Environmental groups accuse utilities of dodging Missouri renewable energy standards

Renew Missouri and seven other environmental advocacy and green energy groups filed complaints with the Missouri Public Service Commission on Jan. 30 and Jan. 31. The complaints accused Ameren Missouri, Empire District Electric Co. and Kansas City Power & Light of not complying with the standards.

Ameren provides electricity to 3,890 customers in Boone County. Empire and Kansas City Power & Light have no customers in Boone County.

In 2008, Renew Missouri wrote the ballot language for the renewable energy standards. Known to voters as Proposition C, the standards require investor-owned utilities in Missouri to use renewable resources to generate an increasing percentage of the electricity they deliver to their customers. Utilities can also purchase renewable power that they don't generate themselves.

The state law requires the following percentages of power to be generated using renewable resources:

2 percent by 2011
5 percent by 2014
10 percent by 2018
15 percent by 2021

It also mandates that utilities may not raise their electric rates more than 1 percent.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources then came up with rules defining which renewable resources count.

Renew Missouri thought that when Missouri voters chose to implement mandatory renewable energy standards in 2008, the utilities would have to get busy building new solar panels, wind farms, landfill gas plants or other environmentally friendly ways to generate energy that would satisfy the requirements.

"I thought my job was done on Nov. 4, 2008," Renew Missouri director PJ Wilson said, referring to the day when 66 percent of Missouri voters passed the renewable energy requirements.

"Now here we are, five years later," he said.

In April 2012, the three utilities submitted plans to the Public Service Commission describing how they complied with the standards in 2011, the first year the standards took effect.

"We are fully compliant," Ameren vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs Warren Wood said.

"Empire has and will continue to meet the requirements of the renewable energy standards in both Missouri and Kansas per state statutes," Empire corporate communications director Amy Bass said.

Kansas City Power & Light supported the standards from the outset, the utility's spokeswoman, Courtney Hughley, said.

"We are in compliance with the rule," Hughley said.

In a response to each of the utilities' 2011 compliance reports, the Natural Resources Department expressed disappointment in the standards' failure to spark new investment in renewable energy.

"In passing Proposition C, Missouri voters communicated their interest in more renewable energy than had been previously developed in Missouri by 2008," Department of Natural Resources attorney Jennifer Frazier wrote in response to Ameren's compliance plan. "This first set of filings demonstrates that Missouri's renewable energy standard is not creating significant additional renewable energy development."

"There is no basis to believe that Missouri voters voted for ‘more renewable energy,'" Ameren attorney Wendy Tatro wrote in response the Department of Natural Resources comments. The renewable energy standard "does not require any utility to add any amount of new renewable energy. It only sets forth the percentage of energy generation" or an associated level of renewable energy credits "which must come from renewable energy sources."

Empire and Kansas City Power & Light did not respond to the department's statement.

So far, only Ameren has built new green infrastructure in Missouri. The company placed photovoltaic solar panels on its headquarters buildings. All of that energy is consumed at the site.

In May 2012, Ameren completed a small facility in Maryland Heights that converts landfill gas to electricity.

All three utilities offer rebates to their customers who install solar panels on their homes or businesses.

Wilson said these represent tiny fractions of the utilities' total energy sources and they shouldn't be held up as examples of commitment to developing renewable energy.

"It's offensive, really, for them to say, ‘Look at all the stuff we're doing,' because the stuff they're doing is a far cry from where they're required by law to be," Wilson said.

So far, the Public Service Commission has ruled that the three utilities are in compliance with the standards. Wilson said this is why Renew Missouri responded with a formal complaint.

The utilities have 30 days to respond to the complaints, the commission's director of regulatory review Cherlyn Voss said. She said the commission could take a wide variety of actions, depending on the complainants' desires and the utilities' responses.

"The complainants choose which avenues to take," Voss said.

Wilson said if the commission decided against them, Renew Missouri would take their complaints to the Missouri Court of Appeals.