The “Clean, Renewable, and Efficient Energy Act” of 2008 has been a tremendous success. But incredibly, there are politicians at the Capitol who are considering eliminating the Energy Optimization policy -not because it isn’t working, but because they don’t like the idea of government “mandates.” Repealing the current Energy Optimization policy would instead be eliminating the most effective energy efficiency policy Michigan has ever had.
Four months of meetings have failed to produce an agreement among state regulators, solar energy advocates, and the state’s top two utilities about expanding the companies’ highly popular customer-owned rooftop solar programs.
Five years ago, when DTE Energy and Consumers Energy launched small pilot programs offering premium rates to customers for power from their solar panels, Oak Electric and Four Elements Energy became very busy installing solar systems on homes and small businesses. But, in 2012, the roof fell in for rooftop solar in Michigan, when the utilities significantly changed their pilots. That happened, installers said, because DTE’s Solar Currents and Consumers’ Experimental Advanced Renewables Program (EARP) drastically cut their rates for new participants, citing sharply falling solar panel prices.
The Snyder administration’s latest-and last-draft report on Michigan’s energy future says what it should: The state’s five-year-old energy efficiency mandate, known as Energy Optimization, is not only working well, there’s plenty of room for utilities to do more to help their customers save electricity and natural gas. But we have only until Wednesday, Nov. 4, to submit comments on the draft and influence what that final version says.
Michigan has few choices when it comes to raising money locally for transit. Transportation agencies can only ask voters to pitch in through local property taxes. They must rely on fewer and fewer state and federal dollars for the rest of a project’s cost. Michigan lawmakers must stop holding its cities back. Our towns can start meeting their transportation needs without waiting for the state to solve the state transportation crisis.
Reliable, convenient, and efficient transit may soon make a much-needed comeback in the city that gave the world modern transportation. Last week, lawmakers in Lansing passed a series of bills that would create a regional transit authority (RTA) for Metro Detroit. It’s a big win for Michigan, for Detroit’s revitalization, and for the groups that have advocated for regional transit over the past few decades, including many members of the Transportation for Michigan coalition.