Jackson greens up on Strawberry Creek Juice

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

By Jake Nichols

The City of Jackson looked at it this way: For an additional $45,000 a year – less than 10 percent of its $469,750 electric bill last year – government officials could say they were putting our money where their mouth is. Promising to cut energy consumption by 10 percent in 10 years, Jackson Mayor Mark Barron is hoping to call the deal a wash by 2017 while joining the ranks of the environmentally chic in buying 100 percent “green power” from Lower Valley Energy.

The growing list of companies, municipalities and organizations that have opted to purchase renewable energy includes such businesses as REI, Vail Resorts, Starbucks and Office Depot. Institutes of higher learning like the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Yale and NYU also have decided to amp up their eco-friendly energy consumption. And the City of Jackson joins other cities that have pledged to reduce their carbon footprint, places like Moab, Utah, Boulder, Colo., Aspen, Colo., and Durango, Colo. – a town powered entirely by wind.

The notion that Jackson would be buying all of its power from the LVE-owned Strawberry Creek power plant site in Star Valley is somewhat of a little white lie. True, Lower Valley’s CEO Jim Webb called it a “perfect match” when referring to Jackson’s need for 8.5 million kilowatt hours (kWh) annually and the dam’s annual output of 9 million to 10 million kWh. But the idea that the energy provider will be running 40 miles of power line from the dam site on Strawberry Creek, near Bedford, to Jackson would be interpreting the deal a bit too literally.

Energy providers like LVE purchase or create their power from a variety of sources. In LVE’s case, the valley’s lone energy company purchases both conventionally generated power from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, and renewable, so called “green” sources like wind, solar and hydro. All energy produced or procured is then dumped into a “pool” and drawn upon by consumers who are “on the grid.”

But “green” energy and “brown” (fossil fuels) energy cannot be separated or distinguished from one another when it arrives at the wall outlet.

What LVE has done is create a virtual power hook up between Jackson and the Strawberry Creek hydro project. The localness of the partnership is what made the deal both attractive and unique as far as LVE was concerned, according to Public Relations Director Brian Tanabe. Jackson, in essence, is purchasing the entire output of the substation in Strawberry Creek with a 10 percent surcharge for the “clean resource” energy.

The production of “green” energy is typically more costly for providers because of the newness of the technologies involved. Residential customers of LVE are currently charged an additional $3.50 per 300 kilowatt hours of “green” power. LVE began providing “green” power to its customers in 2001 with the introduction of its wind turbine program. Today, thanks to increased demand, the power company has had to purchase a small percentage of its wind power from outside the Cowboy State.

Hydropower is the most reliable of the common renewable energy sources that also include solar and wind. Dams are not inherently emissions-free, but newer, better-constructed projects are considered relatively eco-friendly. In the case of the Strawberry Creek hydro project, the dam was the first in the state to be certified “low impact” by the Low Impact Hydropower Institute (LIHI) in 2003.

“Since the dam’s inception in the ’50s, we’ve always taken care of the site quite well,” said Tanabe. “As a furtherance of our environmental stewardship, we felt a desire to go for the low impact hydropower facility certification. The certification process was quite rigorous and took us approximately three years to complete.”

The LIHI certification means that the dam has passed various criterion tests, including impact on river flows, effects on water quality, fish passage and watershed health. Wyoming Game & Fish had to sign off on any possible endangered species protection violations, and area recreational users were given a public comment period in which to voice their approval or disapproval.

LIHI received only one public comment – from the Star Valley Conservation District Board – which said it considered the facility to be “a wise use of our natural resources and environmentally beneficial.”

Jackson mayor Mark Barron lauded the council’s decision to purchase clean energy: “This is a fiscally responsible, proactive decision to make,” he said. “More importantly, this investment is a smart business decision and responsible stewardship that works to protect the special place Jackson Hole is to so many.”
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Jackson greens up on Strawberry Creek Juice | Planet JH News Article: General Environment

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