Blue Sky for Renewables
Blue Sky for Renewables. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.
Blue Sky. In business it refers to that intangible amount of money you think something is worth above and beyond the net worth. For farmers and ranchers working towards renewable energy solutions, Blue Sky can be a means to an end according to Tom Gauntt, External Communications with Pacific Power.
GAUNTT: We’ve done quite a few things that are agricultural. There’s a special one down in Williams, Oregon called the White Oak Farm and it’s a case where someone’s done a lot of alternative energy, renewable energy, solar in an old barn and essentially also has an education component where the local kids come by and can kind of see the practical aspect of how renewable energy can work on a farm setting.
Pacific Power offers a variety of renewable energy loans and programs under the “Blue Sky” label.
GAUNTT: Another thing that can be really useful for folks is a program and it’s not available in Oregon but it’s in Washington, Idaho and California as well and it’s called the Fin Answer and it’s essentially a program where you can essentially work with an energy coordinator and that person would come in and say these are ways you can be more efficient on your operation.
Many of these programs are to help get the most out of your operations with easy to implement suggestions.
GAUNTT: There’s the actual Blue Sky Program which is the program through which customer, residential, business or farm can essentially say I’d like to purchase more renewable energy than I’m getting in my regular dose from my power company. You can go up to 100% of your usage and say I want to bring that much power onto the grid from a renewable source.
He says it is mostly wind projects but there are also biomass and solar projects as well that can work on a sliding scale to whatever ability you want to do. It is up to you as to how far you want to get involved and at what funding level.
GAUNTT: When you are part of the Blue Sky program you are paying in to buy the renewable energy. And a portion of that gets used into the funding to fund education programs and each state is slightly different about how they manage that but the idea is that obviously the power company can’t and doesn’t make any money off that but they’re constantly buying power – renewable energy on a market rate.
For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
www.harvestcleanenergy.org
