September 28th, 2020 by John Farrell
Originally published at ILSR.org
In the journey towards 100% renewable energy, utilities are often the largest variable. In this game of “will they/won’t they,” with the environmental health and economic stability of cities at stake, the push towards a more sustainable future can reveal the ugly face of monopoly utilities.
In this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Jamie Valdez about Pueblo, Colorado’s efforts to municipalize. In its push for 100% renewable energy, Pueblo went head to head with a power monopoly and has learned the heavy costs of facing a utility giant. Valdez offers up Pueblo’s story to other municipalization efforts nationwide and speaks of the hope the movement still has.
Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation.
Episode Transcript
A City’s Renewable Energy Efforts Meet Resistance
After a commitment to 100% renewable energy by 2035, the city of Pueblo realized its goal required more change than its current energy provider would enact. Jamie Valdez, community team coordinator of Mothers Out Front and volunteer with the Sierra Club, explains the challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned from facing down Black Hills Energy in the spring of 2020.
Citing unfair treatment by Black Hills Energy, Valdez says that Pueblo’s electricity bills top off at 35-40% more than the national average. On top of high costs, the utility hasn’t been receptive to the community’s initiatives.
Black Hills Energy is based in Rapid City, SD, a distance from Pueblo that makes local accountability nearly impossible. Valdez says the process for rate negotiations is a direct line between Black Hills Energy in Rapid City and the Power Utility Commission in Denver, cutting constituents and their concerns out of the decision making process.
In addition to the unfair rate setting, Valdez explains that Black Hills Energy was very resistant to the city’s 100% clean energy goal. From unfair net metering policies to extra charges for solar owners, the utility monopoly took every effort to stymie the cause and profit off of their own electricity sales.
At the 10-year mark of Pueblo’s contract with Black Hills Energy, the city was allowed to renegotiate and even completely decouple from Black Hills Energy, instead opting for a municipal electric utility. The city put the choice to vote in the spring of 2020.
To hear more about early efforts in Pueblo, listen to Episode 60 of Local Energy Rules, where we talk to Pueblo City Council Member Larry Atencio.
Fighting the Flow of Money
A few months before the vote, surveys suggested public sentiment was strongly in favor of municipal power. After being outspent 50 to one by Black Hills, public votes swayed. A focused ad and commercial campaign from utility political outreach arm, Pueblo CAREs, played to community fears of government takeovers.
“Every time people saw those full page ads in the Pueblo Chieftain, that was their repair money being used to influence their decision on whether or not to keep Black Hills Energy.”
What was once a two-thirds margin in favor became a two-thirds margin opposed to municipalization, Valdez explains. That isn’t something he sees as a failure.
“Our campaign is still going,” Valdez says. “We are going to start earlier this time.” Pueblo has another opportunity to negotiate with Black Hills Energy in 2025, the 15-year mark of the city’s contract with the utility.
“We want to begin our efforts at fundraising and educating the community right away.”
Listen to ILSR’s Jess Del Fiacco and John Farrell discuss how Pueblo’s municipalization effort could give the city valuable leverage, despite not resulting in a utility takeover, in the newest episode of the Building Local Power podcast.
Pueblo’s 100% Goal: What Now?
During the campaign to determine who would provide electricity to the city, Black Hills Energy played heavily to Pueblo’s renewable energy desires. Those promises and offers have yet to be fully addressed now that the ballot initiative is decided, Valdez says.
Remaining with Black Hills, Valdez emphasizes, doesn’t even take into consideration that much of the money going into energy sales is then sent to South Dakota. The ratepayers in Pueblo never see a direct investment in their community, except maybe in the form of those ads in the local paper.
Valdez hopes that the next time they reconsider the contracts, they will find a little more public support come voting day. For other groups looking to municipalize and fight monopoly power, he offers this advice: Start early. Fundraise a lot. Know how your community ticks.
Episode Notes
See these resources for more behind the story:
For concrete examples of how cities can take action toward gaining more control over their clean energy future, explore ILSR’s Community Power Toolkit.
Explore local and state policies and programs that help advance clean energy goals across the country, using ILSR’s interactive Community Power Map.
This is episode 113 of Local Energy Rules, an ILSR podcast with Energy Democracy Director John Farrell, which shares powerful stories of successful local renewable energy and exposes the policy and practical barriers to its expansion.
Local Energy Rules is Produced by ILSR’s John Farrell and Maria McCoy. Audio engineering by Drew Birschbach.
This article originally posted at ilsr.org. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter, our energy work on Facebook, or sign up to get the Energy Democracy weekly update.
Featured photo credit: Jasperdo via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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About the Author
John Farrell directs the Democratic Energy program at ILSR and he focuses on energy policy developments that best expand the benefits of local ownership and dispersed generation of renewable energy. His seminal paper, Democratizing the Electricity System, describes how to blast the roadblocks to distributed renewable energy generation, and how such small-scale renewable energy projects are the key to the biggest strides in renewable energy development.
Farrell also authored the landmark report Energy Self-Reliant States, which serves as the definitive energy atlas for the United States, detailing the state-by-state renewable electricity generation potential. Farrell regularly provides discussion and analysis of distributed renewable energy policy on his blog, Energy Self-Reliant States (energyselfreliantstates.org), and articles are regularly syndicated on Grist and Renewable Energy World.
John Farrell can also be found on Twitter @johnffarrell, or at jfarrell@ilsr.org.