While much of the rise in the early half of 2021 represents increased demand for energy that is end-of-pandemic related, the steep rise since November 2021 is most definitely war related. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin first ordered a massing of military forces on the Ukraine border in March and April 2021, crude oil prices have risen by 122 percent, tracked by natural gas (84 percent), as shown in the graph below as of March 8, 2022. The current surge in oil and natural gas prices recalls the spikes in the 1970s, caused by hostilities in the Middle East. Today Virginia has 700 times as many kW’s registered under solar PPAs. Under a PPA, all capital costs, performance risk and maintenance and operating costs borne by the developer, with the customer paying a fixed rate per kWh at a known price below utility grid price for a 20 to 25 year period. The solar PPA financing method, first introduced by Jigar Shah and Wells Fargo Bank in 2003, offers customers affordable solar. In 2010 our company introduced the first solar Power Purchase Agreement in Virginia, with a 104 kW rooftop solar array at Eastern Mennonite University. Our company helped trucking and bus companies hedge the volatile costs of diesel fuel by buying and selling oil futures and options contracts. We were (and still are) registered as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) with the National Futures Association. In its early incarnation, from 2004 to 2009, Secure Futures was an oil trading company. As it turns out, our company’s solar work is reducing our vulnerability to oil wars and creating clean energy jobs in coal country to support the transition to a renewable energy economy. Full disclosure, I’m a reformed oil trader now hedging energy costs with solar for public serving entities.
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