Defend Rural Colorado's Freedom to Access Clean Energy
Act Now: Help Protect Access to Local Clean Energy
Colorado is home to some of the nation’s best wind, solar and small hydro resources. Local communities should be free to access these renewable energy resources. When communities invest in local resources, they keep energy dollars close to home, create jobs, and reduce harmful carbon emissions.
Access to local clean energy is under threat: Tri-State Generation and Transmission has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve a rate penalty that would essentially stop rural communities from buying clean, local electricity.
Let your voice be heard before March 11: Tell FERC to reaffirm communities’ right to access clean energy. For more details, see below the petition.
Tell the PUC to uphold Boulder's right to form a municipal utility
This petition is now closed.
End date: Nov 04, 2015
Signatures collected: 113
113 signatures
Proposed Penalty for Local Clean Power
In June of 2015, FERC affirmed the right of Delta-Montrose Electric Association (Delta-Montrose), a Western slope rural electric cooperative, to access local renewable energy from a small dam on an irrigation canal.
Federal regulators ruled that local access to clean power superseded contractual restrictions imposed by Tri-State that would have otherwise barred Delta-Montrose and other communities from generating their own clean energy.
But access to local clean energy remains threatened: on February 17th, Delta-Montrose’s wholesale supplier, Tri-State asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve a rate penalty on utilities like Delta-Montrose when they buy energy from local renewable energy projects.
This rate penalty would effectively make local renewable energy projects uneconomical, denying communities vital economic development opportunities and derailing efforts to move away from fossil fuels. It appears to violate both the letter and the spirit of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), which seeks to encourage local small-scale renewable energy generation.
Sign this petition and join us as we reaffirm the right of communities to access local sources of clean energy.