If government can regulate our goals, then government must take steps to find a way to achieve them.  Broad deployment of electric vehicles involves a lot of moving parts ranging from zoning issues to environmental issues to parking issues that need government’s involvement.  Luckily for us, the Washington State legislature dealt with a lot of these issues with some comprehensive legislation in 2009 in Chapter 459, laws of 2009.  This new law was intended to identify roadblocks to the development of a functioning electrical vehicle infrastructure in the state and the means to remove them.  While a lot more needs to be done legislatively I thought I’d highlight what Chapter 459, laws of 2009, did enact as background for future efforts.  This new law:

• Requires regional transportation planning organizations to develop regulations concerning electrical vehicle infrastructure that include:
  - plans for available off-street parking for electric vehicles.
  - standards that ensure that appropriate electric circuitry is installed to support electric vehicle infrastructure.
  - work towards appropriate educational and training opportunities for citizens to help transition from combustion to electric vehicles.
  - plans for large counties to provide public and private parking spaces for electric vehicles with a goal of 10% electric vehicle ready by 12/31/18.
  - development of model ordinances and guidance for local governments for citing and installing electric vehicle infrastructure (see RCW 47.80.090; RCW 19.27.540; RCW 19.28.281).
  Requires the state to purchase electric vehicles and power for the purposes of recharging privately and publicly owned plug-in electrical vehicles at state office locations.  RCW 43.01.250; RCW 43.19.648.
• Requires the state to install electrical charging stations and battery exchange stations in state operated highway rest stop by 12/31/15.  RCW 47.38.075.
• Requires local jurisdictions to allow electric vehicle infrastructure as a “use” for zoning purposes in all areas except those zoned for residential, resource use or critical areas.  RCW 35.63.126; .127; RCW 35A.63.107; RCW 36.70.695; RCW 36.70A.695.
• Exempts battery charging and exchange station installations from certain environmental requirements.  RCW 43.21(c).410.
• Authorizes the state to lease land owned by state or local government to persons for the purposes of installing, maintaining or operating a battery charging station with a lease term of less than 50 years.  RCW 79.13.100.
• Authorizes an alternative fuels court or pilot project capable of supporting electric vehicle charging in battery exchange technologies.  RCW 47.38.070.

Since adoption of the new law, the Washington Department of Commerce and Puget Sound Regional Council developed a guide for local government with a model ordinance, model development regulations and guidance related to electric vehicle infrastructure and batteries.  Electric charging stations are gradually being installed with ten installed between Oregon and the Canadian border on major highways.

The Washington Legislation recognizes that the success of the electric car in Washington will depend significantly on the availability of sufficient charging infrastructure.  All of the efforts instigated by Chapter 459 remain in play but it is useful to know what’s in place as you assess your participation in the new transportation economy.

To date the WUTC has taken a laid back approach regarding regulation of matters affecting electric vehicles, preferring to wait until market forces further broader deployment. In late 2010 it did open a docket (Docket #UE-121521) to look at regulatory issues relating to electric vehicles, but closed it two months later. In that docket, on October 28, 2010, it held an open meeting to hear from some IOUs like PSE and others interested in promotion of electric vehicles in Washington.   The only result from that docket was a Commission-initiated bill in the 2011 legislature bill (SB1571) that clarified that private companies offering battery charging facilities to the public for hire would not be subject to WUTC regulation.  Entities that are subject to the WUTC’s jurisdiction can offer these facilities as long as they are not subsidized by any regulated service. Governor Gregoire signed this bill on April 11, 2011 (Ch. 28, Laws of 2011). The Commission pushed this bill because it was not clear if the WUTC would have jurisdiction to regulate private entities selling electric vehicle charging services to the public.  Theoretically, under RCW 80.04.010, such entities might be considered a regulated “electric company” because they would offer “electric plant” (the charging station) that would be used for the transmission of electricity for power to the public.  The WUTC wanted to get out of the way of private investment in battery charging stations, so it proposed SB 1571.

The WUTC’s only rule on electric vehicles simply requires electric utilities to submit periodic reports evaluating certain smart good technologies including electric vehicles.  See WAC 480-100-505.

Because the WUTC can control how the electric utilities that are subject to its jurisdiction charge customers it has the capability of setting important policies that impact the development of electric vehicles.   For instance, it can decide that electricity purchased for electric vehicles should be regulated the same way as electricity purchased by consumers for other common household needs or appliances. Some IOUs argue that electricity for an electrical vehicle should be treated differently, without a sound basis for doing so, because use shouldn’t matter unless electric vehicles suddenly blow up electricity demand—and there is no evidence of that at this point.  If anything, electric vehicles use less electricity than some legacy household appliances.  A home with the oven turned on uses approximately 6.0 kilowatts of electricity and an electric vehicle charging uses only 3.5 kilowatts of electricity for the same time period.  To date there is no evidence that charging attributed to electric vehicles has had any negative impact on the electrical network that might require regulatory intervention.

Yet some advocates are pushing for rules that require electric vehicle owners to install separate metering for electric car use.  This would erect a substantial bottleneck that would discourage deployment of electric vehicles because separate metering requires costly installation, coordination and creates billing issues. If electricity is electricity is electricity then an electric vehicle usage should not be monitored any differently than an air conditioner, hot tub or electric oven. The WUTC has not taken any action on the issue of separate metering.

Another thing that the WUTC could do is to require IOUs to offer time of use, time of day, off-peak prices for electricity.  This would send a pricing signal to customers that would incent them to use electric vehicles if their power is cheaper at certain times, reducing overall power costs in a household and balancing the load on the electrical grid. The commission clearly can encourage IOUs to send this powerful pricing signals to consumers that will drive them towards, rather than away, from electric usage for electric vehicles.

The WUTC certainly has an ability to evaluate its policies and regulations to eliminate obstacles to private sector investment that would further the development of a charging network, but at the same time it has to heed its responsibility to adopt fair, just, reasonable and sufficient rates for all electricity stakeholders. This requires careful balancing of sometimes conflicting policies.  However, as with any nascent technology, like the internet, less regulation of electric vehicle matters may be best.  Onerous regulations from the WUTC could impede investment necessary to electric car deployment.  That does not mean that the commission should abdicate the authority to enact necessary consumer protection rules and to ensure that services provided by private vendors are both reliable and safe.  The WUTC needs to simply use a cautious regulatory touch, which it appears to have done so far.

But, given the rumblings on the horizon of substantial activity in electric vehicle deployment, it may be just a matter of time before the WUTC revs its regulatory engine for further regulation impacting electric vehicles, the energy that fuels them and their infrastructure.

These policies show that Iceland clearly wants to be a global player in providing to the world the clean energy that it has in abundance:  geothermal and hydropower.  Other countries, like China, are eager to exploit Iceland’s global energy plans.  China views Iceland as a potential source of cheap energy to be transported by new global resource trading routes across the Arctic Circle that are being opened by melting ice.  To meet increased demand abroad Iceland will have to construct new dams, infrastructure, roads, transmission lines, etc., that could wreak havoc on its fragile ecosystem.  Therefore, environmentalists are urging Iceland’s government to step back and rethink its global energy policies and to focus on using Iceland’s clean energy assets for more homegrown purposes.  For instance, Icelanders have begun constructing organic greenhouse horticulture as a means of obtaining fruits and vegetables that would no longer have to be shipped from warmer climates.  Enterprising Icelanders have found ways to use Iceland’s warm water and cheap energy for vast greenhouses that would produce tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers with overhead lights and ambient geothermal heat on enriched soil.  In driving through the countryside I saw vast greenhouses that turned out remarkably tasty lettuce and tomatoes when I ventured from Reykjavík for a glacier hike.

Icelanders could use its clean energy sources to power its fishing fleet.  Today, Iceland’s fleet catches 2% of the world’s fish using primarily fossil fuels.  This fish is then whisked away to foreign consumers, at a great energy cost.  Mr. Magnason in his book claims that Iceland can find ways to provide alternate power to its fleet (i.e., possibly by hydrogen) and to better process fish so that the fish crop can be exported slowly by sea and consume less energy to export.

When it comes to energy, Iceland has an embarrassment of riches of renewable energy resources.  It is remarkable that a country this small (population 300,000) has had such a large impact on research and development of renewable energy sources.  It will be interesting to see how Iceland continues to use them.  Clearly not every Icelander favors the “bigger is better” approach because many realize this could come at an environmental cost to this remote, beautiful, rugged piece of Earth.

Iceland’s relatively small remaining energy needs are satisfied by fossil fuels and Iceland is intent on eliminating its dependence on those fuels by 2050.  Iceland has focused on using hydrogen as a substitute for imported oil and has conducted a number of test projects in the past ten years to move towards a hydrogen-based society.  Iceland is trying to find a way to totally eliminate fossil fuel dependency for its fishing fleet and cars and buses by using hydrogen fuel sources.  Icelanders are using geothermal and electricity to split hydrogen from water and then use hydrogen fuel cells to power Iceland’s vehicles, cars and fishing trawlers.

The first hydrogen fuel station in Iceland was opened in 2003 in Reykjavik.  Iceland also conducted a number of projects involving hydrogen-powered buses.  The energy used to produce hydrogen comes from Iceland’s renewable energies which emit no CO2.  The government has largely funded the hydrogen experiments and continues to play a key role in the development of alternative energy.

Icelanders began to focus on renewable energy sources as a result of the oil crisis of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.  Unlike other countries, Iceland did not abandon its development of renewable energy sources when the oil crisis receded.  It is estimated that the economic savings gained by switching from oil to geothermal energy exceeded $8.2 billion over a 30-year period.

In 2008, Iceland experienced one of the largest banking meltdowns in years.  One Icelander’s view of recovery is to be a main source of renewable energy to not only Iceland, but to all of Europe.  Last year Iceland did a feasibility study of building a 727-mile power cable to Scotland to send some of its untapped geothermal and hydropower estimated at 18 terawatt hours to Europe.  Iceland’s state-owned utility is driving the feasibility study for the $2.1 billion power cable project which could send as much as 5 terawatt hours a year to Europe.  The project seems attractive because members of the EU are striving to reach a goal of 20% clean energy by 2020 and Iceland with its vast untapped potential energy could provide just the ticket.

Iceland has also capitalized on its energy richness by attracting new industries to the country.  For instance, Alcoa built a major $1.5 billion aluminum plant on the east coast of Iceland largely because of the promise of abundant, cheap, clean power.  Aluminum smelters require an immense amount of energy and Alcoa decided to construct the plant near the town of Reydarfjordur after the national utility built a 690 megawatt hydroelectric power plant 30 miles away.

In addition to attracting heavy industry, Iceland is trying to attract data centers from the information technology sector.  These also have huge energy demands and Iceland has begun to be a hotspot for data storage centers because of its cheap and reliable energy supply, such as Hitachi Data Systems.

Iceland is the first country in the world to create an economy generated through industries fueled by renewable energy and it still has a large amount of untapped hydroelectric and geothermal energy available.  As I traveled about Iceland on my brief visit last week, Icelanders would joke that electricity was the cheapest thing they buy, hardly something a tourist could take home.  Nonetheless, I did take home a lasting impression of an incredibly clean country filled with geysers, hotspots and “blue lagoons” that is wisely capitalizing on its plentiful natural resources to become a world leader in renewable energy.

The Washington team includes the cities of Seattle, Bellevue, Edmonds and Ellensburg; Seattle City Light; Snohomish Public Utilities District; Puget Sound Energy; Northwest SEED; Solar WA; Thurston Energy and Sustainable Connections. The team’s goal is to streamline processes involved in solar power such as permitting, zoning, net metering and interconnection. Contemplated projects include developing an online permitting system and shorter permitting turnaround times.

Currently, over 18,000 local jurisdictions in the U.S. have their own PV permitting requirements, land use codes and zoning ordinances. Furthermore, states and utilities have their own standards for connecting and selling energy back to the energy grid.

The $520,000 grant is part of the DOE’s “Sunshot Initiative” that has four components, one of which is improving the efficiency of installation, design and permitting solar energy systems. The Sunshot Initiative’s goal is to bring the total cost of solar energy systems down by about 75 percent to roughly $1.00 a watt by 2020. This would make large-scale solar energy costs competitive with the electricity from fossil fuels. The other three prongs of the Sunshot Initiative include advancing technologies for the solar cells and systems that convert sunlight into energy; optimizing the performance of solar installation and improving the efficiency of the solar system manufacturing processes.

The DOE has invested more than $1 billion over the past ten years in solar energy research and development, including the ill-fated Solyndra Initiative that filed for bankruptcy earlier in 2011.

In the energy community, PV electricity has long been viewed as a highly promising energy alternative to traditional high carbon electrical sources. However, PV electricity costs much more at the current time than traditional energy sources. The next blog will examine further PV costs and why they are so high.

Even if you are not driving to Vancouver, more and more, you will be able to find public charging stations around Seattle. If you’re a Seahawk fan, you will be able to find them at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field, where the city’s first public charging stations will be installed by year end. Even retail establishments are supplying charging stations for their customers.

Last summer, Walgreens announced that it would offer charging stations at 800 locations across the country, including select locations in Washington. Whole Foods Market has installed some charging stations at its Seattle locations. Even McDonald’s owners have installed charging stations in certain states, but not yet in Washington.

A lot of these charging stations are brought to us courtesy of a federal program, the “EV Project” funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and private investment. This project is deploying 14,000 chargers in 18 major cities located in six states, including Washington. The hope is that such deployment will spur electric car purchases by alleviating the concerns of potential electric car purchasers about running out of electric juice. What is interesting about the Highway 5 and Highway 2 projects is that they rebut the assumption that electric cars are only good for commuting in urban areas. They make the beloved ”road trip” in an electric car a real possibility.

Rep Eddy wants to look at the benefits DE bring to Washington.

At the first focus group meeting on July 27, 2011, Rep Eddy identified her policy goals for potential legislative or regulatory action as:

• Economic development: Jobs, research and development and manufacturing.

• Efficiency: Optimal use of resources.

• Resiliency: Reliability of the system.

• Environment stewardship: Reduction of pollutants.

• Energy independence and security: From foreign sources, from the grid itself.

At that meeting, the group discussed potential policy actions to promote DE including revising net metering rules, citing and permitting for DE systems interconnection, renewable portfolio standards and the development of performance-based incentives as well as other financial incentives, including sales and use tax exemptions.

The focus group heard from the WUTC with respect to its parallel activities in promoting DE and from private and public utilities such as Puget Sound Energy and the Snohomish County Public Utility District.

The group next met on October 3, 2011 with the goal of identifying the next steps it would need to arrive at recommending policies to formal legislative committees.

The results of the October 3rd meeting aren’t out yet but Rep Eddy is to be commended for getting out front on critical energy issues that call for legislative action in the coming session. Here’s to hoping that Rep Eddy’s efforts are rewarded in the 2012 legislature. I will report back on the October 3rd meeting.

I wanted to see how Pacific Northwest retailers were fairing in this regard.  I checked the EPA’s website and learned about its “Green Power Partnership,” a program which partners with large power purchasers including Fortune 500 companies, state and federal governments and colleges and universities.  The program is voluntary designed to help business organizations lower transaction costs of buying green power and to reduce carbon footprints.  Organizations that join must meet EPA purchase requirements using any combination of (1) renewable energy certificates; (2) on-site generation or (3) utility green power products.

The EPA keeps lists of top green retailers.  In the top ten on that list are the Pacific Northwest’s own Starbucks and REI.  Starbucks purchases 52% of its electric usage from wind sources and REI purchases 92% from biogas, biomass, small hydro, solar and wind.  Pacific Northwest retailer Nordstrom was not on this list although its new corporate responsibility website “Nordstrom Cares” describes programs the company has initiated to reduce energy usage.

Whether purchasing green power is a trend or an inevitability, I find it encouraging that major American retailers are weighing in on green power options.  The next time I have a choice in connection with my minimal purchasing power, I am going to bear in mind a list of companies that appeared on the EPA website which can be found here.

Congress is hard at work feuding about light bulbs and preventing energy efficiency.

Last Tuesday, the GOP-driven H.R. 2417 “Better Use of Light Bulbs Act,” or BULB Act, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), failed to gain the two-thirds supermajority to needed to pass. However, with a 233-193 simple majority vote in favor of the BULB Act, the House GOP leadership brought back the Act by adding an amendment to the Energy Department’s Appropriations bill, hoping to win approval under procedures that require only a simple majority. Last Friday, by a quick voice vote, the House approved the amendment. But it probably will burn out (so to speak) in the Senate, which has to pass on the bill.

This newly approved piece of legislation repeals the light bulb efficiency standards set under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed into law by President George Bush, with bipartisan support. That legislation mandates that light bulbs become 30 percent more efficient by 2012 and 65 percent more efficient by 2020.

Republicans rallied against the incandescent “light bulb ban” as symbolic of government over-reach and over-regulation, while Democrats rallied against the repeal because it would prevent an omnipresent appliance from becoming more energy efficient.

Supporter of the cause, GOP Presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann has vowed to “allow [Americans] to buy any light bulb [they] want” if she becomes president. Leader of the repeal effort, Rep. Barton, believes that people should “make their own choices” and that the “federal government [does not have the right] to tell people what kind of lights to use in their home.”

Democrats say the 2007 law does not have anything to do with choice as it does not ban incandescent bulbs. Rather, what the law does is mandate better-performing bulbs. Incandescents will still be on store shelves and anyone will be able to buy them; they will simply use less energy. Additionally, the new light bulbs are supposed to end up saving consumers money in the long run, since they last longer and use less energy.

Even the lightening industry strongly supports the energy efficient standards. The industry says they will help the economy, not hurt it.

“This cynical move breaks faith with U.S.-based manufacturers who worked with Congress and President George W. Bush in 2007 to write the law. Since then, manufacturers have researched, re-tooled and developed new, energy-saving bulbs to meet the new standards, which are expected to save the average U.S. family about $100 and the nation as much as $12 billion each year,” says Kateri Callahan President of Alliance to Save Energy.

While the GOP-driven amendment stands for now, it has little chance of surviving the Senate or President Obama’s veto powers—so last Friday’s voice vote was mostly a statement of ideology, as opposed to serious lawmaking. But stay tuned for more developments.

* Jackee Walker is a 2011 Graham & Dunn summer associate.

The EIA, passed in 2006, requires Washington’s electric utilities to use eligible renewable resources in increasing amounts over the next eight years. By 2020, at least 15 percent of electric load must be provided by qualifying eligible renewable resources. The Act also identified nine types of “renewable resources” that would qualify under the EIA. However, the EIA does not accommodate for other technologies or resources that weren’t expressly listed, but which nonetheless might be “eligible renewable resources.” This causes a problem for developers and IOUs who may shy away from investing in these technologies and resources because they don’t neatly fit within the parameters of the EIA.

The WUTC has jurisdiction over IOUs, but Consumer Owned Electric Utilities (“COUs”) such as public utility districts are subject to the authority of the Department of Commerce and the State Auditor’s Office. In the policy statement, WUTC announced that its staff has joined with the staff of the Department of Commerce to establish an informal technical working group to provide nonbinding technical analysis for guidance as to whether a proposed technology or resource qualifies as an “eligible renewable resource” under the EIA.

Recognizing that agency staff cannot commit to binding declarations, the WUTC’s policy statement also laid out a second path, which already exists, but has not been called into play with respect to the EIA. This path is more formal and invokes the Washington Administrative Act, RCW 34.05.240(1) that sets a procedure to allow an interested party to petition the Commission for a declaratory order with respect to whether a particular resource or technology will qualify as an eligible renewable resource under the EIA. Persons able to file such petitions (i.e. have standing) may include IOUs and/or entities that propose to sell projects, project output or renewable energy credits from projects to IOUs. The Commission can only issue a declaratory order for entities under its jurisdiction. It cannot enforce the rules that the Department of Commerce has adopted to guide consumer-owned utilities’ compliance with the EIA in WAC 194-37 but COUs probably could petition that Department under the APA.

While the WUTC’s policy statement may not resolve all uncertainty, it at least provides two paths to encourage the development of new eligible renewable resources for Washington IOUs.