OMPA transmission, 03/2013, v.23 no.3

              MARCH 2013 - VOL. 29 NO. 3
(Continued on page 2.)
by Maria Gallucci, InsideClimate News,
January 23, 2013
Boulder could soon be on a long-fought path
to break from utility Xcel Energy, control
its own electricity and ramp up clean power.
But obstacles await.
For the past decade, the people of Boulder,
Colorado, have pursued an elusive goal:
getting more clean energy into their grid.
To do so, they pushed and prodded utility
company Xcel Energy to give them a say
in electricity decisions.
But nothing satisfied citizens and
politicians, so several years ago they
organized themselves into a movement
for "municipalization," in which the city
would split from Xcel and become its own
utility. In April, the City Council is expected
to vote in favor of pursuing the controversial
idea, putting coal-heavy Boulder on the
vanguard of efforts to break the monopoly
of corporate utility companies.
"Somebody has to stick their neck out and try
this," said Boulder Mayor Matt Appelbaum,
who believes Boulder will inspire other
cities. Already, residents in Minneapolis
are preparing a ballot measure by November
for municipalization, and advocates in
Santa Fe, New Mexico, are not far behind.
Under municipalization, cities take over
utilities' local electricity operations. They
buy the wires, substations and meters,
run the electrical grid and select which
power plants will supply their power.
Most Americans get electricity from mainly
fossil fuel-generating plants, usually owned
by large utilities. Breaking away theoretically
gives cities freedom to add as much clean
energy as is technically and financially
possible.
Boulder likely to adopt its own green utility - and risks of going solo
While some 2,000 municipal utilities exist across
the United States, only half a dozen were formed
in recent years. Boulder's would be the first
established to increase clean energy and combat
climate pollution.
Xcel, which operates in eight states and opposes
municipalization, denies it's blocking clean
energy development in Boulder. The firm is
on track to meet an aggressive state requirement
that utilities get 30 percent of their energy from
renewables by 2020, and it has long been the
nation's top wind provider.
"We have always believed that we can help
Boulder reach its goals quicker, faster and
cheaper with us" rather than through
municipalization, said Jerome Davis,
Xcel's regional vice president for Colorado.
But the fight is about more than just reaching
renewable targets, according to Boulder Deputy
Mayor Lisa Morzel, a vocal proponent of
municipalization. The goal is to "decentralize,
decarbonize and democratize energy," she said.
In Germany, those same ideals inspired
a 2000 federal law that let citizens produce
their own clean power and compete with
utilities, helping turn the country into the
world's biggest solar market.
Boulder's circumstances made it fertile soil
for the effort.
The city of nearly 100,000 people is one
of the most politically progressive and
Democratic in Colorado. It also boasts
an unusually high number of climate and
environmental scientists and energy experts
working in nearby institutions, including
the National Center for Atmospheric
Research and the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory.
Those citizen experts became the backbone
of the municipalization movement, volunteering
to carry out feasibility studies and educating
the community to win residents over.
Alison Burchell, an environmental geologist and
one of the movement's founding leaders, said
she and others revved into action in the early
2000s when they became frustrated with Xcel's
continued investment in coal. The utility gets
60 percent of Colorado's electricity from coal
plants, more than the national average of about
40 percent. About a quarter comes from natural
gas, 12 percent wind energy and the rest from
nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, oil and biomass.
In 2002, Burchell helped establish a volunteer
working group to figure out a long-term
renewables and energy efficiency plan for
the city. The City Council adopted many
of its recommendations, including its first
greenhouse gas
reduction goal of
7 percent below 1990
levels by 2012, which
it still hasn't met.
Renewable energy advocates protest against
Xcel Energy at the Colorado State Capitol.
Credit: Community radio for northern Colorado