Connect The Energy Dots

SEARCH BLOG: ENERGY

The sunlight is free. The wind is free. Energy from the sunlight and wind is not free.

From the Detroit Free Press:

DTE, Consumers may hike electric rates by 11%

Unless state regulators step in, Michigan's two major utilities may raise residential electric rates.

The typical Consumers Energy household could pay 11% more starting in May, adding $10 to the monthly bill.

Beginning in July, Detroit Edison's average household could pay 11% more, or about $7 more per month.

The rate hikes can take effect automatically under a new state law if the Michigan Public Service Commission doesn't act within six months of the requests being filed.

From the Michigan Government site:

Granholm Says Denmark Experience Demonstrates New Energy Economy Can Create Jobs

LANSING - In her weekly radio address, Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today highlighted a partnership with Denmark that will allow Michigan to explore new development and share experiences in the areas of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and job creation.

Granholm said that Michigan's agreement with Denmark will strengthen our ability to collaborate with a country that has moved to the forefront of renewable energy technologies and put people to work in the process.

"Denmark leads the world in wind power technology, an industry employing 20,000 people in a nation with half Michigan's population," Granholm said. "We understand how a new energy economy can be a source of increased innovation and job creation. In fact, the Center for American Progress calculates that Michigan can create 60,000 new jobs by investing in wind, solar, biofuels and energy efficiency."

Granholm underscored some of the steps that Michigan has implemented, from putting in place a Renewable Portfolio Standard to initiating the nation's most aggressive tax incentives for research and development and manufacturing of batteries,.

"At a time when our economy is challenged and job losses continue to dominate the news, it's important to remember and to continue to invest in the steps that will diversify our state's economy and create jobs, all kinds of jobs for all kinds of people," Granholm said.

From The Detroit News:

DTE sees 280 wind turbines in Thumb's Huron County

Associated Press

BAD AXE -- The skyline in Michigan's rural Thumb could look a bit like historic Holland a few years down the road under DTE Energy Co.'s announced plan to install 125 wind turbines in Huron County by 2015 -- and 280 within two decades.

DTE Energy officials told Huron County commissioners the company must add 1,200 megawatts of green power to meet the state's new energy mandate. State rules require utilities to provide 10 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2015.

The Huron County wind turbines eventually could provide 4 percent to 4.5 percent of the company's total power, DTE says.

The Detroit-based utility now generates about 1 percent of its power from renewable energy sources, said Grady Nance, manager of DTE Energy Renewable Energy Development. He said DTE's goal is to have about 3 percent of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources by 2012.

"We're going to be running hard to do that," the Huron Daily Tribune quoted him as telling the county board March 17.

State law requires DTE to buy at least half of the remaining 9 percent of total power that has to come from renewable energy sources from a third party. DTE says it seeks to produce the other half of the renewable energy from its own projects.

It said it will do so primarily through commercial-scale wind projects and some smaller solar projects.

"We will have about 565 (megawatts) of wind energy on our own" in Huron County by 2028, Nance said.

DTE has about 55,000 acres of land easements signed, with about 7,000 more acres under negotiations, according to The Saginaw News.

In response to questions from commissioners, DTE officials said the utility expects to cap the renewable portion of its generating capacity at 10 percent. That's because green power still costs more than power from coal and nuclear plants.

DTE said construction should create about 200 jobs, with groundbreaking expected in 2011.

The way to improve a distressed economy is to:

• Raise energy costs for businesses and consumers
• Use a model of a highly subsidized energy system as the basis for designing future energy resources
• Require a primary energy provider to use uneconomical methods of power generation or buy the power from other providers and pass the higher costs on to business and consumers

Three dots... not so hard to connect.

..