Brown on Green

Denver’s Sustainability Park Begins Taking Shape in Curtis Park

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

One of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society’s (CRES) major focuses this year will be a new Sustainability Park that’s beginning to take shape on a site east of Coors Field in Denver’s Curtis Park neighborhood.

CRES received 27 responses to a request last month for letters of interest from organizations that would like to participate in the project, a collaborative effort by CRES and Denver Housing Authority. CRES will also be reaching out to companies with technologies it’s interested in exploring to encourage them to participate, said CRES President Tony Frank.

The letters of interest will be reviewed by a selection committee consisting of representatives from the Housing Authority, NREL, the neighborhood surrounding the park and renewable and green-building experts from various organizations, Frank said.

The Sustainability Park will showcase, evaluate and promote “earth friendly technologies and strategies” for renewable energy, efficient resource use, sustainable design, urban agriculture and transportation. It’s located at 2500 Lawrence Street on a 2.7-acre site encompassing a full city block owned by the Denver Housing Authority.

CRES plans to host a “volunteer day” at the park from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on January 22 to provide CRES volunteers a tour of the site and begin cleaning it up. The plan is for the site to be fully developed in time for the World Renewable Energy Forum, to be held in Denver in May. People attending the forum will be offered tours of the Sustainability Park.

Although most of the park is still empty, the Urban Farmers Collaborative – three separate micro-farming enterprises – produced crops at the site during last year’s growing season and will continue to operate there.

There’s also a year-round, high-altitude greenhouse operated by Feed Denver, Turn-key Aquaponics and Colorado Aqua Farms that produces plants and fish, with the waste from the fish providing nutrients to fertilize the plants.

And 11 solar panels, each using different technology, have been installed to provide electricity for the site and serve as a testing ground for various solar technologies, said DJ Cardi, project manager for the park.

Renewable Advocates to Play Defense in 2012 Colorado Legislature

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

Renewable-energy advocates don’t expect to get any new legislation through the Colorado Legislature in 2012, several Democratic legislators said Thursday at the Colorado Renewable Energy Society’s second annual CRES Day at the Capitol.

“The speaker (Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch) has laid down his marker saying nothing new on renewables next year and the Republicans maintain tight control of their caucus,” Rep. Max Tyler, D-Lakewood, said in an interview following his appearance on a panel at the CRES event that also featured Democratic Reps. Claire Levy of Boulder and Rep. Randy Fischer of Fort Collins.

And the state’s power utilities, including Xcel, are to be in no mood to support any renewable-energy legislation during the upcoming session, Tyler added.

With Republicans holding a one-vote majority in the House and, according to Tyler, poised to kill all Democratic bills on renewable energy, there’s virtually no chance of any renewable-energy bills making it through the legislature, Tyler said. Other legislators at the CRES event agreed.

So, Tyler said, “we’ll be playing defense to keep the legislature from taking apart what we’ve already achieved.”

With Democrats in control of the Colorado Senate and a Democratic governor, there’s a pretty good chance the defensive posture will succeed.

“The Senate has been very stalwart,” Tyler said. “They’ve done a good job of blocking bills that go over from the House.”

That doesn’t mean there won’t be any renewable energy bills introduced.

“There might be some bills to make a point and lay the groundwork for when we get the majority back again,” Tyler said. “I’ve got a couple things,” including a proposal to ensure that citizens’ voices are heard during Colorado Public Utilities Commission proceedings and one on water used by power plants.

CRES Executive Director Tony Frank agreed “we may not see any legislation passed next year, but you will see the stage being set to lay the groundwork for legislation that may pass later. And maybe we’ll be surprised. Maybe we’ll see some leadership to get something past the goal line. But it’s going to be tough if last year is any indication.”

There’s also likely to be a legislative fight over the Governor’s Energy Office, which enjoyed major success under former Gov. Bill Ritter.

The continuation of GEO will be one of CRES’s major focuses during the 2012 session, Frank said. He’s optimistic about the agency’s future. “Not by any means is it going away,” he said. “But we have work to do to see that it gets some funding.”

Tyler said GEO is “struggling to stay alive” but also seems optimistic it will survive.

“There’s talk about GEO putting some of its effort into clean-coal technology,” Tyler said. “A lot of people will have a problem with that. Clean coal is an oxymoron. But it may be the price we have to pay to keep GEO alive. It won’t look like what it looked like under Gov. Ritter.”

How involved will Gov. John Hickenlooper be in the fight over GEO’s future and renewable-energy legislation?

“Hickenlooper’s not an enemy,” Tyler said. “But he’s not an advocate for renewables and sustainability, either.”

CRES seeks proposals for Denver Sustainability Park

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

The Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) is requesting letters of interest from organizations interested in developing projects or programs for a “sustainability park” to be built near downtown Denver. The letters are due by December 14.

CRES and the Denver Housing Authority are partnering to develop Denver Sustainability Park on a 2.7-acre site at 2500 Lawrence Street, five blocks west of Coors Field.

The park “is a first-of-its-kind demonstration and testing site for a full spectrum of sustainable technologies and strategies,” CRES said. It also will include an outdoor commons area serving as an open-air classroom and venue for community and cultural events.

“Denver’s Sustainability Park will be a place to showcase and demonstrate established and emerging earth-friendly strategies,” CRES added. “It will serve as a hands-on learning laboratory for students, developers, green industry professionals, municipal leaders and the public at large.”

CRES said proposed projects or programs should include at least one of five elements: renewable energy, green building, urban agriculture and sustainable site development, community outreach and education, or transportation. The proposals can include established technologies or “emerging or nontraditional ideas.”

The proposals will be evaluated by a committee of renewable energy and green-building experts, design professionals, community stakeholders and representatives from CRES and the Denver Housing Authority.

The letters of interest should include a brief description of the project or program, space requirements including any special siting requirements and an explanation of how it will enrich the sustainability park’s mission of “advancing a holistic model for developing health sustainable communities,” CRES said.

CRES said it “understands that all information submitted may not be 100% firm and accurate. At this stage, specifications or other information regarding your proposal are not meant to be binding contractual commitments.”

CRES said it expects visitors to the sustainability park to number “in the tens of thousands” annually. “With strategic involvement in events like the World Renewable Energy Forum coming to Denver in May 2012, and the Annual Green Route Festival, the park and its supporting partners and exhibitors will get local, national and international exposure,” CRES said.

Letters of interest and questions should be submitted to DJ Cardi, program manager, Colorado Renewable Energy Society, 3245 Eliot Street, Denver, CO 80211. He can be reached at 303-882-5300 | d.cardi@cres-energy.org.

Energy Efficiency Inspired by The Jetsons and The Anasazi

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

John Avenson has been a science fiction fan all of his life.

So, when he saw The Jetsons on TV as a boy it didn’t take long for him to decide he wanted a house like theirs -- full of gadgets that would make everyday life easier.

He’s also been fascinated by the idea of getting free heat from the sun, which dates back to a childhood trip with his family to Indian cliff dwellings near Colorado Springs.

Using plans he obtained from the Solar Energy Research Institute, now NREL, Avenson built a house in the suburbs of Denver nearly 30 years ago that combines elements from The Jetsons and the lessons he learned during his visit to those cliff dwellings.

“I’ve lived in a home that for 29 years has had almost no heating bills,” Avenson says.  He says his largest heating bills, in February, are somewhere between $30 and $40

In fact, his heating bills are so low that he’s hasn’t bothered to replace the furnace that came with the house with one of the new high-efficiency furnaces now on the market.  “I hardly ever use my furnace,” Avenson says.  “It wouldn’t be worth it.”

Avenson shares his living space with Rex, a computer that keeps track of how much energy he uses and how much energy he generates with the solar panels on his roof.  Rex also keeps track of temperatures throughout the house, turns lights on an off and -- my favorite trick -- automatically raises and lowers a set of heat-trapping shades.  Rex raises the shades when the sun is shining during the winter to let the sun heat his home and lowers the shades when the sun sets -- or goes behind a cloud -- to trap the heat in the house inside.

I met Avenson through Steve Stevens, who has also made his house highly energy efficient.  I featured Stevens’ home in an earlier story on BrownOnGreen.Net.

Both Avenson and Stevens have done most of the work on their houses themselves.  One key difference:  Stevens has done much of the work on his house on the cheap with materials he’s either scrounged for free or purchased at deeply discounted prices; Avenson hasn’t.

Click on the picture at the top of this story to see a live update of the energy usage at Avenson’s house.  Or play the video for a tour.

 

Denver Post highlights fight over "green-power" tranmission line

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

There's an interesting story in today's Denver Post about billionaire rancher Louis Bacon's opposition to plans by Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to build a transmission line across his ranch in southern Colorado.

There's a delicious irony to this story. Many environmentalists who probably would be on Bacon's side if the transmission line was designed to move electricity from traditional power plants see him as a villain because the line would serve giant solar-energy farms in the San Luis Valley.

New transmission lines, like the one opposed by Bacon, are essential for Colorado's goal of increasing the use of renewable energy.

But Bacon's opposition along with other local opposition to similar facilities elsewhere in the state are good reminders that "clean" and "environmentally friendly" are sometimes in the eye of the beholder. And bringing more green energy to the state will require negotiations that weren't foreseen even a few years ago.

Chief Evangelist in the Church of Sustainable Living

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

In the Church of Sustainable Living & Saving Energy, Steve Stevens would surely qualify as Evangelist in Chief.  He preaches sustainability, conservation and frugality – and practices what he preaches.

Retired after a 35-year career at Bell Labs, Stevens has almost single-handedly turned his modest house in Golden, Colorado, from a typical suburban dwelling into a building that produces more energy than it consumes.

He’s added enough insulation – it’s shoulder high – to his attic to give it an R100 rating.  He’s adding enough insulation to his exterior walls – 8½ inches – to give them an R60 rating.  And he dug up much of the foundation of his house and added R29 worth of insulation to the outside of his foundation before filling it back in.

Stevens uses solar energy for most of the heat and electricity in his modest suburban home – in the form of 48 photovoltaic panels on his roof capable of producing 9,920 watts of electricity and a once-rotting south-facing deck he’s converted into a sun room he calls his “solar furnace.”

He says his solar furnace and the “super insulation” he’s adding to the walls, attic and foundation of his house eventually will let him get rid of the high-efficiency gas furnace in his basement.

“I won’t need a furnace anymore,” he says.  That’s a pretty bold statement for someone living in a community where below-freezing temperatures are common at least six months out of the year and below-zero temperatures can linger for days at a time.

I have no doubt he’ll succeed and his furnace will show up on Craig’s List someday.  It’ll be like one of those pristine used cars that some little old lady just drove to church and the grocery store for 10 years.

Stevens is an active participant in the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) was named CRES’s volunteer of the year for 2010.  He helped plan this year’s Denver solar-homes tour for CRES and his house was on the tour.

So, I showed up at his house expecting to have him show off the solar panels on his roof and tell me how much money he’s saving bypassing Xcel Energy.

We eventually got to the solar panels.  But they were pretty much an afterthought in my tour.  Stevens wanted to show off the other things he’s doing to his house.

What I experienced over the next 90 minutes felt like a combination of watching a proud papa show off his family and sitting in the classroom of a teacher who’s so excited about what he’s teaching that you get excited about it, too.

What Stevens is doing to his house is impressive.  What’s makes it even more impressive is that he’s doing most of it on the cheap.

“The American dinner table generally has a dog underneath to eat the scraps that fall off,” he says.  “I’m the dog on the American construction dinner table.  I’m down there as things get thrown off the edge. I see what use I can put them to.”

For example, he used glass from discarded patio doors – purchased for $15 apiece from Habitat for Humanity – for the south-facing windows in his “solar furnace.”  Most of the lumber he uses is cull lumber he buys from Lowe’s at 75 to 80 percent off.  And he has light fixtures throughout his house that he bought from Habitat for Humanity for next to nothing.  He uses 1-, 1½- and 2-watt LED bulbs in many of the light fixtures.

You’ll see some of what I saw if you watch the video accompanying this article.  But there was more.  Much more.

SunTrac Solar: A 35-year-old dream about to come true?

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

Bill Lowstuter’s had a dream for the past 35 years:  Getting other people into hot water.  Really hot water.  It looks like his dream is about to come true.

Lowstuter is founder and chief operating officer of SunTrac Solar of Golden, Colorado.

Most of us think of photovoltaics – using the sun’s power to create electricity – when we think of solar power.  But SunTrac manufactures four-by-eight-foot panels that concentrate the sun’s energy to create super-hot water – 140 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit – for commercial and industrial use.

It’s ideal, Lowstuter says, for companies that prepare and process food, hotels and hospitals that need 160-degree water for their laundries, breweries and other commercial and industrial operations that use very hot water.

“It will work really well on domestic hot water for your home,” Lowstuter adds, “but it’s overkill.”

He came up with his design for a solar-concentrating panel in 1975 and built a prototype in 1978.  He still has it.

“I’ve carried it around for 30 years and nine houses in five states,” he says.  “So, I just have to thank my wife for her patience and perseverance.”

She must like him a lot.  “Some of our first dates were actually assembling some of the solar panels,” he says.  “Who says engineers aren’t romantic?”

The prototype “was the same design, the same configuration we have now,” Lowstuter says, with some modifications along the way to make the panels more rugged and durable.

Ready to actively sell the product

Although he came up with the idea 35 years ago, Lowstuter says he got serious about developing the product about four years ago.

SunTrac’s ready to actively start selling, he says, “because I’m now really comfortable with the ruggedness, reliability and long-term viability of the product.”  For example, a panel installed at Lowstuter’s house came through a one-inch hail storm “perfectly fine.”  The same storm damaged the roof of his house and several cars and destroyed his garden.  The panels are rated for a 30-year life, he says.

Another reason SunTrac is ready to begin selling its product, Lowstuter says, is the Cleantech Open – a business competition designed to help clean tech startup companies develop the business and marketing expertise they need to become successful.

“I entered the Cleantech Open because I’m an engineer, I’m a tinkerer, and I don’t have the skillsets from the standpoint of doing business planning, marketing and the sales piece of this,” he says.

The Cleantech Open was “a tremendous learning opportunity to be able to help us advance by several years in terms of our business acumen and our presentations and the quality of knowing the market, knowing how to get to the market, knowing how to go into the market and tell the story about why people should be interested in our product and our company,” he says.  “It was an immense help.”

Elegant in its simplicity

SunTrac’s product is elegant in its simplicity. 

Remember using a magnifying glass to concentrate sunlight to start a fire when you were a kid?  SunTrac uses the same principal, except it uses parabola-shaped curved polished aluminum mirrors to focus sunlight on black copper tubes filled with liquid.  The liquid, typically a propylene glycol solution, is then used to heat water for commercial and industrial use.

The heart of the SunTrac solar panel is a rectangular manifold – two one-inch metal pipes joined together with six half-inch copper tubes with a special black paint to absorb heat.  The manifold serves as a frame that provides the panel’s shape and as a mounting mechanism for the mirrors.  And the pipes and copper tubes carry the liquid heated by the mirrors.

The whole thing is enclosed in a metal case with a five-millimeter (3/16”) tempered glass front to protect the mirrors from the elements.

To maximize the amount of sunlight converted to heat, a small 12-volt DC brushless electric motor activated by a pair of light sensors moves the mirrors to track the sun as it moves across the sky.  The motor is mounted on the outside of the case for easy replacement.

The panels are up to 76 percent energy efficient – they convert up to 76 percent of the solar energy hitting them into heat.  That’s significantly better than evacuated glass tubes, the main competing technology.  The average efficiency of the top 15 evacuated tubes on the market is 59 percent, according to a comparison on SunTrac’s website.

As an engineer with extensive manufacturing experience, Lowstuter also has simplified the manufacturing process.

“There’s only about two hours of work in (building) each panel,” Lowstuter says.  “We can build probably 25 to 30 a day with a staff of 10 people and five work stations.  So, we’re able to rapidly ramp up in terms of being able to meet any anticipated production requirements.”

“The entire panel is designed to be assembled really with two tools,” Lowstuter says.  “One is a Number 8 hex head wrench and the other is a Number 10 hex head wrench.  There are only two bolt sizes in this entire assembly.”

One SunTrac panel can deliver the same amount of energy (when converted to BTUs) as ten 205-watt photovoltaic panels, Lowstuter says.  Up to eight panels can be connected for added heating capacity.

Green v. NIMBY: Who wears white hat in renewable energy growth?

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

Good versus evil.  It’s an age-old theme in literature and politics -- although picking the white hats and black hats in politics usually depends on your point of view.  One person’s villain can be another’s hero.  And vice versa.

The same is turning out to be true for wind and solar farms and the new transmission lines that will be needed to get the electricity they produce onto the grid.  One person’s green energy can be another’s local nuisance -- or worse.

I’m struck by the irony that’s unfolding as we move toward more green, renewable energy -- something I think most of us would see as a good thing.

Some of the same people who once saw the snail darter and northern spotted owl as heroes in epic battles to stop a TVA dam in Tennessee and old-forest logging in the Pacific Northwest now see using the sage grouse to stop or delay wind farms in eastern Colorado as obstructionism.

And some view complaints about the local problems posed by green-energy projects as NIMBY-ism.  To the surprise and consternation of some green-energy advocates, the folks who live in eastern and southern Colorado aren’t automatically embracing the big wind and solar farms and power lines needed for Colorado to reach its 30 percent renewable energy goal for utility-supplied electricity.

Locals are putting up a fight because of their concerns about the impacts these green-energy projects will have on their environment.

“The next big issue is going to be siting,” wind consultant Wes Perrin, president of San Miguel Power Association’s Board of Directors and a member of Tri-State Generation’s Board of Directors, said recently during a panel discussion at the Colorado Renewable Energy Conference in Montrose.

“There’s a growing body of evidence around the country and around the world that there are groups getting together that are complaining about different characteristics of wind energy that are causing them problems,” Perrin said.  Complaints about solar facilities hasn’t reached the same level but probably will, he predicted.  And transmission-line siting promises to be the most problematic of all, he said.

“Tri-State’s been trying to site a new transmission line for 12 years and they’re just breaking ground on it now,” Perrin said.

“Everybody knows what a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) is and it’s always passed around as a negative term,” Perrin added.  “I don’t think NIMBYism is a bad term.  I think NIMBYism is just people taking care of their backyard, saying ‘this is of concern to me.  I have these issues.’”

And, Perrin adds, that means the concerns “have to be taken seriously and addressed forthrightly.  Otherwise, we won’t really be doing our job the way we wish it had been done before us in other industries.”

Plus, it's smart politics, he said.  “Dedicated opposition can destroy just about anything.”

“I think we should start talking about MIMBY, maybe in my back yard,” Perrin said.  “There’s a negotiating tactic that when you deal with somebody who’s opposed to you, you get their objections out front and then you say ‘so, okay then your answer is yes if.  If I do these things, you’ll say yes.’  That’s MIMBY, maybe in my back yard.”

Quoting former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s famous comment that “all politics is local,” Perrin said he believes O’Neill “didn’t go far enough.  I think all politics is personal.  I think it’s one-to-one.”

“You’ve got to listen to people,” Perrin said.  “You’ve got to get their issues out in front and turn them from a NIMBY to a MIMBY.”

Dr. Barbara Farhar, a senior research associate at the Institute of Behavioral Science at CU-Boulder and a former senior policy analyst at NREL, said she doesn’t like using the term NIMBY because it’s “a term used to discredit the opposition.” 

Pointing to opposition within the San Luis Valley to a proposed transmission line, Farhar said “the concerns raised by the stakeholders in the valley were reasonable.  The question is what is the benefit to the people in the San Luis Valley.  And you can’t just say jobs.  Is it a boom-bust kind of situation?  That’s one of the concerns raised.  So, they identify many advantages but also some disadvantages.  It seems to me much more productive to actually listen and give answers to questions that are being raised without discrediting people for raising them.”

“We have to hold onto the concept of human impact,” Perrin said.  “We have to take those things into account and get involved and understand the questions that come around about renewable energy.”

Will 2011 Colorado Legislature increase renewable energy to 40%?

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

Will the Colorado Legislature increase the renewable-energy requirement for the state’s utilities to 40 percent next year? 

Some Colorado legislators are talking about it, Don Marostica, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, said this weekend at the annual Colorado Renewable Energy Conference in Montrose.

Marostica also threw out an interesting teaser about a major new renewable energy company he said will be coming to Colorado.  “You’re going to see an announcement here in a couple weeks that is absolutely going to shock you,” Marostica said.  “You’re going to say ‘wow, how did Colorado end up with that company?’  Because it really is going to put us on the map in in renewable energy.”

The legislature voted earlier this year to increase the renewable-energy requirement for the state’s two investor-owned utilities – Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy -- to 30 percent by 2020.

“I’ve talked to several legislators that are saying ‘why don’t we just move it to 40 percent to really put the feet to the fire of all our energy companies,’” Marostica said.  Such a change would generate a significant number of jobs, he added.

“Since 2007, we’ve added about 15,000 renewable energy jobs in the state of Colorado,” Marostica said. “We’re going to add another 4,500 jobs just by going to 30 percent.”

“We’re running about eight percent unemployment in the state,” Marostica said.  “I want to get that down to where it should be, four percent.  Colorado can do that with their renewable energy sector, especially if they’re talking about making renewable energy a larger and larger portfolio.”

Xcel Energy supported the increase to 30 percent, but has since said the goal is in jeopardy if it can’t get approval for the new transmission lines that would be needed to carry electricity to the Front Range from large solar and wind power-generating facilities in the eastern and southern parts of the state.

Marostica agrees new transmission lines will be essential to meeting the state’s renewable energy goal.

“You need to figure out how we’re going to build the transmission lines in order to do that because without that you won’t be able to do it,” he said.

Colorado voters approved Amendment 37 in 2004 requiring Xcel to provide 10 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2015. Xcel opposed Amendment 37 but later said the opposition was a mistake.

At the request of Gov. Ritter, the Legislature approved a law in 2007 increasing the renewable-energy requirement to 20 percent by 2020. H.B. 1001, approved this year, increases the requirement to 30 percent.

Marostica, a Republican, represented Loveland in the Colorado House from January 2007 to July 2009 and served on the Joint Budget Committee during the 2009 legislative session.  He resigned from the legislature in July 2009 to head the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. 

CRES to present 2010 Larson-Notari Award to Amory Lovins

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

The Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) will present its 2010 Larson-Notari Award for distinguished service to world-renowned environmentalist Amory Lovins at its annual conference later this month in Montrose.

Lovins will accept the award at the conference and is expected to use his acceptance speech to discuss his Reinventing Fire project to create a fossil-fuel-free future for the United States.  He also will answer questions from the audience.

Lovins is founder, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass and has worked in energy policy and related areas since the 1970s.  The Lovins-Notari Award has been presented annually since 2005 to recognize Coloradans for their distinguished service and exemplary contributions to the field of renewable energy.  It is named after CRES cofounders Ronal Larson and Paul Notari.

The CRES conference will be June 18-20 at the Montrose Pavilion in Montrose.  The fee is $200 for CRES members and $250 for non-members.  Students and spouses of conference attendees can register at discounted rates.  Complete information is available on the conference website.

The Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) is co-sponsoring this year’s conference and will hold its annual meeting during the event, which will be June 18-20 at the Montrose Pavilion in Montrose.

Some other highlights from the agenda:

• Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly will be the keynote speaker.  He was director of NREL from 1997 to 2004, chief administrator of NASA from 1989 to 1992 and one of the original space shuttle astronauts.
• Steve Andrews, long-time CRES member and founder of the U.S. Chapter of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil will speak at the Saturday night dinner.  The dinner will also feature a video address by former CIA Director James Woolsey.
• Don Marostica, director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development will speak on why going green is good business.
• Delta-Montrose Electric Association, San Miguel Power Association and Tri-state Generating and Transmission Association will participate in a panel discussion on the use of renewable energy by electric co-ops.