Utilities Shocked as More Companies Self-Generate Power.

I wrote not long ago about the developing trend in companies generating their own power. It’s not because their greenies, its because it makes them more green stuff.

This is a freight train gaining speed….

Wall Street Journal:

On a hill overlooking the Susquehanna River, two big wind turbines crank out electricity for Kroger Co.’s KR -0.57% Turkey Hill Dairy in rural Lancaster County, Pa., allowing it to save 25% on its power bill for the past two years.

Across the country, at a big food-distribution center Kroger also owns in Compton, Calif., a tank system installed this year uses bacteria to convert 150 tons a day of damaged produce, bread and other organic waste into a biogas that is burned on site to produce 20% of the electricity the facility uses.

These two projects, plus the electric output of solar panels at four Kroger grocery stores, and some energy-conservation efforts are saving the Cincinnati-based grocery chain $160 million a year on electricity, said Denis George, its energy manager. That is a lot of money that isn’t going into the pockets of utilities.

From big-box retailers to high-tech manufacturers, more companies across the country are producing their own power. Since 2006, the number of electricity-generation units at commercial and industrial sites has more than quadrupled to roughly 40,000 from about 10,000, according to federal statistics.
Experts say the trend is gaining momentum, spurred by falling prices for solar panels and natural gas, as well as a fear that power outages caused by major storms will become more common.

The growing number of companies that are at least partly energy self-sufficient is sending a shudder through the utility industry, threatening its revenues and growth prospects, according to a report earlier this year by the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association for investor-owned electric companies.

State and federal regulators say they are worried that utilities could end up with fewer customers to pay for costly transmission lines and power plants.Utility executives, meanwhile, are asking themselves a disquieting question: “Am I going to just sit here and take it and ultimately be a caretaker of a museum, or am I going to be part of that business” that’s emerging, said Nick Akins, chief executive of American Electric Power Co., a big Ohio-based utility. AEP is considering helping its customers install their own generating facilities.

Many “clean energy” projects also qualify for federal and state subsidies. In the case of solar installations, there is a 30% federal tax credit, which is set to drop to 10% in 2017. Government officials say a shift to greener energy resources is good since it reduces the output from coal-fueled power plants, which produce about 40% of the nation’s electricity and are the most polluting.

But analysts say the importance of subsidies has been waning, overshadowed by steep declines in the cost of power-generating equipment. For example, the cost of solar modules—the biggest single component in a rooftop solar system—has dropped about 80% in the past four years, to about 65 cents a watt from about $4 a watt, said Galen Barbose, a senior researcher at the lab.

Companies also are turning to wind turbines and technologies like fuel cells, batteries, small natural-gas turbines and reciprocating engines, which are natural-gas-fueled cousins of the auto’s internal combustion engine.