I sat down recently with native Ohioan Frank Andorka, a well-known journalist who covers solar and clean energy, to discuss the progress and possibilities of Midwest solar. The topic: How can we help utilities, businesses and universities develop more solar?
While the Midwest has often been an overlooked region for solar, the times they are a-changin’. The list of our own utility and commercial/university projects under construction (as well as the hundreds of residential and small commercial installations undertaken by our supply partners) represents both a big step in solarizing the Midwest and positive momentum for Inovateus’ plans to grow into a top-tier developer, EPC and supplier.
We’ve got an exciting lineup of in-progress and upcoming projects. At the top of our list sits the 58 MWDC Lapeer project in Michigan, which will be the largest solar farm in the state when it’s completed within the next few months. The 7 MWDC Kokomo, Indiana, installation, which occupies a remediated brownfield site, will also be finished by year’s end. As you might have read in a recent blog post, we’re getting ready to start the 2.4 MWDC O’Shea urban solar farm in west Detroit. Another project we’re really excited about is the 13 MWDC of solar canopies and carports at Michigan State University, which will begin construction by the beginning of 2017.
The following abridged excerpts (edited for style and clarity) are based on my conversation with Frank during Solar Power International 2016 in Las Vegas. The discussion can be heard in its entirety at the “Live at #SPICon 2016” podcast via Solar Wakeup.
In this first part of a two-part blog post, I talk about the evolution of utilities’ attitudes about solar in the Midwest and how the solar industry can encourage utilities to accelerate solar deployment.
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There definitely has been a fight against change, and when we were getting started and going to our first meetings with utilities, there was a tremendous amount of pushback from utilities and also a sense that solar was getting into their territory. They didn’t necessarily want their customers to take energy into their own hands; there was a thought that solar was not going to happen, that it was kind of a bubble, a fad, that solar was not going to work in their portfolio.
But we’ve seen things happen from where we had that original conversation, and utilities such as Indiana Michigan Power (IMP)–which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AEP active from Indiana up into Michigan–are changing their minds. I met with the president of IMP about a year and a half ago, and they’re saying that all new generation they’re going to bring on in the next 20 years is going to come from solar. They’re decommissioning their coal-fired power plants because it’s too costly for those power plants to meet the new EPA standards.
We’ve gone from hearing them say, “Solar will never happen with us,” in 2008 to hearing in 2015 that all new generation that’s going come online in the next 20 years will be solar. We’re predicting doing gigawatts of solar in our service territory. That’s the change we’re seeing now. Things are happening, they just need to happen at a higher frequency, and I think we just have to keep pushing.
From what’s already happened in the United States, some of the forward-thinking utilities see the changes happening. Rather than fighting it, they’ve embraced it, and they’re involved with their customers and have put programs in place. If I’m talking to a utility person, I would use some successful examples of utility programs by PSE&G, Southern California Edison, PG&E and others. Rather than fight it, be on the cutting edge and work with your customers. If you’re worried about losing customers, embrace the solar. Work with your customers and provide opportunities for them to put solar on their homes to generate electricity for the utility.
Another big thing in the Midwest is that a lot of these utilities have to decommission old coal plants. Rather than having one power plant somewhere far away from where most of the energy is actually being consumed, you can now distribute these solar energy systems. They can really help stabilize the grid and power levels. For instance, just in our neck of the woods, AEP owns the Rockport coal-fired power plant in southern Indiana, which I think is one of the biggest ones in the country. This plant provides electricity to us in South Bend, which is 300 miles away, and there’s so much energy that’s lost in transmission from the plant to where we are.
It’s a no-brainer for these utilities to say, “You can have 10 megawatts of solar here, 20 megawatts here, a couple of megawatts just dispersed on all these homes throughout this area.” The energy is being consumed and used right on site, so you don’t have as much loss. It’s a good portfolio mix. I think it’s easier for them. Rather than also making your multibillion-dollar investments into one big power plant, it’s just like a couple million here, 10 million here, 20 million here. They can spread it out and scale it up as they go.
Part two of the blog series will focus on TJ’s comments about opportunities in the commercial and university solar sectors.
By TJ Kanczuzewski, president and board member of Inovateus Solar
