At a time when both carbon emissions and fuel prices continue to rise, Vermont is poised to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and increase the use of renewable power – a good thing at the right time.

The legislature is considering a bill that would create a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), requiring that each electric utility acquire a percentage of its electricity from renewable sources. This is an important step in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; CLF has testified that the bill needs to be strong and ambitious.

There’s no doubt the climate needs this bill. Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continue to shoot up, and global temperatures are rising. A warming global climate has led to increased evaporation, causing droughts and floods around the world. In his testimony before the committee considering the RPS bill, climate activist Bill McKibben described the rising worldwide occurrence of extreme weather events. Among these was Tropical Storm Irene, which devastated parts of Vermont at the end of last summer. McKibben urged the committee to act now, through measures such as an RPS, before our climate crisis gets worse.

The current version of the Vermont bill would require that by 2025 all electric utilities in Vermont get 30% of their power from renewable power plants commissioned after 2012. Whatever renewable sources are already generating power now (in 2012) would not count towards the 30% standard.

Currently Vermont only has voluntary goals for utilities to acquire a certain percentage of their power from renewable sources. A fundamental flaw of the existing program is that it allows utilities to sell renewable energy credits (RECs) from Vermont renewable projects to utilities in other states, yet still count that power as renewable in Vermont. This means that the renewable attributes of the power are counted twice. The bill currently in the legislature would correct this problem.

By enacting this bill, Vermont would not be alone. Twenty-nine other states already have an RPS, including all the other New England states, and other states as disparate as Texas and Hawaii. Their requirements vary widely. Maine has an ongoing 30% RPS; New Hampshire requires 23.8% by 2025; and Rhode Island requires 16% by 2020. Details of the requirements vary, but Vermont’s proposed program compares well with other states in the region.

Vermont needs a strong renewable standard. CLF continues to push for strong measures to tackle climate change and reduce pollution.

photo credit: Witthaya Phonsawat

With the Northern Pass project on the table, as well as other looming projects and initiatives to increase New England’s imports of Canadian hydroelectric power, the region’s energy future is coming to a crossroads. The choice to rely on new imports will have consequences that endure for decades, so it’s critical the region use the best possible data and analysis to weigh the public costs and benefits of going down this road. To date, there have been almost no objective, professional assessments of the ramifications.

Today, CLF is making available to the public a technical report prepared by Synapse Energy Economics addressing a crucial issue: the potential effects of new imports on the region’s own renewable power industry. 

The report, Renewable Portfolio Standards and Requirements (PDF), explains how the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) of each New England state and New York address hydropower and then examines the potential effects of allowing Canadian large-scale hydropower to qualify for incentives by allowing such power to count toward states’ goals for renewable power under RPS programs.

Vermont is currently the only state that allows Canadian hydropower to qualify for its (now voluntary) RPS. If Vermont elects to use Canadian hydropower to fulfill all or most of its RPS goal (which is contemplated by pending legislation that would make Vermont’s RPS mandatory), there would be a modest but important reduction in the incentives available to new renewable projects in the region. The report concludes that there would be a much more significant impact if the RPS programs in other states were changed to allow Canadian hydropower to qualify (as was proposed in New Hampshire and Connecticut earlier this year and is being discussed right now in Massachusetts). In that scenario, imports from Northern Pass (or import projects of similar size) would swamp the market, taking up 45% of the region’s mandate for new renewable power and deeply undermining the viability of new renewable development in the Northeast.

This finding is a new illustration of why CLF opposes changing RPS laws to count large-scale hydropower toward the region’s renewable goals, a result that would both harm local renewable projects and send incentives funded by New England ratepayers out of the country to suppliers that do not need them.

For their part, Northern Pass’s developers have downplayed any risks to local renewable energy but have refused to refrain from lobbying for and securing the very changes to the RPS laws that Synapse predicts would, when paired with new imports through Northern Pass, cut the legs out from under renewable energy based in New England. It is no wonder that it’s not only CLF sounding the alarm on this issue:  electric industry veterans like Cynthia Arcate and the trade association of New England’s competitive electric generating companies have also expressed concern.

The bottom line for CLF: any plan to increase imports will need a robust and comprehensive set of enforceable commitments – which are completely absent in the current Northern Pass proposal – for the region to ensure that New England’s own renewable energy industry will prosper and grow into the future. 

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northernpass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

Maine has a new motto: We can get there from here.

As Washington has failed to advance clean energy legislation, and Governor LePage has expressed open hostility to the state’s renewable portfolio standards (RPS), I am reminded of that famous quip from Bert and I: “You can’t get they-ah from he-ah.” For Mainers concerned about Maine’s dependence on expensive, dirty fuels, and sincere in their interest in building a sustainable economy for the years to come, this quip has become a frustrating reality – a reality we can change, with your help.

CLF is a part of a coalition of groups from the private and nonprofit sectors, the Maine Citizens For Clean Energy, www.cleaneenergymaine.org,  that is working to enact a law by public referendum that would increase the amount of renewable energy generated in the state and increase our ability to implement energy efficiency measures that would reduce our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, saving us money and helping our environment at the same time.

To do this, we need to get the referendum  on the ballot for state-wide vote in November 2012 by gathering more than 70,000 signatures from Maine voters by January 2012. The signs are strong: we have met with considerable early success, are ahead of our goals, and see evidence of strong support from Maine residents.

This year, on November 8^th, 28,000 Maine voters registered their interest in putting a citizen’s initiative on next year’s ballot to expand clean energy in Maine. The coalition, as Environment Maine said in their press release, had set a goal of 20,000 only two weeks before. In our current effort to collect 70,000 signatures, we are well ahead of our goals.

This should not be surprising, as polls of Maine residents have consistently shown strong support for energy efficiency. One poll, conducted by NRDC, showed “Nearly 80% of voters back the use and expansion of energy efficiency technologies.” Another, conducted by Portland-based Critical Insights and discussed by NRCM, “shows that Maine voters overwhelming oppose specific environmental rollback proposals now before the Maine Legislature.”

Groups in Maine have heard and are working to promote the interest of Maine voters. Already, CLF is working with a coalition of Maine businesses, workers, health professionals, citizens and public interest groups. We are joined by – Reed & Reed, general contractor, NRCM, and the Maine Renewable Energy Association, among others.

The message Maine voters have delivered so far is clear: We can get there from here.  We need your help.  Please sign a petition supporting the referendum or better yet, volunteer to gather signatures in your community.

This ballot initiative comes at a crucial time and allows for a broad discussion by the people of Maine as to the value of renewable and energy efficiency. If successful, the ballot measure would require that the current RPS be increased by 20 percent by 2020 and would ensure adequate funding from utilities for all cost-effective efficiency measures.

If you’d like to help ensure the passage of this ballot initiative, you can do two things.

First, help us gather signatures. If you haven’t signed the petition, please do so now.

And, secondly, if you’re willing to volunteer – more than willing to provide you with all you’ll need. Simply get in touch with us here at our Portland, Maine, office.

Help us, and our broad coalition, to deliver to Maine what voters want: expanded energy efficiency and, with it, a clean, clear path forward.

Among the many questions CLF is asking about Northern Pass — the 180-mile transmission line proposed to transport 1,200 megawatts of hydro-generated power from HydroQuebec into New England — is what the project would mean for the development of local renewable energy in New Hampshire and New England.  With the recent introduction of HB 302 in the New Hampshire legislature — to be heard by the House Science, Technology & Energy Committee on February 8 — we soon may learn at least part of the answer to that question.

In 2007, New Hampshire passed its Renewable Portfolio Standards statute, or “RPS” — an important law to encourage the development of low-emission renewable energy sources in New Hampshire and New England.  The law requires that by 2025  nearly 25 percent of the electricity to be provided in New Hampshire must be generated by qualifying low-emission renewable sources — sources such as wind and small-scale hydro.

HB 302 seeks to change this important law by allowing large-scale hydropower — including large-scale hydropower from outside the region – to qualify as renewable.  Clearly intended to tilt the playing field in favor of the Northern Pass, HB 302 will greatly undermine one of the core purposes of New Hampshire’s RPS law: the stimulation of investment in renewable energy technologies in New England and, in particular, in New Hampshire.

The Northern Pass project developers have repeatedly claimed that they do not need and will not seek to change New Hampshire’s RPS law to benefit their project.  We intend to hold them to those claims.  The development of local renewable energy in New England is essential to building a clean energy economy for the region.  Join us in supporting a clean energy future for New Hampshire and New England by contacting members of the House Science, Technology & Environment Committee and voicing your opposition to HB 302.