City Council approves energy improvements, cost increase
Michael Mayday
Issue date: 4/9/09 Section: News
Hillsdale residents will pay a little more for their energy bills when the Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities begins optimizing Hillsdale's energy toward the end of 2009, based on two resolutions the Hillsdale City Council passed Monday night.
The resolutions allow the BPU to move ahead in a larger plan designed to get consumers to use energy more efficiently.
"That's what this is about," BPU Director Rick Rose said. "It's just going to be a long-term education process for everybody."
Specifically, the BPU can now regulate the adaptation of renewable energy in Hillsdale County, so that by 2015, 10 percent of the energy the county uses will be renewable.
Rose said the state of Michigan requires electric utility providers to submit two plans: one for renewed energy and another for optimized energy.
To harvest more renewable energy, the BPU may start extracting gas from tire fragments this fall. It would heat the tires until they broke down and emitted the gas, in a coal plant in Litchfield, Mich. The effort should eventually replace 20 percent of the coal-based energy the BPU currently uses, Rose said.
Every month the BPU buys back energy its consumers didn't use. For its energy optimization plan, the BPU will now reduce the amount of excess energy it buys back, by one percent every year, until 2012. Rose said this should encourage consumers to waste less energy.
It will also cost residents a little more than an extra dollar each month, an extra $5 for businesses, and an extra $147 for industrial areas. These increases reflect a rise in the price the BPU pays for energy, Rose said.
Resident Scott Sessions sent the council a letter urging members to vote against the resolution, as the cost increase could hurt residents and businesses, but the council approved the resolution unanimously
The resolutions allow the BPU to move ahead in a larger plan designed to get consumers to use energy more efficiently.
"That's what this is about," BPU Director Rick Rose said. "It's just going to be a long-term education process for everybody."
Specifically, the BPU can now regulate the adaptation of renewable energy in Hillsdale County, so that by 2015, 10 percent of the energy the county uses will be renewable.
Rose said the state of Michigan requires electric utility providers to submit two plans: one for renewed energy and another for optimized energy.
To harvest more renewable energy, the BPU may start extracting gas from tire fragments this fall. It would heat the tires until they broke down and emitted the gas, in a coal plant in Litchfield, Mich. The effort should eventually replace 20 percent of the coal-based energy the BPU currently uses, Rose said.
Every month the BPU buys back energy its consumers didn't use. For its energy optimization plan, the BPU will now reduce the amount of excess energy it buys back, by one percent every year, until 2012. Rose said this should encourage consumers to waste less energy.
It will also cost residents a little more than an extra dollar each month, an extra $5 for businesses, and an extra $147 for industrial areas. These increases reflect a rise in the price the BPU pays for energy, Rose said.
Resident Scott Sessions sent the council a letter urging members to vote against the resolution, as the cost increase could hurt residents and businesses, but the council approved the resolution unanimously
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