Coalition members continue to write to newspapers supporting PPAs

Two members of the Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (a coalition member) publicly urged lawmakers to support legalizing on-site Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in West Virginia this session.

Jean Ambrose wrote what may be one of our favorite Letters to the Editor about why West Virginia legislators need to legalize on-site Power Purchase Agreements! From her Feb. 13 letter in The Parkersburg News-Sentinel:

…Most people can’t afford to get solar panels because, in our state, the individual has to front the entire purchase price to put up the panels. In the states surrounding West Virginia, third-party power purchase agreements are legal, which allow a business or a nonprofit to front the installation costs for you. My daughter has this in Connecticut.

Read Jean’s Letter to the Editor.

On Feb. 19, Eric Engle advocated in an Op-Ed in The Charleston Gazette-Mail for legalizing on-site PPAs because the popular financing method would help bring renewable energy to West Virginia while creating jobs, saving consumers money, and improving public health.

(PPAs) also help foster the kind of energy independence that both major parties and people along the entire political/ideological spectrum can get behind.

Read Eric’s Op-Ed (may be behind a paywall).

Please consider leaving a comment supporting the letter on the newspaper’s website if you're so inclined.

Four newspapers publish letters supporting PPAs from coalition members

Our campaign to legalize on-site Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) received a major show of support Feb. 6-8 in newspapers across the state, days before the West Virginia Legislature’s start on Feb. 10.

Newspapers in Martinsburg, Clarksburg, Fairmont, and Parkersburg printed Letters to the Editor written by four members of the West Virginians for Energy Freedom coalition. We are grateful to the writers for sharing their support with the rest of their communities. 

Below are links to the letters. If you’re so inclined, please add supportive comments on the papers’ websites.

Want to contact your lawmakers about supporting the #PPAs4WV bills? Email them today.

Interested in writing a letter to your local paper? Let us know! Email Info@EnergyFreedomWV.org.

WOWK-TV: Power purchase agreements and job creation topics on "Inside West Virginia Politics"

Legalizing on-site Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and creating renewable energy jobs were topics on the "Inside West Virginia Politics" (Feb. 1) with Mark Curtis, chief political reporter for WOWK-13 News.

Autumn Long, program director for Solar United Neighbors-West Virginia (one of our founding coalition partners), talked about the popular financing option that would create jobs and provide benefits to consumers, schools, municipalities, churches, and nonprofits in the state.

Watch the full report.

Want to help legalize on-site PPAs? Email lawmakers today and ask them to support our #PPAs4WV campaign! We need your voice now more than ever!

WV News: Del. Evan Hansen plans bills to create jobs, address West Virginia's lack of renewable energy

WV News file photo

WV News file photo

Making on-site Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) available in West Virginia is one of three bills that Del. Evan Hansen (D-Monongalia) plans to introduce this session, according to an WV News article.

The PPAs bill stalled in committee during previous sessions because of pressure from FirstEnergy and AEP lobbyists. "I can’t make any promises, but I know there are legislators from both parties who are interested in moving that bill,” Hansen said in the article.

James Van Nostrand, director of WVU Law Center for Energy and Sustainable Development (a coalition member), says on-site PPAs will help consumers save money. "... Our electricity rates keep going up," he said, "and it would be nice if people had some ability to hedge against that by investing in solar and making solar accessible by approving power purchasing agreements."

Another bill would focus on energy efficiency for state-owned buildings. The third, called the Just Transition bill, would create a process to focus funding and resources into communities impacted by the decline of coal production, Hansen said in the article.

Read the WV News article and read the (Clarksburg) Exponent-Telegram editorial supporting Hansen.

Charleston Gazette-Mail: Electric resource plans suggest hotly contested path to WV's energy future

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Energy companies serving WV residents sent a mixed message on renewable energy like solar in their 5-year plans filed with the state’s Public Service Commission, say members of our coalition in a Charleston Gazette-Mail article.

Autumn Long, program director for Solar United Neighbors-West Virginia (a founding partner of our coalition), applauds Appalachian Power’s “massive uptick” in rooftop solar adoption but recalls the company’s opposition to Senate Bill 611, a measure to legalize on-site Power Purchase Agreements that stalled in last year’s legislative session.

The bill, which will be re-introduced this year, provides financing options for distributing solar to schools, businesses, and homeowners in the state. “I hope West Virginia lawmakers will take note of this hypocrisy in 2021 and act in the best interests of their constituents rather than bowing to pressure from monopoly utility companies,” Long said.

Read the article.

Report outlines ways WV utilities can embrace renewable energy & energy efficiency

WVU College of Law Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, one of our coalition members, published a report showing that West Virginia's electric utilities can create jobs and maintain cost-effectiveness while ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency over the next 15 years to achieve 78% emission-free energy by 2035.

Legalizing on-site Power Purchase Agreements would be helpful in reaching those numbers. Email lawmakers today and ask them to support our #PPAs4WV campaign.

The report cites “at least five reasons electric utilities in West Virginia urgently need to consider a major ramping up of renewable energy and energy efficiency that begins today.

  1. Renewable energy is now cheap, and it’s continuing to get cheaper.

  2. Customers — both businesses and individuals — overwhelmingly are demanding renewable energy.

  3. Diversifying our power resource mix is critical to competing in the growing regional renewable energy economy and, more broadly, securing a place in the 21st-century energy economy.

  4. The financial risk posed by emissions from power plants is growing due to majority public support for bipartisan proposals to address climate change by charging fees for carbon dioxide emissions. These fees would necessarily hit coal-fired power plants hardest because those plants emit the most carbon dioxide.

  5. Major lenders and investors increasingly are withholding capital from utilities that aren’t transitioning away from emission-heavy resource mixes.”

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