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(11:45) Moderator: Steve Fontana: Connecticut House of Representatives Representative Steve Fontana spoke about the interface of government and businessy. In particular he discussed how policy framework changes as industry evolves. He explained how government doesn’t do a good job of thinking long-term due to high turnover rate. Hence, the government. can’t do long-term energy too well. “Thankfully we’ve got a lot of good people in the private sector working on this”. Because the area is evolving so rapidly he believes that we need to be able to respond quickly. However, we haven’t done that yet (12:05) Michael Jacobs: VP at UPC Wind Jacobs began by giving a background on the wind industry, which currently provides 10 million to 1 billion dollar investment opportunities. He explains that the wind turbine is “The largest machine ever built by people” on the electricity supply system. Over half the consumers in the US live in states that have public policies enacted for supply and sale containing renewable energy. But, being state by state regulation, there’s boundaries. There’s a low barrier for entry for companies in the Midwest, but many companies aren’t prepared to move over there. On the prime areas, there’s limited transmission capacity.
Renewable portfolio standards encouraging discussion about building new infrastructure to accommodate renewable energy. This is new discussion, over the past few years.
Short outcomes is that there tends to be a lot more interest in building in certain areas then there is need for it, until you can connect these areas to other grids. (One area is part of Maine). “Wind is the canary in the coal mine:” if the markets won’t work with wind chances are that it won’t work with whatever comes next.
(12:20) Berl Hartman: CoFounder of NE chapter of Environmental Entrepreneurs and Co-Chair of the Policy Committee for the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC) “POLICY!” Policy makes or breaks your company from the start, deciding whether you can even get funding. “It’s up to all of us to lobby and advocate to make the right thing happen.” She predicts that we’ll see a huge jump in clean energy opportunities. Using refrigerators, she made the point that if you enact standards for emissions and energy consumption, firms will meet them and find a way to make a profit. Incentives can work too to drive adoption. So, “when the policy framework is right, good things happen.” For startups, she offered the advice to join trade associations, participate in advocacy groups, and to lobby local, state, and federal representatives.
(12: 35) Fred Zalcman: Director of Regulatory Affairs of Eastern States at Sun Edison Sun Edison is currently the nation’s largest solar energy services. Energy provider Sun Edison started the power purchase agreement, which means they build, own, and operate the solar energy system, then sell the power back to the customer. This eliminates the need for the host site to accrue upfront capital and technology risks. He’s confident Sun Edison services will be approaching grid parity (comparable to the investor owned power plants) within eight years due to increasing fossil fuel costs and decreasing solar costs. Economies of scale certainly help. In the initial years, they need policy support especially in the fields of utility rates, interconnecting the grid, net metering, and entry incentives. Utility rates in particular put the mainstream companies in opposition to clean energy, as it takes away their revenues (using energy efficient lights, even). So, policies need to be realigned. Those “four pillars” for policy support are essential.
(12:55) Joe Mead: World Energy In the field of Biodiesel, there’s a triangle of government, petroleum, and agriculture, a very volatile combination! World energy manages the three of them at their intersection. Using the chalkboard and a fantastic amorphous map he demonstrated how the global agriculture and petroleum markets interact. All the different governments work to do what’s best for their own countries, enacting taxes on their imports/exports and subsidies. The EU and Germany do well with mandates and tax effectiveness. Currently, you could use Argentinean soil, blend in US, ship to EU for use—Not effective! The policies aren’t coordinated, and World Energy faces the challenge of matching the various frameworks. A global supply chain results in a large tangled web where one national disruption has an effect nationally.
- Peter
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