Email Action
To: Fort Collins Mayor Jeni Arndt. jarndt@fcgov.com
Fort Collins City Manager Kelly Dimartino. kdimartino@fcgov.com
Subject: Solar/Virtual Power Plant Advocate
Say whatever you like in the body of your email. Our main request is that Fort Collins Utilities prioritize local energy production and a Fort Collins Virtual Power Plant, and work to minimize the need for fossil fuel generation.
Last year Community for Sustainable Energy got Poudre School District to agree to explore solar options. This year we are continuing to work with PSD, and working to get Fort Collins Utilities (FCU) to help the schools, and to modernize the Fort Collins electric grid to achieve what is known as a Virtual Power Plant (VPP).
What the heck is a Virtual Power Plant?
· Local Distributed Energy Resources (DER), such as solar, electric vehicles, brewery biogas, and smart water heaters networked together to provide electricity for a community.
· DER’s are owned by individual local ratepayers (such as schools, businesses, residents) sharing energy in a co-op model.
· Brattle Group study: VPP is 40%-60% more cost effective for consumers than traditional power plants.
· Utilities from coast to coast are developing VPP to replace coal and gas, and increase reliability.
· Fortune 500 companies and investment bankers are developing VPP to harvest savings as profit.
· VPP… a weird name for a Networked Distributed Energy System. What shall we call the FTC VPP?
Why Should Fort Collins pursue VPP?
· Fort Collins electric rates increase 5% per year. With VPP rates can go down, not up.
· VPPs have an economic multiplier of 2.5x, meaning that every dollar spent generates $2.50 in local economic activity. Our current energy system has an economic multiplier of 0.2. We send $250,000,000.00 annually out of Fort Collins for electricity. If we can put half of that into VPP then we can increase our local economy by $312 million annually!
· DER reduce pollution and are rapidly deployable. Giant wind and solar projects take more than 5 yrs to deploy, face local opposition, and can’t be built fast enough to meet Fort Collins’ 2030 climate goals.
How can Fort Collins achieve VPP?
· CSU’s Energy Institute has been a pioneer in this space since the 1990s and is eager to help.
· Fort Collins is a prime candidate for one of the $250 million VPP grants from the Department of Energy.
What does Fort Collins need to do now?
· Denver has a DER goal of 30% by 2030. FCU’s goal is 5% of electricity coming from DERs by 2030. We’ll surpass that goal without any additional help from FCU. Their approach appears to be to manage DER growth rather than to maximize potential.
· A different approach would be to partner with experts from CSU, Rocky Mountain Institute, National Renewable Energy Lab, and elsewhere to form a “DER accelerator” to work on maximizing DER.
· Local solar is a key DER. A FCU “Solar Advocate” employee could work on policy and implementation to build out local solar potential now, while electric vehicles and other technology become more widely adopted.
· Platte River Power Authority (FTC’s electricity provider) wants ratepayers to pony up $300 million for four fossil gas plant, locking us into expensive gas generated electricity for the foreseeable future. We need VPP before that happens.
How can you help?
· Spend 20 minutes Googling Virtual Power Plant and Brattle Group to have your mind blown and get inspired.
· Join us at City Council meetings, call and write the City, talk to everybody about Virtual Power Plants!
Fred @ city council Oct 17, 2023