By Chris O’Malley
Northern Indiana Public Service Co. has reached an agreement with environmentalists and consumer advocates on a new renewables tariff that will boost payments to small wind farms while cutting prices for solar power.
The pact on NIPSCO’s revised renewable feed-in tariff (FIT), filed Oct. 9 (Case #44393), awaits final approval from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.
Wind power generators of up to 100 kW would receive $0.25/kWh, up from $0.17.
“The purchase price for small wind in [the original FIT] was too low and as a result, the available capacity was not used,” said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Indianapolis-based Citizens Action Coalition. “Expanding small wind is important, so increasing that price will hopefully drive investment in small wind in Indiana.”
The settlement decreases payment for solar power to $0.17/kWh from $0.30/kWh.
Olson said the decrease reflects the falling costs of solar panels while still providing the price support needed to continue solar’s expansion in NIPSCO’s territory. “Solar is not at grid parity yet in Indiana, so it needs a ‘leg up,’” he said.
Residential customers would pay about $1 per month for renewables under the revised tariff, an increase of about $0.25. “We feel that’s reasonable,” Olson said.
Not everyone got what they wanted. The CAC and the Hoosier chapter of the Sierra Club argued that the definition of “qualifying renewable energy power production facilities” under the FIT should exclude facilities fueled by organic waste biomass derived from forest thinning.
The groups also sought exclusion of some types of waste-to-energy facilities, over air and water pollution concerns.
The FIT program is designed to incent customers who generate green electricity from solar, wind, biomass or new hydroelectric facilities. Facilities between 5 kW and 5 MW are eligible. Total capacity available under the FIT is capped at 30 MW.
Among those generally pleased with the settlement is Bio Town Ag, which operates the world’s largest on-farm anaerobic digester generating facilities with NIPSCO, according to Bio Town president Brian S. Furrer. Bio Town, in Reynolds, Ind., has sought multiple purchasers of electricity generated by methane from animal waste, including NIPSCO and other suppliers. The digester generation facility can produce 5 MW.
Also party to the FIT settlement with NIPSCO was the Indiana Distributed Energy Alliance and the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor.
NIPSCO officials were not immediately available for comment.