This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

In September, HEAL Utah published a detailed report critical of Rocky Mountain Power's reliance on fossil fuels and its failure to move forward on clean energy.

Our report, entitled "Brown Sky: The Truth About How Rocky Mountain Power Obstructs Renewable Energy," led to local press coverage. Our utility then responded on Nov. 14 with "In Attacks on Rocky Mountain Power, Facts Don't Seem to Matter."

The utility accuses HEAL of being "misleading," "false," and "strident." It calls our report (which you can read at http://www.healutah.org/brownsky) "elaborate opinion pieces with no more integrity than a typical political smear campaign."

Strong language! But here's the funny part: Rocky Mountain Power, for all its thin-skinned bluster, has yet to refute a single claim that we made in Brown Sky. And here's why: It can't. Rocky Mountain Power is much more reliant on coal than other utilities. And it's fought off efforts to bring clean energy on to its grid — even as polls show its customers very much want to buy more wind and solar power.

Fact: According to the company's own data, about 85 percent of its electricity comes from fossil fuels — much higher than the national average of about 66 percent.

One reason that figure is so high is that our utility has quietly worked to thwart renewable energy entrepreneurs and the families and companies who want to buy clean energy. Those policy actions have largely been hidden from the public, in arcane regulatory processes. Here are a few examples, detailed further in "Brown Sky":

In 2012, the Utah Legislature passed a bill to allow large companies with corporate sustainability goals to sign direct contracts with renewable energy providers. The so-called "eBay Bill" set up a process for the green-minded corporate power buyer to pay "reasonably identifiable costs" like transmission and distribution to Rocky Mountain Power.

Simple enough. All our utility had to do was not get in the way and the eBay bill would start to deliver green energy to companies happy to pay for it. Turns out that was too much to ask for. Rocky Mountain Power over the next few years successfully lobbied regulators to adopt fees and policies which have crippled the "eBay Bill." And, so far, no company has been able to use its provisions to buy clean power. Fact.

Let's turn to another example. Some clean energy has entered Rocky Mountain Power's grid. And much of that is thanks to a federal law called PURPA, which opens up our monopoly utility system to competition. If an entrepreneur can build a new wind or solar project, and it meets a certain price requirement, the utility has to buy the power.

And, here, again, we find an arena where our utility fights to avoid acquiring new renewable energy. Rocky Mountain Power has tried, in a series of dizzyingly complex processes over the past few years, to pay renewable energy entrepreneurs as low a price as possible. And it's seeking, as we speak, to shorten the lengths of contracts it signs with those entrepreneurs from 20 years to just three years.

Both of these examples show that something is broken about the free market when it comes to electricity.

We have people and companies that want to buy clean energy. We have entrepreneurs who went to sell it to them. But the monopoly that controls the only delivery system we have for electricity is bitterly determined to fight off change.

Dare to point that out and Rocky Mountain Power will call you names. But the facts — the reality of where we get our power and the utility's intense efforts to keep it that way — are beginning to see the light of day.

Matt Pacenza is the Executive Director of HEAL Utah.