State Sen. Kevin Lundberg has lived off the power grid in Berthoud for the last 25 years. He generates and stores his own electricity and right now he is awaiting a shipment from China of nickel-iron home batteries.

“These kind of batteries were invented by Thomas Edison,” Lundberg said in an interview last week. “The batteries he invented are still functioning. They last forever, not like the lead-acid batteries we use now, which you have to replace. The problem is, they shut down all production of the nickel-iron batteries in the 1960s – except they’re still making them in China.”

Lundberg seems to be just warming up into his topic. It’s hard to get it all down.

“Well, it would have been complicated for me as an individual to buy them from China directly. I did some digging and it turned out there’s a company called Iron Edison that delivers them in the United States and, I didn’t know it, but the company is right here in Colorado, in Lakewood. So, I have a 24 volt system, which means I need 20 cells. That’s 20 batteries, which are about 25 pounds each. They’re literally on a slow boat from China right now.

“Now I just have to pay for them,” Lundberg says. “It’s about $4,000 – but it would be even more expensive if I were on the grid and I had to pay the Xcel requirements.”

This kind of experience and knowledge is mostly why Sen. Steve Fenberg tapped Lundberg to co-sponsor his Senate Bill 89, a proposal meant to trim back recent requirements and fees levied by Xcel Energy in Colorado on home battery installation that nearly doubles the cost of a typical home energy storage system.

“I approached Senator Lundberg because I know he understands the technology,” said Fenberg. “He knows how much the technologies cost and how they work, so he understands what the bill is about.”

The senators make an odd couple, and their differences make them effective co-sponsors.

Lundberg is a 15-year veteran of the Legislature. Fenberg is a freshman. Lundberg, a Berthoud Republican, is one of the most conservative members of the conservative Senate GOP caucus. Fenberg is a Boulder Democrat, likely to become a leading progressive voice in the Senate.

The bill already seems to be shored up solidly on the left and right. It appeals to consumer rights supporters, renewable energy champions and citizen rights libertarians wary of any encroachments on individual liberties.

“The bill is about making sure a monopoly utility isn’t being invasive and invading people’s personal property rights,” says Fenberg. “At the end of the day, that’s what it is, it’s a huge company telling us what we can and can’t do on our own property.”

Lundberg agrees.

“For the life of me, I don’t know why [Xcel] needs to make this so costly. It seems excessive. For me, the bill is about holding the utility to a reasonable standard by which to operate. The bill I think makes sense for Colorado. It would mean more power for everyone.”

Home power storage is the latest front in the revolution threatening to reshape the electricity market. It’s the topic of leading business and tech conferences. It’s no surprise major power utilities like Xcel are trying to influence how the energy storage sector develops.

As solar panel installation costs dipped and panels sprung up on increasing numbers of roofs in sunny Colorado, Xcel sought to de-incentivize installation by hiking costs for solar customers through a grid-use fee. Consumers and the solar industry fought back and won a settlement this summer in which Xcel lifted the grid fee in favor of time-of-use fees, where rates for electricity go up and down depending on energy demand.

The push and pull with Xcel is “sort of a trend,” said Fenberg, who, as director at New Era Colorado, was a leader in the years-long push in Boulder to win release from the city contract with Xcel and to create its own municipal utility dedicated to renewable energy generation. City and utility lawyers are still working through the details of the deal.

“A couple years ago, Colorado had to fight for fair treatment in solar,” said Fenberg. “I think we’re essentially about to have that exact same fight when it comes to storage – because as happened with solar, all of the sudden home storage is within reach for regular people for the first time because the cost has come down so much.”

Fenberg said home battery installers who had worked in the sector for years told him that work has fallen off since Xcel hiked fees and began demanding home owners install extra meters and inverters.

“I think Xcel would say some of this is about safety,” he said. “But these products already have to be installed by people who are trained and have to abide by all the regular electrical codes.

“In my view, Xcel is clearly charging unreasonable rates to make it difficult for people to adopt these technologies.”

Fenberg said he’s received good feedback on the bill already from senators on both sides of the aisle. He says the libertarian Independence Institute also likes the legislation.

“It’s a very reasonable bill. We’re not offering incentives. We’re not encouraging Coloradans to buy and install batteries. We’re simply allowing them to do it. We just want consumers to have more control over their energy use.”

For individuals generating their own power, storage means they can power up during the day and then crank their air conditioning when they come home without using the grid. That would save them money spent on costly high-demand peak-time electricity and it would save that same utility-generated high-demand power for others to use.

It would also save Coloradans the cost of building the power plants Xcel builds to handle peak load days – those two or three days in July when Coloradans use maximum energy.

“The utility makes us pay for those plants, but they sit vacant most of the time,” says Fenberg. “If a small fraction of Coloradans had batteries, and they turned to their batteries instead of to the power plants in those days of the year, we wouldn’t need those backup power plants.

“We want consumers to do be able to do that, to be smart and be able to control your own energy use and their own energy budgets.”

Fenberg has no home batteries and no solar panels on his roof. Batteries are too expensive and solar companies have told him his roof is too small for panels. “My house is 600 square feet,” he said. “I’d love to have a battery. I’d love to install solar some day.”

“Lundberg lives on a farm,” Fenberg adds. “I haven’t been there. I’d love to visit.”

– john@coloradostatesman.com