PHOTON International The Photovoltaic Magazine

Solar program still at issue in last stages of Colorado RPS design

Nearly one year after Colorado voters passed Amendment 37, requiring the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to conduct a proceeding to detail how the state would implement a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) mandating that 15 percent of electricity generated in the state come from renewable energy by 2015, two camps have emerged with diverging program design proposals (see PI 12/2004, p. 36).

	© Burdick Technologies Unlimited (BTU)
Coaching: Tenacious Colorado utilities still need some lessons on PV benefits. Pictured here is a Uni-Solar PV system on the Yellow Brick School in Aspen.

Part of the contention continues to concern the requirement that 4 percent of the RPS to come from solar. After a summer of hearings, it's now up to the PUC to determine which camp more clearly speaks the will of the voters, who bypassed a stalemated legislature and set the process in motion. The PUC has until March 31, 2006, to complete the process, but is widely expected to issue rules this year.

The two camps – on the one side renewable energy trade associations and advocates, on the other the regulated utilities Xcel Energy and Aquilla – have achieved consensus on net metering and interconnection standards. But on a host of other issues, including the solar program, they remain miles apart. Already municipal utilities in the state have pealed away from the solar requirement, reducing the expected impact for PV from 61 MW to just 48 MW (see PI 6/2005, p. 51).

The PUC, it appears, is in a position to do damage control, or set the solar program up for failure, according to Core37, an ad-hoc group made up of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association, Vote Solar, Western Resource Advocates, and others. In comments filed after the last PUC hearing on Aug. 29, they wrote that the utilities would undermine the solar mandate by proposing no cap on administrative costs, suggesting that they themselves administer the solar program in addition to »hard-wiring the retail rate cap to ensure inadequate funding.«

Xcel, which covers about 70 percent of the state's electricity demand, maintains in its proposal that it should be able to count certain renewable projects toward the RPS, but not be required to count the benefits they provide in determining the impact on electricity rates. According to Eric Guidry, energy program staff attorney for the Western Resource Advocates, the benefits, if calculated, would help fund the solar program. Having a cap on administrative costs would also assure that money toward the solar program not be wasted, and having a third-party administrator would assure that the utility would not be able to cover up bloated internal costs, says Guidry.