WineAmerica 2015 National Grape and Wine Policy Conference

Last week WineAmerica held the 2015 National Grape and Wine Policy Conference in Washington, DC. The conference consisted of visits to Capitol Hill to meet with Representatives and informational panels. The panel presentations covered major legislative issues related to the United States wine industry with presentations from members of Congress, their staff, industry members, and…

Time for Lansing to Catch, Not Ignore, the New-Tech Energy Wave

http://www.mlui.org/energy/news-views/news-views-articles/time-for-lansing-to-catch-not-ignore-the-new-tech-energy-wave.html#.VSU6EPnF-So Employing new grid technologies can weave together renewable and storage energy sources large and small, reducing the need to build additional old-fashioned,centralized, fossil-fueled plants. (Graphic: Powertown) Now that Governor Rick Snyder, state Senate and House Republicans, and Democrats in both chambers have each outlined their proposed next steps for Michigan’s energy future, it’s time…

Wind gets cheaper, but energy for building turbines wanes

http://interlochenpublicradio.org/post/wind-gets-cheaper-energy-building-turbines-wanes By PETER PAYETTE  Michigan has a number of wind farms because the state basically made them mandatory in 2008. That was when lawmakers decided a certain amount of our electricity must come from renewable resources, and utilities built wind turbines to comply. Now, wind energy is, by some measurements, among the cheapest ways to…

CHP Interest Heating Up in Michigan

As Michigan policymakers consider implementing a robust integrated resource planning (IRP) process for forecasting energy supply and demand – or an integrated distribution planning (IDP) process that recognizes the accelerating deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) and the economic benefits of demand-side energy efficiency programs (more on this from 5 Lakes Energy coming soon), attention…