Lafayette's Energy Future

Energy and Sustainability:

The Nutshell Essays:

Lafayette's Energy Future

(February 2012)

This page concerns a proposal to the Lafayette City Council (LCC) to explore all of our energy options in depth before our franchise agreement with Xcel Energy expires in 2013, including even the option of forming a Lafayette municipal electric utility. Below are links to the proposal and to summary remarks presented orally to the LCC on Feb. 21, 2012, followed by links to key background information and some articles. Supporters of bold action on clean energy in Lafayette are encouraged to contact Lafayette City Councilors to express your views, and you are also welcome to contact Larry to discuss clean energy in Lafayette.

Lafayette's Energy Future proposal Summary - Oral Remarks

Key Background Information:

Know Your Power: A Community Guide	Key questions and answers about the "Boulder's Energy Future" project, prepared by the City of Boulder. This is a summary of Boulder's initial findings about forming a municipal electric utility, and it is recommended background for the Lafayette's Energy Future project.
Boulder's Energy Future	This website is a gold mine of information detailing the Boulder City Council's multi-year investigation of factors and consequences related to forming a municipal electric utility.
Municipalization Debate	A lively and informative debate among well-informed parties on issues 2B/2C and whether Boulder should form a municipal electric utility, sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Recommended for insight into both the municipal advocate and Xcel Energy perspectives.
Lafayette Energy Sustainability Master Plan	Lafayette's energy goals and strategies, prepared by the Lafayette Energy Sustainability Advisory Committee (LESAC) and approved by City Council. Taken from the LESAC website.

Informative Articles and Possibilities:

Clean Energy Authority	A good source of solar energy news. Several short articles are posted daily about new things happening in the solar industry and in solar research.
Austin Energy	Austin municipal utility aims to reach 35-50% renewables by 2020 through power purchase agreements (PPAs), city-owned generation, distributed generation, and other options.
Colorado Springs Solar Garden	Like Xcel Energy, a municipal utility such as Colorado Springs can also offer a Community Solar Garden, where residents buy panels in a large solar installation and their share of the production is deducted from their electricity bill.
Gainesville Regional Utility	Gainesville has a higher penetration of renewables than even California due to its feed-in tariff of 24-32 cents/kWh, in addition to net metering. Paying for production (kWh) with a feed-in tariff, rather than paying for capacity (kW) with an upfront rebate, places the burden of performance on system owners and the municipal doesn't need to pay an upfront rebate.
Niobrara Energy Park	This is a project in northern Colorado to form a "micro-grid" with solar, wind and geothermal, firmed with natural gas, to power energy-intensive data and cloud computing centers. Perhaps there are possibilities for similar innovative facilities in the undeveloped upper portion of Lafayette's Vista Business Park.
Failure of SmartGridCity	Transcript and audio of a Colorado Public Radio story about Xcel Energy's "Smart Grid City" demonstration project in Boulder. The project mostly failed because Xcel only implemented a few measures that benefitted Xcel, while the elements intended to benefit consumers by raising energy awareness and reducing energy consumption were largely ignored (e.g., real-time home energy monitoring, and time-of-use pricing). A municipal electric utility could do a better job of implementing a Smart Grid because a muni is not required to maximize profit, and it doesn't have Xcel's inherent conflict with reducing the sales of its product.