Ct. along the border between the two states.

The newspaper is reporting that local zoning officials have already approved the project. It is estimated that the project will cost between $70 million and $80 million to build and will generate an additional $400,000 in tax revenue for the town of Monson.

Of course, a lot can happen between the time plans for projects like these are announced and when they are actually scheduled to become operational. But beyond the amount of land that is needed for these projects, you have to wonder why nobody is talking about doing stuff like this in Connecticut, particularly since Berlin, Conn.-based NU is behind the Pittsfield project.

I'll try to answer that question in the coming days.

Renewable Enegy Goals Could Come at Hefty Price For New England States

2010-03-26T17:32:00.007-04:00

Officials with New England’s regional electric grid operator are projecting that it will have to spend billions of dollars to build the new transmission lines needed to bring enough renewable energy into the region if goals set by governors in the six states are to be achieved.

The New England Governors’ Conference set a goal of developing 8,500 megawatts of electricity from wind, hydroelectric and other types of renewable energy by the year 2030, officials with Holyoke, Mass.-based ISO-New England said Thursday.“

Dramatic changes in the way electricity is produced, delivered and consumed are in store for us in the coming years,” said Gordon van Welie (see photo at left), president and chief executive officer of ISO-NE.

Marcia Blomberg, a spokeswoman with the grid operator, said the report ISO-NE gave to the governors “was prepared to provide the region a general direction on what would be needed to interconnect large scale wind development both on- and offshore in the 2030 time frame.

“It was not written with any current particular project or projects in mind,” Blomberg said. “The cost estimates ... were to help provide guidance on what transmission upgrades would be needed and broad cost estimates of this transmission.”

van Welie said the region’s governors “haven’t given us any clear direction” on what they want to do if integrating renewables into the grid ends up costing that much. He said that a lack of certainty about where the region and the entire country are going in terms of energy policy could prevent companies from investing in generation and transmission projects in the future if some decisions aren’t made in a timely manner.

See today's New Haven Register for more information on this story.

CL&P Rates Dominate DPUC Calendar

2010-03-15T16:43:00.005-04:00

Commissioners at the Department of Public Utility Control have a full dance card this week as hearings on a $210 million rate increase request by Connecticut Light & Power begin in earnest.

The hearings kicked off today and will continue every day for the remainder of the week, said Phil Dukes, a DPUC spokesman. The agency also has plans for hearings at six locations around the state between now and May 21 when a draft decision is expected on the case, Dukes said.

The proposed rate increase would take effect July 1, but the utility would not begin collecting it until the start of 2011. Deferring the collection of the proposed rate increase is designed to coincide with an expected 5 percent decrease in customers’ bills as bonds associated with electric deregulation are paid off.

CL&P officials have said the Berlin, Conn.-based utility had originally intended to file a rate case in 2008, but put it off because of economic conditions in the state. But the company says it has to ask for the rate hike now because it needs the money make upgrades to CL&P’s aging distribution network.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is opposed to the rate hike, which he says will deprive consumers from reaping the benefits of a decrease in their electric bills during a tough economy.

New Transmission Line to Link Connecticut and Canada

2010-02-23T13:50:00.002-05:00

A Toronto-based transmission line company is proposing a $3.8 billion, 420 mile long underground cable to carry up to 2,000 megawatts of wind and hydroelectric power from southern Quebec to New York City and Fairfield County.

The so-called Champlain-Hudson Power Express would use high voltage direct current cable that would be buried under Lake Champlain, parts of the Hudson River and a portion of Long Island Sound before terminating in Bridgeport Harbor. Officials of the company proposing the project, Transmission Developers Inc., say the line could be operational by 2015.

"New York and New England have growing energy demands that must be addressed and this project will help meet these needs with clean, renewable power," said Donald Jessome, president and chief executive officer of Transmission Developers. "This project brings clean energy into the grid while lowering prices for consumers."

See tomorrow's New Haven Register for more information on this story.

Public, Private Partnership to Increase Presence of Natural Gas Powered Vehicles

2010-02-19T17:41:00.002-05:00

A four year, $26.8 million program involving both public and private sector money will bring 183 new natural gas powered vehicles into the state and allow for the creation of 10 fueling stations, according to an announcement made Friday.

About $12.2 million of the $26.8 million for the Connecticut Clean Cities Future Fuels Project is coming from the federal stimulus package money awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The remainder of the money is being put up by 30 businesses that are partners in the program, said Carla York, chief executive officer of Innovation Drive, the Virginia-based technology commercialization firm contracted that will serve as project manager for the program.

The program is a joint effort of all four Clean Cities organizations in the state, said Lee Grannis, coordinator for the Greater New Haven Clean Cities Coalition.

Among vehicles that will be rolled out as a result of the program are 140 taxis, with half being acquired by Metro Taxi in West Haven and the remainder by Yellow Cab in Bloomfield, Grannis said.

Other alternative fuel vehicles that will be acquired through the project include 18 heavy duty tractors by Enviro Express, a Bridgeport-based solid waste and recycling firm as well as a shuttle van by Executive Valet Parking at Bradley International Airport.

The 10 fueling stations will include several locations that will be open to the public, including one at Bradley Airport, Grannis said.

See tomorrow's New Haven Register for more on this story.

Probe of Power Plant Blast to Begin

2010-02-15T18:11:00.005-05:00

Hearings are held every weekday in the New Britain headquarters of the Department of Public Utility Control.

But very few will be watched as closely as the proceedings that will begin on Tuesday afternoon. That's when a multi-agency panel convened by Gov. M. Jodi Rell will hold its first meeting on the cause and origin of the Feb. 7th explosion at the Kleen Energy Power Plant in Middletown (shown at left) that killed five people.

The 3 p.m. hearing will be chaired by Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas. Members of the panel will include representatives from the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Labor, the Connecticut State Police, the Department of Consumer Protection and the DPUC.

“Our response to the Middletown explosion must follow two distinct but critical paths,” Rell said. “We must first identify what went wrong and then determine every measure we can take to prevent future catastrophes. The reviews must be thorough, impartial and swift. And if there are concrete steps we can take in the meantime, we must be equally swift in putting those new measures into place.”

While it may be politically expedient to reach a quick decision, it would seem to me that what's equally important is that the panel do its job right the first time. Like the debris field the explosion left behind, investigating the cause of a tragedy like this is a slow and tedious process.

A rush to judgement could ultimately undermined the public's faith in the findings the panel comes up with.

Sunday's Tragedy and Its Aftermath

2010-02-07T23:46:00.004-05:00

Building new power plants in Connecticut has never been any easy thing.

It's part of the reason that back in the 1970s, the Legislature created the forerunner of what is now know as the Connecticut Siting Council in an effort to "balance the need for adequate and reliable public utility services ..... with the need to protect the environment and ecology of the state." The idea, to some extent, was that the Siting Council would take some of the politics out of the process.

But the horrific explosion at the Kleen Energy Plant in Middletown (shown in an artist's rendering at left) is about to make siting power plants a whole lot more contentious. And those power plants that are already under construction or near completion,are probably going to be facing increased scrutiny.

NRG Energy - or more accurately GenConn Energy, the New Jersey-based company's joint venture with the United Illuminating Co. - is in the midst of building a pair of 200 megawatt power plants. One of these plants is adjacent to the old Devon Station power plant in Milford; the other is on River Road in Middletown, just a short distance from the Kleen Energy plant that was badly damaged by what officials are saying was a natural gas explosion.

GenConn's Milford plant is scheduled to be operational by June, as the Kleen Energy plant was before the explosion. The company's Middletown plant isn't scheduled to become operational until June 2011.

Will Sunday's accident push back the timetable for when the GenConn plant begins operating?

Common sense says it probably should, if for no other reason than to make sure that every precaution be taken to avoid another tragedy like the one that happened at Middletown.

But in the midst of a recession that continues to have Connecticut in its grips, there will be calls from some in the state to forge ahead with both GenConn power plants sooner rather than later.

GenConn got $534 million to build the two plants from a syndicate of nine major lending institutions that include the Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of America, financial services giant ING and BNP Paribas, a French bank. Banks that provide lending to major capital projects tend to get nervous when delays are mentioned concerning projects they are financing.

It will also be interesting to see how the Siting Council and the Legislature reacts to what happened. My guess is the Legislature will react by proposing legislation to more tightly regulate how these things are built.

All of this will be played out in the days, weeks and months to come. What's important to remember now is that building power plants can be a dangerous business.

The people of Milford don't need any reminder of that. Two construction workers died and a third was badly injured when a crane collapsed while construction of the Milford Power Co. plant was underway in Feb. 2000.

The rest of us would do well to think of that level of danger the next time we need to use electricity for something.

Utilities to Meet With Major Customers

2010-01-31T19:13:00.003-05:00

Two Northeast Utilities subsidiaries - Connecticut Light & Power and Yankee Gas - are in the midst of a series of morning seminars for large commercial, industrial and municipal customers to address how those consumer groups can better manage their energy needs.

The two utilities kicked off the series last week in Fairfield County. The final two seminars are scheduled for Tuesday in Mystic at the Hilton on 20 Coogan Blvd. and Thursday at the Hartford Marriott in Farmington, which is located at 15 Farm Springs Road.

Both seminars are from 8:30 a.m. until noon. Go to www.cl-p.com/business for more information,

Gov. Rell Weighs in on Obama's Call for More Nuclear Power Plants

2010-01-28T17:26:00.005-05:00

Part of President Obama's State of the Union speech Wednesday night called for the building of new nuclear power plants as part of a broad mix of energy sources for the country.

Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Thursday that calling for increased use of nuclear power may sound like a good idea, but making it happen won't be so easy.

"We'd be hard pressed to site one in the state of Connecticut," Rell said. "It's difficult to site when parochial interests are involved."

Connecticut is home to a pair of sites where spent nuclear fuel is being kept. Some of it is stored in a section of the former Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant site in Haddam; the rest at Dominion Energy's Millstone nuclear generating station in Waterford.

Since 2006, Rell has actively supported efforts to get the federal government to move forward with its plans for a nuclear waste repository. The U.S. government established a fund in the early 1980s to build a centralized, permanent storage facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

But the project has seen numerous construction delays and isn’t expected to be completed until 2017. Further complicating efforts to keep the Yucca Mountain plan moving forward is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has sought to block the multi-billion-dollar project’s completion.

But Rell declined to criticize Reid for his opposition to Yucca Mountain.

"I don't blame him," Rell said. "I think most people in his position would do the same thing."

Report On Electric Cars To Be Released By Environmental Group

2010-01-19T13:07:00.006-05:00

It will be interesting to see Environment Connecticut's take on electric cars and the impact the vehicles could have on Connecticut. The West Hartford-based group is scheduled to release a report on electric cars on Wednesday.

One issue I hope the group weighs in on is the availability of recharging stations for the vehicles.

Northeast Utilities announced last April that it plans to develop a network of 575 recharging stations for the vehicles in Connecticut and western Massachusetts. A company spokesman said at the time that some of the stations could be in place by this spring.

From my way of thinking, though, NU's plan is problematic in that it calls for the majority of the charging stations to be built in the homes of people who buy electric cars like the Chevy Volt (shown at left). The Volt is slated to make its market debut sometime before the end of the year.

As a practical matter, it would seem to me that it would make more sense to put a majority of the recharging stations in public places like town halls as well as near parks and town greens.

More consumers are likely to buy these vehicles if they know there is robust network of easily accessible places they can go to recharge them. That's not going to happen if you put them in people's garages or in their driveways.

Lawmakers Bet On Renewable Energy

2010-01-07T18:35:00.008-05:00

A familiar theme among Connecticut economists during the current recession is the need for the state to better position itself as center for the renewable power and energy efficiency industries.

The theory is that because the state already has a number of companies in the renewable energy business - like UTC Fuel Cells in South Windsor, Proton Energy Systems in Wallingford and the Shelton-based solar firm Opel International - building blocks are already in place for an expansion of the sector to really take off.

Whether there's any validity in this line of thinking remains to be seen. But one of the state's high powered political leaders - House Speaker Chris Donovan (D-Meriden) - is preparing to put the theory to the test.

Donovan (shown at left in a 2008 photo) announced Thursday that he has created an advisory group to work with the General Assembly to develop a strategy for cultivating new jobs in the energy efficiency and renewable power industries.

The first meeting of the Green Jobs Coordination and Policy Committee -was scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The group's members include officials from clean energy industry and representatives labor groups, environmentalists as well as from the state’s community colleges and technical schools.

Donovan's announcement of the group's creation was long on platitudes and short on specifics, particularly at a time when the state doesn't have a lot of money available to implement any new initiatives.

But let's give him credit for trying, particularly in a legislative environment where the power brokers (no pun intended) are pretty evenly divided between those who would have the state take a greater roll in dealing with the energy business and the free market types.

State Representative Vickie Nardello (D-Prospect) has been selected by Donovan to lead the new advisory group. Nardello (shown at left) also co-chairs the General Assembly’s Energy & Technology Committee, so she knows the subject matter.

You have to wonder, though, how many of the ideas that Nardello's new advisory group comes up with will actually become state policy.

Nardello's co-chair on the Energy & Technology Committee is State Senator John Fonfara (D-Hartford) and while the two lawmakers are members of the same party, they are philosophical opposites.

Fonfara (shown at left) is part of the free market crowd in Hartford when it comes to energy and his opinions could carry plenty of weight among lawmakers who are considering any recommendations coming from Nardello's Green Jobs Coordination and Policy Committee

Consumers Continue Exodus To Alternative Power Providers

2010-01-05T18:38:00.002-05:00

During a six month period between May 31 and Nov. 30th of 2009, about 23,000 United Illuminating Co. customers chose to seek new power providers in an effort to reduce generation costs on their electric bills.

That’s according to the latest data from the Department of Public Utility Control, which gets monthly reports from both UI and Connecticut Light & Power Co. During the same six month period at CL&P, 58,000 customers switched to alternative power providers, according to the DPUC’s data.

Statewide, about 20 percent of the 1.28 million electric customers in the state, or nearly 260,000, are served by alternative power providers.

Even with about 192,000 of its customers seeking alternative power providers, CL&P still purchases electricity for 1.02 million of its customers. UI still buys power for 259,309 consumers, even after having 67,649 seek out different power generators.

Connecticut lawmakers voted to deregulate the generation portion of the business in 1998. The laws that forced UI and CL&P to sell off their power plants and begin purchasing electricity on the open market didn’t begin until the year 2000.

For more on this story, read Wednesday's New Haven Register.

Changes to Rates For UI, CL&P To Begin Friday

2009-12-30T16:33:00.006-05:00

Customers of state’s two largest electric utilities will see some changes to charges on their electric bills as 2010 is ushered in on Friday, thanks t0 two separate approvals given by the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control this week.

If you’re a customer of Connecticut Light & Power, the generation charges on your electric bill will decrease between 4.6 percent and 5.2 percent starting in January, depending upon the type of service you have.

Customers of the United Illuminating Co. aren’t going to be so fortunate. Your overall bills will stay the same, even though several line items will increase.

Read Thursday's New Haven Register for more details on this story.

Decrease in CL&P Generation Rates Proposed

2009-12-16T16:58:00.007-05:00

Connecticut Light & Power is asking state utility regulators to approve a reduction in the generation service charge portion of their customers' bills.

The majority of CL&P’s customers would see a 5.2 percent decrease in the generation service charge in January if the state’s Department of Public Utility Control approves the filing made by the company earlier this week. For those customers who use about 700 kilowatts per month, the rate decrease could translate into a $7.29 per month reduction in their bills.

Mitch Gross, a CL&P spokesman, said proposed decrease in generation service charges to customers is the result of declining natural gas prices and the long term strategy the company has taken toward purchasing electricity from power generators.

"Natural gas is driving all electric costs in New England, but we’re also always watching the market, looking for the best time to buy," Gross said. "We go out three years in advance to purchase these contracts and that is paying off."

Under the deregulated generation environment in which power providers operate here in Connecticut, utilities like CL&P and New Haven-based United Illuminating change rates every six months, according to market conditions and the types of contracts they are able secure with the companies that produce the electricity.

Gross said the decrease in generation service charges reflects a six percent decrease in the cost that CL&P pays to power generators.

For more information on this story, read Thursday's New Haven Register.

An Ulterior Motive

2009-12-11T19:39:00.006-05:00

I confess that when officials of Connecticut Light & Power trotted out a study last month, produced by two Eastern Connecticut Connecticut University economists, saying that the utility "is a linchpin organization” in the state's economic growth, my private reaction to the report was more suitable for a teenager than a 49-year-old journalist.

"Well, duh, yeah," the inarticulate inner me said to myself about the study, which CL&P's corporate parent, Northeast Utilities, paid for with a $23,000 grant from its shareholders. "Tell me something I don't already."

After having fought the urge to open my mouth and say that, I asked CL&P officials if the study had any other purpose than to quantify the company's value with the state. Jeff Butler, CL&P's president insisted that the purpose of having the study done was "to educate people to the value of what this company brings to the state of Connecticut."

"The part that most people haven’t had a full understanding of before is we have a much broader impact," said Butler (who is shown at left).

David Cadden, a management professor at the School of Business at Quinnipiac University and frequent source in my stories, begged to differ. He told me that typically, the release of an economic impact report like this one comes with a corporate agenda behind it.

And just as Cadden said it would, that agenda surfaced on Wednesday.

Large portions of the ECSU study were included in a media briefing given to Connecticut journalists as CL&P announced that it will file a $210 million rate increase in January. If state utility regulators approve the rate increase on the distribution portion, it would take effect next July 1, but that CL&P would not begin collecting it until the start of 2011.

The money would be collected over an 18-month period and CL&P could not request another increase in distribution rates until July 2012, if the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control approves the plan. But the timing of the utility’s plan would wipe out the 5 percent decrease in the distribution portion of customers’ bills.

That decrease is supposed to occur as bonds that come under the competitive transition assessment on CL&P customers’ electric bills are paid off.

At this point, I'm not going to address the company's justification for the proposed rate hike, which is that it needs the money to upgrade its aging distribution network. There will be plenty of time to debate that once the company actually files its rate case with the DPUC.

But I do think it was a little disingenuous of the company to insist it didn't have an ulterior motive for developing this study.

No, CL&P didn't do anything wrong, anything illegal. But to my way of thinking, if you want your customers to think of you as good corporate citizen, you should try to be as transparent with them as you possibly can.

There's nothing wrong with CL&P using the study to build its case for approval of the rate hike before the DPUC. The regulatory agency operates like a quasi-judicial body and makes its decisions based on facts that are presented to it.

But in the court of public opinion, the way the release of this study was handled seems like an effort to soften the blow the company clearly expects to its image with customers will take as the rate hike case plays out while the recession drags on.

Connecticut Enviromental Group Rebukes Nukes As Solution To Global Warming

2009-11-27T18:04:00.005-05:00

A new report by a state environmental group claims that the money that would needed to build the nation's first new nuclear power plant in 30 years would be better spent on efforts to promote energy efficiency and power from renewable sources.

The study, by the group Environment Connecticut, concludes there would need to be 100 new nuclear reactors built in this country over the next 20 years for the amount of emission that cause air pollution associated with global warming to be reduced by just 12 percent.

Even if it were possible to have that many new nuclear plants built over the next two decades, an estimated $600 billion dollars investment that would be required to do it, according to Environment Connecticut officials. Invest that same amount of money on clean energy projects and the reduction of air pollution associated with global warming would be twice as great as the nuclear solution, according to the study.

“When it comes to global warming, time and money are of the essence and nuclear power will fail America on both accounts,” said Christopher Phelps, Program Director with Environment Connecticut. “With government dollars more precious than ever, nuclear power is a foolish investment that will set us back in the race against global warming.”

Click here to access the group's full 52-page report.

ECSU Report Says CL&P Is A Major Economic Engine For State

2009-11-16T17:25:00.006-05:00

A new report released Monday says that Connecticut Light & Power “is a linchpin organization” to the state’s economic growth, with its investments adding over 4,400 jobs and increasing its economic output by $673.5 million annually.

The 28-page study, conducted by two Eastern Connecticut State University economics professors, also says that investments the Berlin, Ct.-based utility has planned through 2012 will increase the state’s employment by 2,767 jobs and its total economic output by $354.8 million. Output is the dollar value of goods and services produced in the state of Connecticut as a result of additional spending by the utility.

“CLP has a more multi-dimensional economic impact than any other company in Connecticut,” said Dimitrios Pachis, an economics professor at ECSU and one of the authors of the study. “Here’s a company that is forward looking, a true partner of the state.”

The study was done over a two-month period using state and federal data. Pachis and fellow economics professor Jennifer Brown conducted the study working on a $23,000 grant that came from shareholders of CL&P’s corporate parent, Northeast Utilities.

Jeff Butler, CL&P’s president, said results of the study are designed “to educate people to the value of what this company brings to the state of Connecticut.

Even without the results of the study confirming it, Connecticut Business & Industry Association Economist Pete Gioia said there was never any question of CL&P’s status as a major economic engine for the state.

"All you have to do is take a look at the list of top taxpayers in every community in the state," Gioia said. "There are a lot of small towns out there that would be suffering if they didn’t have CL&P as part of their tax base.”

The ECSU study found that CL&P pays more than $71 million in municipal taxes each year, which supports an estimated 1,550 jobs around the state.

For more information on the study, read tomorrow's New Haven Register.

Public Relations Battle Over Nuclear Energy Heats Up

2009-11-16T14:56:00.004-05:00

With the nuclear power industry going all out to convince the public that Americans are ready to accept the development of the nation's first newly built nuclear power plant since the Three Mile Island accident 30 years ago, there has been limited response from those opposed to the technology.

That may be changing, however.

The Environment Connecticut Research & Policy Center is preparing to release a new report on Tuesday which claims that increased use of nuclear power "will hinder our ability to fight global warming."

Stay tuned. We will have the findings of the report as soon as it becomes available.

Feds Make Payment to Shelton Solar Firm

2009-11-05T15:39:00.002-05:00

Opel International, the Shelton-based solar power equipment maker, is $179,000 richer today, thanks to a payment from the federal government.

The company got the payment from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Treasury Department as part of a program that is using a $3 billion funding pool to make payments to companies that create and install renewable energy equipment. The award was made in recognition of a $1.2 million solar energy system that the company installed earlier this year on the roof of the Linden Elementary School in Plainville.

The system Opel officials installed at the school is the first of its kind in Connecticut, a tracking technology that allows the solar panels to shift as the sun shifts from east to west in the sky. The 770 solar panels that were installed at the school were put in place with $500,000 in grant money from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund (CCEF) and federal tax credits

Opel's solar energy system will reduce the building’s energy costs by $7,000 a year and will generate 131 kilowatts of energy, said Mike McCoy, Opel's chief financial officer.

“The direct payment by the U.S. Treasury Department broadens OPEL’s ability to fund new solar projects that will create new jobs and will make inroads for clean solar energy,” said McCoy said. “Our investments in other solar power projects also will contribute to continued growth of the U.S. economy.”

State Utility Regulators Reviewing 2010 Energy Efficiency Plan

2009-11-03T16:56:00.006-05:00

The state’s electric and natural gas utilities have submitted a plan to utility regulators that calls for spending more than $130 million on energy efficiency programs next year, a move that proponents of the proposal say would result in $580 million in energy savings.

Officials at the state Department of Public Utility Control held their first public hearing on the energy efficiency plan last week, said Jeff Gaudiosi (who is shown at left), chairman of the Energy Conservation Management Board .

The board approved the energy efficiency plan, which was developed by the utilities, at its September meeting, Gaudiosi said.

"This is the first time that the electric and the natural gas utilities have filed jointly," he said. "They used to file separate plans and before 2007, there wasn’t a plan filed at all for natural gas, although the individual gas companies did programs on their own."

Gaudiosi said he is hoping that the DPUC will rule of the energy efficiency plan before the end of December.

For more on this story, see Wednesday's edition of the New Haven Register.

United Technologies Gets Federal Grant Money

2009-10-26T16:57:00.004-04:00

EAST HARTFORD - The federal Department of Energy (DOE) said Monday that it has given the United Technologies Research Center $2.25 million to develop a technology that ultimately could be used to capture carbon dioxide emitted from coal -fired power plants.

The UTC Research Center project is one of 37 that received $151 million in funding from the Energy Department’s newly created Advanced Research Projects Agency. This is the first round of projects funded by the DOE's agency, which is receiving at total of $400 million in stimulus money to develop creative and inventive approaches to address critical energy issues using technology.

The 37 projects that are receiving DOE money were selected from a field of about 300 applicants, according to DOE officials.

The UTC technology uses synthetic enzymes to capture carbon dioxide that his emitted from the flues of coal-fire power plants.
It uses a synthetic version of carbonic anhydrase, the enzyme that is used to remove carbon dioxide from the body. Company officials believe it could be used to reduce the costs associated with capturing carbon dioxide as it comes out of power plant smoke stacks.

UTC officials were not immediately available for comment on Monday regarding how soon the technology might be ready for use.

New Report Ranks Connecticut in Top Three for Energy Saving

2009-10-21T09:50:00.006-04:00

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has ranked Connecticut third in the country in a 50-state scorecard based on energy efficiency policies, programs, and practices, according to an announcement made Wednesday morning.

California was ranked first followed by Massachusetts. Joining Connecticut and Massachusetts in the top ten were three other New England states: Vermont (sixth), Rhode Island (9) and Maine (10th).

ACEEE is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit focused on advancing energy efficiency as a means of promoting economic prosperity, energy security, and environmental protection. This is the third year that the organization has compiled the scorecard, which examines six state energy efficiency policy areas.

The areas in which the states were reviewed are:

-Utility-sector and public benefits programs and policies.
- Transportation polices.
- Building energy codes.
- Combined heat and power.
- State government initiatives.
-Appliance efficiency standards.

Steve Nadel, executive director of the ACEEE, said the impact of the current recession, "has not put a dent in the vast majority of state programs."

"Energy efficiency is the only resource that can actually reduce energy consumption while growing the economy – making efficiency the ‘first fuel’ states can use to balance their energy portfolios,” Nadel said

Former DEP Commissioner Back In Connecticut

2009-10-14T22:43:00.007-04:00

The keynote luncheon speaker at Wednesday's Connecticut Business & Industry Association energy conference was former Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy.

McCarthy was selected in March by President Barack Obama to serve as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation. McCarthy took over as head of the Connecticut DEP at the end of 2004.

She was appointed when Arthur Rocque Jr. retired after it became apparent that Gov. M. Jodi Rell would not re-appoint him to continue to lead the agency, which was facing state and federal criminal investigations at the time.

McCarthy said much of this year, the first under the new president, has been spent reworking more than 20 regulations that were put forth by former President George W. Bush's EPA. The courts, she said, have overturned the regulations because they are not legal.

McCarthy told business leaders who attended the CBIA conference that Connecticut was the place she learned that environmental regulators "need to work really closely with utilities."

"It's about doing environmental regulation that helps grow the economy and doesn't put people out of work," McCarthy said.

Consumer Counsel to Head National Organization

2009-10-14T22:08:00.008-04:00

You'd think that Connecticut's Consumer Counsel Mary Healey has enough to do fighting for the concerns of the state's utility ratepayers.

But starting next month, Healey will be taking on some new responsibilities in addition to her work for the people of Connecticut.

She will become the new president of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. The Silver Spring, Md. group is an association of 44 consumer advocates in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

Healey became Consumer Counsel in 2001, after having served as vice president, general counsel and secretary at Yankee Gas Services Co. from 1989 to 2000. She is in the midst of her second five-year term, which ends June 30, 2011

"Cash For Clunkers" Not Just About Cars Anymore...

2009-10-14T11:04:00.005-04:00

An official with the state's Office of Policy and Management says Connecticut is expected to roll out its version of the Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program by the end of the year.

Raymond Wilson , who is director of energy research and policy development for OPM, told business leaders at the CBIA conference this morning that the program is awaiting $3.4 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. The federal money will be used to provide rebates to consumers in an effort to get them to replace older appliances and with newer, more efficient models.

"Every state is designing its own program, so ours will be different than the ones in Massachusetts or Rhode Island," Wilson said.

Connecticut's program calls for rebate amounts of anywhere from $50 to $500, he said. Appliances covered under the Connecticut program include refrigerators, clothes washers, individual room air conditioners and central air conditioning units, Wilson said.

Further details of the program, which is scheduled to debut by mid-December, are still being worked out, he said.

Blogging from Connecticut Business & Industry Association Energy Conference

2009-10-14T10:52:00.004-04:00

I'll be updating the blog throughout Wednesday with information from the Connecticut Business & Industry Association Business Energy Conference in Cromwell.

Today's conference includes a luncheon keynote speech from former Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy. It also features a panel discussion with Kevin DelGobbo, chairman of the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control and State Senator John Fonfara (D-Hartford), who is co-chairman of the General Assembly's Energy and Technology Committee.

Check back through out the day for more updates....

Nukes On Ice

2009-10-03T11:29:00.006-04:00

Here's a little news that gives a new meaning to the term, "Power Play": The Associated Press is reporting that the National Hockey League's Washington Capitals have added The Nuclear Energy Institute as a sponsor.

The trade group has signed a season long deal with the team to promote the advantages of nuclear energy at the Verizon Center in Washington, where the team plays, as well as in radio advertisements. Financial terms of the deal have not been released

NEI President and CEO Marv Fertel (left) with Washington Capitals Majority Owner Ted Leonsis at Kettler Iceplex, the Capitals' practice facility, located in Arlington, Virginia

The marketing marriage between the NEI and the team is an interesting one.

As has been noted in this blog in previous posts, the nuclear industry seems to feel that the time has come to test whether the stigma of the accident at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 still resonates with the American public 30 years later.

The joint press release from the team and the NEI notes that two utilities near Washington - Constellation Energy in Baltimore and Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Energy, which owns the Millstone nuclear plant here in Connecticut - have filed permits with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build new nuclear energy facilities.

But in partnering with an NHL hockey team, the NEI is hedging its bets.

In terms of public popularity among the nation's sports fans, the NHL runs a distant fourth behind the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. And the Capitals have finished in the lower half of the league's 30 teams in terms of attendance in all but three of the last eight seasons (the NHL didn't have a 2004-2005 season because of labor issues between the players and the teams).

So what does that mean for the NEI?

Well, for starters, it probably means that their marketing deal with the Capitals cost them a lot less than if they had tried to strike a deal with the Washington Redskins of the NFL. It also means that the NEI has limited the potential fall out from those opposed nuclear power, although the AP reports that the environmental group Greenpeace has already weighed in on the marketing partnership.

Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for the Washington-based organization, told the AP that the group doesn't want sports teams being used to "greenwash" nuclear power, which it believes isn't a solution to global warming. The group says nuclear plants take years to build and methods of disposing nuclear waste haven't been developed.

"There are real solutions to climate change, unfortunately, nuclear isn't one of them," Riccio said.
"If you want to actually address climate change in a meaningful manner we need things that are fast and affordable. You're not going to see a new nuclear reactor for another decade; how is that supposed to abate climate change?"

A New Course For A New Technology

2009-09-25T19:40:00.005-04:00

One of the new courses being offered at Gateway Community College this fall is an introduction to alternative fuels technology.

The course offers a broad overview of of sustainable energy, green technologies and advanced technologies for the automobile. It also covers issues involving renewable fuels like bio-diesel and ethanol.

The launch of the course this semester is part of an effort to create a new stand-alone alternative fuels certificate program next spring. Gateway already offers an alternative fuels vehicle certificate program.

The launch of the stand-alone alternative fuels program is being funded as part of a $2 million grant that was awarded to Connecticut's community colleges at the beginning of this year to deliver education and training to students so they have the skills needed to enter careers in growing fields of employment.

“This new certificate initiative demonstrates that Gateway is committed to being part of the solution to today’s environmental and global resource challenges and dedicated to being a leader in this important and growing educational area ,” said Anthony K. Rish III, an assistant professor and lead instructor for Gateway's alternative fuels vehicles program.

Shelton Firm's Solar Project Shines

2009-08-24T10:25:00.006-04:00

Officials of Opel International, the Shelton-based solar equipment maker, are reporting a milestone in one of the company's European joint ventures.

Opel International and its partner in Spain,
BETASOL, announced the completion last week of the second phase of a four-phase, 440 kilowatt utility grade solar photovoltaic power plant in that European country.

Opel International’s tracking solar panel technology is deployed on a four-acre site, according to company officials. The tracking technology allows solar panels to shift as the sun moves from east to west in the sky; and at the location in Spain, there are 20 tracking solar panels per acre.

Here's a look at the kind of solar panels Opel International is deploying:

The balance of the installation is expected to be done during the third quarter of 2009, according to company official. When the project is fully completed, it will supply electricity to over 350 households.

Opel International has now shipped roughly $1 million worth of its solar panels to the grid field installation, which is located in the Tarragona region of Northern Spain.

The solar farm will be sold to investors that specialize in the power business. That is the point, according to company officials, at which the total value of the solar panels included in the Spanish joint venture will be included as revenue of Opel International's balance sheet.

"OPEL continues to focus on completing the multiple phases of our first Spanish installation, growing our sales force to take advantage of a variety of new opportunities and driving down the cost of our products,” said Michael McCoy, the company's chief financial officer.

For more information on Opel International, go to www.opelinc.com

Well, We're Movin' On Up.....

2009-08-13T16:54:00.013-04:00

A select group of Northeast Utilities employees can be forgiven if they can't get the old "Jeffersons" theme song out of their heads this weekend.

That's because 167 members of the utility's financial and executive staff are leaving NU's sprawling corporate campus over looking the Berlin Turnpike and heading for Hartford.

The NU staffers who are being relocated will spend their last day in Berlin on Friday and will report to work in Hartford on Monday, according to company officials.

The new headquarters (see photo) is located near the new Connecticut Science Center in a 93,000 square foot building at 56 Prospect St. that was formerly occupied by insurance giant The Phoenix Co. Company officials announced the relocation plan last September, but the details of the move had been in a state of flux since then.

At one point, NU officials were contemplating doing the move in two phases, but ultimately decided against that.

For more details and reaction to the move, see Saturday's New Haven Register business section.

Is the "Smart Grid" a Dumb Idea?

2009-08-05T19:10:00.005-04:00

Let me start by saying that I don't believe that you can ever have too much information when it comes to making important decisions.

And that's what the "Smart Grid" movement that is sweeping this country is all about, according to proponents. Smart grid technology refers to devices that transmit real-time price information for electricity or sends some other kind of signal directly to consumers, allowing them to determine how to use energy more efficiently.

"A lot of customers don't have a clue what their bill is going to be until it arrives," said Joe Thomas, The United Illuminating Co.'s vice president of client fulfillment. "With Smart Grid technology, we could set it up so a customer would receive and e-mail when the amount of electricity they've used reaches $100."

UI is seeking a $37.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help fund improvements to its distribution network. If it gets the grant, the New Haven-based utility would match the federal money with an equal amount of its own to upgrade its Smart Grid capabilities.

But while smart grids have become a media buzz word, some fear that the technology might reach too far into our homes and businesses, ultimately taking control of decisions that should reside with the individual consumer.

"My concern is it’s a step towards having the RTOs (Regional Transmission Organizations like grid operator ISO-New England) tell us when we can run things,” Robert Beaumont, chairman of Wallingford's Public Utilities Commission, said last month. “I see the feds pushing this and I’m skeptical.”

Beaumont is not alone in his concerns.

A plan announced last month by Northeast Utilities - one which is seeking grant money from the same pool at the Department of Energy - is drawing criticism from Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

The NU plan calls for the utility's Western Massachusetts Electric Co. subsidiary to launch a pilot program that would have some low-income customers pay for electricity in advance, while others would be charged a premium for any power used beyond 300 kilowatt hours per month. WMECO wants to launch the program, which is currently before utility regulators in Massachusetts, sometime next summer.

But even as Smart Grid opponents say "don't believe the hype" that comes with the technology, its supporters say the criticism is misguided. Smart Grid supporters say any suggestion that the widespread use of the technology is another step toward a society in which the government knows and sees our every move - a la George Orwell's "1984" - is nothing more than fear-mongering.

"We need to step back from the hype surrounding Smart Grids," UI's Thomas says. "We do monitor home owners systems now and all we're trying to do (with the grant money) is build upon the partnership that we already have with customers. But if they don't want to make use of the information that the technology can provide, well, ultimately it's their call."

UI began upgrading its distribution network about six years ago, Thomas said, and already has some capabilities that would fall under the Smart Grid definition. For example, the company is already able to remotely read its customers' electric meters twice a day, he said.

The next step, he said, is interactive communication that allows the utility and the consumer to communicate in real time.

As part of its $75 million Smart Grid upgrade plan, UI wants to install 80,000 advanced technology meters in some of its customers' homes that would allow for such two-way communication, Thomas said. The utility also wants to install 15,000 high-tech display systems in homes, he said.

The displays systems "would tell you how much electricity you are using and how much it costs, all in real time," Thomas said.

Part of the Smart Grid improvements the utility is proposing are designed to prepare UI's distribution network for the consumer launch of electric-powered cars, said Joe Ballantine, associate vice president of business strategy & development with UI.

That phase of the upgrade is expected to be ready for use sometime before the end of 2012, he said. The Chevy Volt, one of the nation's first electric cars available via the mass market, is scheduled to make its debut late next year.

"You need to have a smart grid that recognizes when a customer is plugging their car," said Ballantine. "They take a lot of current and there could be a problem if you and your neighbors all try to plug in at the same."

I try to be open to new technologies. But I'll be honest with you: I would find the idea that someone would know when I was recharging my electric car to be a little creepy.

So it would seem to me that if the Smart Grid technology is to be successful is this country over the long haul, one of the hurdles that will have to be overcome is convincing the average consumers that Big Brother isn't watching.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm......

2009-07-31T19:16:00.005-04:00

Our friends at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) released the results of a new survey on Friday, designed to show that 30 years after the accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island power plant, Americans feel confident about the safety of the power source.

Well, make that Americans who have nuclear power plants in their backyards.

The results of a survey done in mid-July that polled more than 1,100 adults living within a 10 mile radius of an active nuclear power plant found that:

- 84 percent of Americans living near nuclear power plants favor nuclear energy.

- 90 percent view the local power station positively.

- 76 percent support construction of a new reactor near them.

- 88 percent give the nearest nuclear plant a “high” safety rating.

“The familiarity, comfort and support of those living near nuclear plants is reflected in this survey, and they are enthusiastic about the possibility of new plants being added to the existing sites for the obvious economic and environmental benefits,” said Scott Peterson, NEI vice president for communications.

While these results are designed to sway public opinion about nuclear energy, they should hardly come as a surprise.

Think about it: Anyone who has even the slightest concern about the nuclear energy who lived near an active plant would have moved away years ago. There hasn't been a new nuclear plant built in this country since the Three Mile Island accident occurred.

And while the NEI survey excluded electric company employees - who might either work at the local nuclear plant or could be predisposed to have favorable opinions regarding the energy source - it also isn't a revelation that people living near these types of facilities might support a new one being built near them.

After all, a power plant of any kind is usually a major employer and taxpayer in the communities in which they are located. And with the escalating cost of oil and natural gas that is used to run fossil fuel-driven generation plants, nuclear power looks better by comparison.

So with license applications for more than 25 new nuclear plants currently pending before the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it begs the question: Can a majority of Americans can put the specter of Three Mile Island behind them?

To some extent, I think it depends upon what happens with the debate over the nuclear waste repository that has been proposed for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The Associated Press reported Friday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he has been assured by the Obama administration that it will seek to eliminate funding in 2011 for a review needed to open the nuclear waste site, which is located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Obama opposes the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump, and Energy Department officials have said it's the administration's policy that Yucca Mountain would never be used.

But the licensing process continues, although on Wednesday, the Senate voted to cut funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's review to $29 million in 2010. The president had requested $56 million.

Obama administration officials have said a commission will be appointed to find alternatives to Yucca Mountain, which according to the latest estimates

If the Yucca Mountain repository plan really is dead, it seems to me that it doesn't make much sense to increase the number of nuclear power plants in this country, thereby exponentially increasing the amount of nuclear waste. But a couple more years worth of increases in energy costs might be a game-changer in terms of public opinion.