Green (renewable) Energy For Lowell Light & Power Customers

I just spent an informative hour with Steve Donkersloot, the General Manager of Lowell Light & Power.  (Steve is the tallest person in the picture of LLP people above. ) We got together because I had lots of questions about Green Energy in Lowell, so Steve invited me over. Let me share some of the high lights with you of all the things I learned.

First, let me brag a little. The State of Michigan has mandated that all electric utilities acquire 15% of their total energy from renewable sources by 2021. Steve told me this morning that as of right now, LLP is on track to be at 20% or slightly more by 2020. Fantastic, they are on course now to go above and beyond the State requirements by exceeding the target number SOONER. Win - win.

Another great part of the above equation is that all of LLP customers who are so inclined can help that number get higher faster. There are about 2,300 residential and 500 commercial customers of LLP. Any or all of us can designate how much green energy we want to power our home and/or business. It is called the Lowell Light & Power Voluntary Green Pricing Program. It will ad a slight increase in cost to your bill, but for the average home it should be $5 to $10.

Here is the link to sign up. You will need your LLP customer number. It will cost about .01 per kilowatt more than your current rate. Click Here:  Voluntary Green Program

On a personal note, I signed up our business, Chimera Design, and later our home with a similar program through Arcadia Power. I am in the process of canceling my accounts with Arcadia, so that we can sign up through the Voluntary Green Program at LLP. Whoo-hoo! UPDATE: Cancelled Arcadia and signed up with LLP Voluntary Green Program. For our business, the difference to go to 100% green energy will cost between $6 and $11 a month - the summer months with the AC running represent the bigger number. We will happily do this to promote green energy in Michigan.

Another fun fact - all of us using LLP's residential service pay approximately 25 to 35% less than customers of Consumer's Energy. Steve monitors Consumers every month and plugs the data into a spread sheet. The cost per kilowatt available on the grid constantly changes - changes happen depending on the month, day, and even on an hour by hour basis, so that is why I wrote 25 to 35% above. So even if you sign up for Green Power and pay a wee bit more, we will be paying LESS than a Consumers Energy customer.

Steve and his Board of Directors are constantly looking into how to integrate more green energy into the mix for LLP customers while at the same time keeping costs the same or lower. Here is another cool thing I learned this morning. Once upon a time the Village of Lowell owned the dam on the Flat River north of town and that dam generated the electricity for Lowell. The dam still generates electricity, but the City sold the dam back in the 70's. The present owner has not done much to improve the efficiency of the dam - they have not updated the equipment. A couple years ago LLP looked into getting electricity from the dam and unfortunately the rate the owners needed to have was about double the cost of the current Green Energy sources (a combination of methane gas from landfills as well as wind and solar) that LLP uses though membership in the MPPA (see below). Rough numbers for the current green power is about .04 cents per kilowatt vs what the dam owner wanted, about .08 cents.

Steve got to listen to me get all excited about the solar powered parking lot at MSU. If you are not aware of it, take a look here: MSU Solar Parking. 

Can you imagine if we had this kind of thing for the parking lots in Lowell? We could generate green electricity as well as keep cars cooler in the summer and protected from rain and snow.

Besides looking at the dam on the Flat River, LLP has explored other possibilities for some green energy sources located in or around Lowell. Up to this point, building our own has been a little bit cost prohibitive compared with the green energy LLP can purchase through their membership in the MPPA - Michigan Public Power Agency, which is made up of utility companies owned by municipalities like Lowell. (Lansing, Grand Haven, Zeeland and others.) However, Steve is well aware of the cost of solar power continuing to get lower and lower. At the same time, solar power is becoming more and more efficient which is great news for people like us who live in states that are not drenched in sunlight. We might be getting near the point where the cost of constructing something like solar parking structures could get done with no rate increase or a small enough one to not cause hardship for LLP customers.

More good news: LLP is on the cutting edge of the technology any one of us would need in order to put solar or wind power at out homes or businesses. Remember when LLP switched over to Smart Meters? Well, those smart meters are the very thing needed in order to create the future of electricity - which in my opinion will be made up of customers who will generate electricity and feed it into and take it back out of the grid (kind of like how the internet connects all with information that we can add to or take from at will). So if Julie and I get solar on the roof at Chimera, the smart meter will make it easy for us to put power into the grid - like on days when we are closed - as well as pull it from the grid on a cloudy, hot day with the AC running non stop.

Speaking of that - if YOU are interested in having solar or some other green energy production method at your home or business, Steve would like to hear from you. He and I discussed how Consumers Energy is offering solar to its customers with no up-front cost. We all know that they solar panels have to paid for by someone, so he is looking into how Consumers is funding the program.

Anyway - if you share my desire to see more green energy powering your home or business in Lowell, there are a couple things you can do RIGHT NOW. First, go sign up for the Voluntary Green Program - CLICK HERE.

Secondly, let Steve Donkersloot know of your interest. He is very open and receptive to Green Energy. Maybe if enough of us express an interest, then we can over come the cost hurdle - who knows? Anyway, here is Steve's email (shared with his permission) sdonkersloot@lowell-light.org.

Steve and I will be meeting again in the future. If you have any questions or comments - let me know and I will find out what I can.