An advisory committee convened to suggest changes to the
newly signed law doubling the amount of renewable energy that Colorado’s rural
electric cooperatives must have by 2020 will start work on July 10.
That’s according to an announcement Tuesday from the Colorado
Energy Office, which also announced the members of the committee.
The committee was convened at the order of Gov. John
Hickenlooper, who signed Senate Bill 252 on June 5 over the protests of
representatives from the state’s rural electric cooperatives, business
interests, agriculture interests, and some rural legislators. The same day, he
signed the executive order convening the committee to review the law and
suggest tweaks, if necessary, ahead of the 2014 legislative session.
The committee will hold its first meeting July 10 and are
expected to submit its conclusions to the director of the Colorado Energy
Office on November 1.
“This committee has an opportunity to move the discussion
concerning renewable energy in rural Colorado beyond rhetoric and to a
fact-based analysis.” said Jeff
Ackermann, the director of the energy office. “I look forward to their
results.”
The law requires rural cooperatives with more than 100,000
meters, and utilities that generate and supply electricity on behalf of member
cooperatives, to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable-energy
sources by 2020.
The bill also allows rural cooperatives to add a monthly
surcharge, up to 2 percent of a customer’s monthly bill, to help pay for
projects needed to meet the goal.
The law will affect the Intermountain
Rural Electric Association, which serves customers in a territory south of
Denver, and Westminster’s Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association,
which provides power to 18 member electric cooperatives in Colorado in addition
to serving customers in Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico.
Members of the advisory committee are:
• Dave Lock
- representing Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
• Kent
Singer - representing the Colorado
Rural Electric Association
• Dan
McClendon – representing the Delta Montrose Rural Electric Association
• Chip Marks – representing agribusiness interests
• Chris
Kraft – representing livestock production interests in the state
* Marc Arnusch – representing farmers who need irrigation
for crop production
• Jerry
Vaninetti – representing the renewable energy industry
• Bruce Driver – representing electric resource planning
efforts
• Pete Maysmith – executive director at Conservation
Colorado, representing the environmental advocacy community.
• A representative from Intermountain Rural Electric
Association who will be named.
Ex-officio members of the committee include:
• John
Salazar – Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture
• Joshua
Epel – Chairman of the Colorado
Public Utilities Commission
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