From: Rita Schenck [rita@iere.org]
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 8:47 AM
To: Rita
Subject: Energy Update # 6

Dear Friends:

It has been a busy Summer. Our Consultant, Princeton Energy Resources International, has completed their analysis of the energy use and potential
for the island. In summary, the potential energy production is much higher than the energy use for the island. Here are some figures:

Energy use: 35 Megawatt Years per year divided as follows:
Electricity 12 Megawatts
Natural Gas 5.2
Diesel 4.5 (almost all from ferries)
Gasoline 3.5
Heating oil 2.3
Propane 1.2
Firewood 1.1

Potential renewable energy generation Solar 24 to 700 Megawatt years per year (the low range for existing rooftops, the high for PV on 5% of the island)
Wind 6.7 to 10.5
Tidal 1.5
Biomass 0.6 to 2.4

The big surprise with these figures is that solar power is such a strong resource for this rainy region of the world. The study also evaluated the cost of energy under different scenarios. We modeled one megawatt installations under high and low cost or resource availability scenarios, evaluating either an independent power producer option or a cooperative option for ownership. The results showed the following ranges for costs.

Solar $0.30 to 1.08 per kilowatt hour
Wind $0.065 to 0.122
Tidal $0.18 to 0.33
Biomass $.055 to 0.133

These costs are essentially the wholesale costs of electricity, not the retail costs. All of these costs are higher than current retail electricity costs for the island, which ranges from 6.5 to 8.5 cents per kilowatt hour depending on the time of day of the use. It is clear that the issue for moving to renewable energy will be finding ways to decrease costs, either through technology improvements or through some type of subsidy.

We are completing a draft of our final report on this project, which will provide a guide to communities who wish to reproduce our efforts. Anyone who would like to provide a peer review of this document, please contact me.

As a result of this project, the Pacific Northwest Economic region (http://www.pnwer.org) has named Vashon Island as their first model sustainable community. They are seeking a Canadian community to partner with us and to become their second model sustainable community.

We have been partnering with a new group on the island called Sustainable Vashon. On September 14th, Sustainable Vashon held a community meeting that provided information about the state of the island from environmental, social and economic viewpoints, and asked the community to help provide a vision of what a future Sustainable Vashon would look like. The result was a resounding call for action. Energy sustainability was seen as an important driver for sustainability. We intend to build on this effort to further involve the community in decision-making about what to do vis-à-vis energy sustainability.

We need to do some major fund-raising to make things happen here. We are working with the Pacific Northwest Economic Region and others to find the necessary funding for demonstration projects and for developing policy vehicles to support sustainable energy. We are actively seeking other partners to accomplish these goals.

We invite you to share this note with anyone you believe would be interested. We will gladly add the names of anyone who requests it to this mail list. Likewise, if you wish to be removed, send me a note and I'll remove your name.

Yours,

Rita Schenck
Institute for Environmental Research and Education
P.O. Box 2449
Vashon, WA 98070

206-463-7430
206-279-1570 (f)
http://www.iere.org