Senators seem to support a bill that would require electric utilities to get all of their power from renewable sources by 2030. The state’s renewable energy standard already calls for them to reach 75 percent renewable by 2032. So the new benchmark seemed manageable to members of the Senate Finance Committee.
But the bill’s call to double — from 10 percent to 20 percent — the amount of renewable energy that utilities would have to purchase from new Vermont sources like solar seemed to be a bridge too far for some senators.
Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington), who chairs the committee, cautioned members that the requirement was causing some utilities — and her — concern over potential cost hikes.
Officials from Vermont Electric Power Company, which manages the state’s electric power distribution, estimated it could cost $900 million to upgrade the grid with enough battery storage to handle the jump to 20 percent renewables.
“If this bill is going to come out [of committee], we’re going to have to find an anxiety level we can live with,” Cummings said.
The cool reception could signal trouble for S.267, one of the signature climate bills of the session. Environmental groups favor the move to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Green Mountain Power officials testified the requirement could lead to a 4 percent increase in rates. Statewide, the increase could cost utilities — and therefore ratepayers — up to an additional $53 million, according to Ed McNamara, planning director for the Department of Public Service.
“Nobody is oblivious to what this would mean to ratepayers,” said Sen. Chris Pearson (P-Chittenden).
He stressed, however, potential boosts to the Vermont economy from green-energy jobs. Since peaking in 2016 at 6,965 positions, the number of those jobs has declined 12 percent, according to the Public Service Department.
It makes more sense for the state to increase its renewable energy capacity than merely to buy more green energy from out of state, said Ben Edgerly Walsh, director of the climate and energy program at the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
“If you look at the economic impacts and the resilience benefits of this kind of investment, it clearly is good for the state as a whole,” Edgerly Walsh said.
To ensure the state doesn’t become overly reliant on out-of-state energy sources, the bill includes what is effectively a cap at 33 percent for electricity purchased from Hydro-Quebec.
Sen. Mark MacDonald (D-Orange) said he’s supportive of the bill but concerned that utilities serving very different customer bases and areas might be required to meet a uniform goal.
“It should be tailored to each utility to be equally challenging to each and achievable to each,” MacDonald said.
Pearson, who coauthored the bill, said he would try to find a way to address his colleagues’ concerns in coming days.
“What I want to know is, what is this going to cost, and what is it going to cost in totality?” said Sen. Randy Brock (R-Franklin). “Right now I don’t understand what we are doing, and I don’t understand this sufficiently to make a good decision on it.”
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This is pure BLARNEY.
Walsh of VPIRG is spouting nonsense.
He is a stooge for the wind, solar and storage interests that finance his organization.
Resilience benefits?
In-state generation and storage is clearly of benefit to the RE folks
Walsh will say anything to keep their bribes.
The 33% limit on HQ hydro has nothing to do with “BECOMING OVERLY RELIANT”, but it has everything to do with keeping HQ out and making room for the local RE folks.
NE should have much more of clean (no particulates, etc.), near-zero-CO2 hydro electricity from Canada, which is eager to sell to us at a low c/kWh. GMP is buying about 1.2 million MWh/y of HQ electricity at about 5.7 c/kWh, under a recent 20-y contract.
However, greedy, subsidy-seeking, renewable energy entities in Vermont, working in cahoots with legislators and career bureaucrats, have been keeping it out for years.
They want electricity production, mostly heavily subsidized, wind and solar, done the home-grown, expensive way.
That electricity is made to LOOK less expensive by subsidies and cost shifting, but if subsidies and cost shifting are included, it would be very expensive. See Appendix.
A standard 1000 MW transmission line from Quebec to the Vermont border, about $1.5 billion, mostly paid for by Canada, could provide about 4.5 billion kWh/y of very clean, near-zero CO2/kWh, no particulate pollution/kWh, STEADY, 98% hydro-electricity, from Hydro Quebec, for about 6.0 – 6.5 c/kWh, under a 20-y power purchase contract.
The price would be adjusted based on at NE grid wholesale prices, which have been about 5 c/kWh starting in 2009, 11 years. It is the far beyond rational for Vermont to not buy more H-Q electricity.
Canada would build, and pay for, the transmission line to the Vermont border.
1. VT with it’s 4 million+ acres of forest is already carbon-negative, let alone neutral (https://blog.tomevslin.com/2020/02/vermont…)
2. each acre of new forest absorbs (sequesters) as much CO2 annually as 1.2 average cars emit.
3. if we want to further help reduce atmospheric CO2, we can do that much more cheaply per pound of reduction by reforesting marginal farm land than with further mandates for renewables or subsidies for e-cars and heat pumps (https://blog.tomevslin.com/2020/01/trees-a…).
4. VT’s Comprehensive Energy Plan, unlike the UN IPCC plan, the Kyoto treaty and our neighbors in Maine, give no credit for carbon sequestration even though sequestration is the cheapest and most effective way for us to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations,. This a pretty clear indication that the plan was written more to create a market for renewable than for actual environmental remediation. Attempts to require that renewables be “instate” is further indication that saving the planet is not top priority.
Tom,
According to ANR, Vt forests absorb about one metric ton per acre per year
Vermont has 4.5 million acres.
According to ANR, Vermont emissions are 10 million metric ton per year
Now, if wilpost is correct, and I believe he is, any other solution involving wind or solar indicates to me that corruption between the “renewable solar and wind combines” and our legislators in Montpelier is an established fact. Why would legislators go down a road to hurt their constituents is beyond me. It is not necessary for Vermont to produce its own electricity. We are already dealing with a Canadian corporation thanks to Shumlin and his henchmen.
The subsidized RE folks want a law to increase their subsidies by having utilities increase EXPENSIVE, INSTATE renewables buying from 10% to 20% of their sales.