>What’s remarkable is that none of the examples relied on federal or state financial aid, but instead on the community’s own resources.  And the communities featured in the report just scratch the surface of the many cities, counties, and municipalities that have tried and tested these options.

Eight local policies are featured in the report and the case studies of each policy show how these local tools have been leveraged for economic advantage, from more rigorous building codes to solar mandates and easier permitting to the use of a wide array of financing tools to spur renewable energy and energy efficiency.  The full list (far from exhaustive) includes:

Municipal electric utilitiesCommunity choice aggregation or "community utilities"Building energy codesBuilding energy use disclosureLocal tax authoritySolar mandates for new homesImproved solar permittingLocal energy financing

The policies aren’t tied to a political ideology, but a practical and local one.  Cities have identified where they have untapped resources and deployed them to generate jobs and keep more of their energy dollars in the economy.

The report also candidly admits that not every policy can be used everywhere.  In a brief chapter on the "Limits of Local Authority," a map illustrates how variation in state law gives some cities relative local superpowers compared to others.  Cities in states with so-called Dillon’s Rule are largely confined to powers expressly granted by their state government.  Cities with home rule generally have more authority.<

>A report (written by the strongest proponents of the tax) was recently released claiming that the carbon tax on gas — B.C. drivers’ now pay more to fill their tanks than anywhere else in North America — has resulted in less driving and a drop of carbon emissions by 17.4 per cent.

But Willis Eschenbach, a reporter for the world’s most viewed climate site, Watts Up With That, now a hall of fame honoree as best science blog on the Web, did the number crunching and found that the 17.4 per cent reduction was based entirely on B.C. residents buying less gas. But while B.C. drivers may be buying less gas in province, trips across the border have skyrocketed — by 150 per cent — because gas there is one-third cheaper. […]

B.C’s dubious achievement led its premier, Christy Clark, a mistress of green manipulation if there ever was one, to recently announce that the rest of Canada must follow her province’s lead, no matter the cost to single parents, young families, working class drivers, and old people needing to heat their homes. For make no mistake about it, it is they who live in fuel poverty and who all too often have to choose between heating and food.

And where did the money from the carbon tax go? According to B.C.’s Auditor-General, two-thirds of funds brokered by the Pacific Carbon Trust went to Encana, the biggest gas company in Canada, and to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, an organization so powerful, it is practically untouchable. No matter that both organizations were going to undertake their carbon projects anyway; they were glad to take the money, which came from schools and hospitals which are mandated to be carbon neutral: a cool million dollars from Vancouver and Surrey area schools alone.<

>In a report released in late August by the Center for Effective Government (formerly OMB Watch), author Nick Schwellenbach chronicled what austerity means for OSHA and the workers it protects. To first put the issue and impacts of slashed budgets in broader context, consider OSHA’s current capacity. According to the report, OSHA conducted fewer health and safety compliance inspections in 2011 than in 1981, despite the number of workplaces doubling from 4.5 million to 9 million and the number of workers growing from about 73 million to about 129 million. In that three-decade span, the ratio of OSHA inspectors to workers fell from one per 31,000 workers to one per 62,000 workers. And of course, as with most public health endeavors, cutting oversight of health and safety doesn’t save money in the long run.<

>Generation from onshore wind was up 70% on the same time last year, while offshore wind showed an increase of 51%, due to increased capacity onshore and offshore, as well as high wind speeds, according to DECC. Nearly half of the total generation from renewables came from wind (48%).

 “This confirms what we have been seeing for some time, which is renewables steadily becoming more important in meeting our electricity needs, and wind being responsible for the lion’s share of the progress,” said Maf Smith, deputy chief executive of RenewableUK. “That this period coincided with one of the coldest Springs on record means that wind was providing this power at a crucial time.<

>Virtual Power Plants

One distributed generation technology with significant growth potential is the virtual power plant (VPP). In the VPP model an energy aggregator gathers a portfolio of smaller generators and operates them as a unified and flexible resource on the energy market or sells their power as system reserve.

VPPs are designed to maximize asset owners’ profits while also balancing the grid. They can match load fluctuations through forecasting, advance metering and computerized control, and can perform real-time optimization of energy resources.

"Virtual power plants essentially represent an ‘Internet of Energy,’ tapping existing grid networks to tailor electricity supply and demand services for a customer," said Navigant senior analyst Peter Asmus in a market report. The VPP market will grow from less than US $1 billion per year in 2013 to $3.6 billion per year by 2020, according to Navigant’s research — and one reason is that with more variable renewables on the grid flexibility and demand response are becoming more crucial.

Asmus called VPPs "an ideal optimization platform for the coming transformation of the power grid," adding that both supply and demand flexibility will be increasingly necessary to accommodate fast ramping periods and address corresponding supply forecast errors.<