Renewable Energy Could Get a Whole Lot Bigger

Rep. Richard Barry (R-Merrimack) didn’t plan to stir up any controversy, or a “big to do” as he said, with his bill to alter the renewable energy portfolios law that passed with strong bipartisan support in 2007.

“I think this will level the playing field and simplify a complicated law,” said Barry of House Bill 302. Barry, who is also sponsoring a bill to repeal the state’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, will find out how much of a “to do” will come from his proposal when he formally introduces it at a public hearing Tuesday in the House Science, Energy and Technology Committee.

Among the changes to the existing law (which originated as House Bill 873), it would deemphasize solar power, add larger hydropower dams to the renewable energy mix for utilities, and increase legislators’ authority over the Renewable Energy Fund. Financed by utilities that don’t meet annual standards for using renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydropower, the REF goes toward grants for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. Under HB 302, the House Science, Energy and Technology Committee would have to approve REF grants issued by the Public Utilities Commission. Authority to audit all projects funded by the REF would also transfer from the commission to the committee.

Renewable Energy Fund

Gov. John Lynch hailed the 2007 Renewable Energy Act as a major step toward meeting the state’s goal of 25 percent renewable energy use by 2025 and stirring economic development. “The Renewable Energy Act will encourage investment in energy production in New Hampshire that will deliver economic and environmental benefits to the state and the region,” Lynch said when he signed the bill. The law, which was co-sponsored by current Senate President Peter Bragdon (R-Milford), passed by a vote of 253-37 in the House and unanimously in the Senate.

According to financial analysis provided by the Public Utilities Commission, Barry’s proposal would lead to an almost $750,000 reduction of utility payments into the Renewable Energy Fund. This is due to a change in renewable energy classifications that will allow electric companies to pay less than market price for the different classes of renewable energy certificates they must meet, according to the Public Utilities Commission’s statement in the HB 302’s fiscal note.

Impact on Small-Scale Renewables

Barry says “leveling the field,” such as not giving a greater percentage of renewable energy classification to solar power, and taking grant approval from “the bureaucracy” will ending up promoting more economic development. But Jim Rubens, a New Hampshire environmentalist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says Barry’s proposal would do just the opposite.

Rubens says it would “kill” the growing solar energy market in the state, send more money outside New Hampshire and lead to a greater politicization of the renewable energy grant process by taking it away from an appointed board connected to the PUC.

“It will take adjudicating projects and put them into a fairly charged political environment,” Rubens says. In particular, he explain, it could best benefit potential large hydroelectric providers. Large hydroelectric power plants like Hydro-Quebec are currently not considered a renewable energy source, but they would be under HB 302. Rubens says that re-classification would come at the expense of scores of small-scale but growing renewable energy sources in the state.

Barry denies that he had any intention to help any sector in particular, but Ruben says that a close look at HB 302 shows real winners and losers.

“What it does by the virtue of its design is create a very strong policy towards Canadian hydropower,” Rubens says. “As proposed, it takes away the economic benefits from New Hampshire.” Those benefits, he says, are what originally made the law popular to a broad bipartisan coalition.

Some wording regarding the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy technologies would also be struck from the law under HB 302.

>> Tuesday, Feb. 8, at 1:00 p.m. — Public hearing of the House Science, Energy and Technology Committee, Legislative Office Building, Room 304. A possible executive session or committee vote on HB 302 could take place.

>> Find out more about what are Renewable Portfolio Standards and how they work at the Department of Environmental Services link here. We also recommend the Concord Monitor story here about a pending Hydro-Quebec project and what it could mean to small-scale energy development in New Hampshire, as well as a story from NHPR about North Country opposition to the Northern Pass Project.

This Daily Dispatch was written by Michael McCord.

Posted by Hilary Niles on Feb 4 2011. Filed under Commerce, committees, electricity, energy sector, Environment & Resources, Government, land use, Property, renewable energy, utilities, Weekly Briefing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry