Balancing supply and demand
If insufficient kilowatt-hours are available from participating CVPS farms to meet enrolled customers’ demand, CVPS attempts to acquire and retire renewable energy certificates (RECs) from other regional renewable generators. Those RECs are issued by the regional independent system operator to support renewable generation more broadly.
If no RECs are available in the regional market for 4 cents per kWh or less, CVPS deposits Cow Power payments into the CVPS Renewable Development Fund. This fund, overseen by an independent board, provides project coordination support and incentives to farmers to stimulate further renewable farm generation development in the CVPS service area.
Open enrollment
Four farms are now each producing between 1.2 million and 3.5 million kWh a year of Cow Power. Several other farms are in various stages of planning to join the program and are expected on-line over the next two years. All CVPS farms received grants from the CVPS Renewable Development Fund and are enjoying support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state agencies in the form of additional grant money that covers only a portion of the capital costs of a project.
CVPS Cow Power has received the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets’ Commissioner’s Choice Seal of Quality and is one of the fastest-growing renewable energy programs in the country. It’s also among the most unique. In January, the program, in partnership with the first Cow Power producer, the Audet family’s Blue Spruce Farm, received the Vermont Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence, the state’s highest environmental honor. Blue Spruce Farm has 950 milking cows producing approximately 24 million pounds of milk a year. It also produced 1.3 million kWh in 2006.
“Through their partnership, the Audet family and Central Vermont Public Service have given new economic hope to many of our Vermont farms while providing customers a fully renewable energy choice,” Vermont Governor Jim Douglas said. “In creating CVPS Cow Power, the company built an entirely new economic and environmental model for manure management, and the Audets were brave enough to become pioneers and prove that it would work. Together with the 4,570-plus customers who have enrolled, CVPS and the Audets have shown the way for the many farmers who will follow their lead.”
Other utilities are taking note of CVPS’s leadership. Two of Vermont’s larger utilities are studying the possibility of using CVPS Cow Power as a template for their own renewable choice programs.
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