Renewable Energy Standards Advance in Four States

Kevin Eber, NREL
July 16, 2009 | 13 Comments

The states of Kansas and West Virginia recently adopted their first mandatory requirements for renewable energy use through so-called renewable energy standards, while Maine and Nevada have boosted the requirements under their renewable energy standards.

The Kansas legislation requires the state's utilities to draw on renewable energy to meet 10% of their peak demand by 2011, 15% by 2019, and 20% by 2020. The renewable energy sources can include wind power, solar energy, existing hydropower, new small hydropower, various forms of biomass energy, and fuel cells that use hydrogen produced from a renewable energy resource. New facilities earn 10% extra credit toward the requirement.

Kansas is also allowing easy interconnection and net metering for customer-owned renewable energy systems, and those systems can count toward the requirement. Utilities can also meet a portion of the requirement by buying renewable energy credits. The legislation also requires energy efficiency standards for buildings owned and leased by the state and sets fuel economy standards for state-owned motor vehicles.

West Virginia is a coal state, and its new credit-based system allows for both renewable energy and mostly coal-based "alternative energy resources" to meet its new standard. The state requires its electric utilities to hold credits for at least 10% of their retail sales by 2015, increasing to 15% by 2020 and 25% by 2025.

Renewable energy facilities normally earn double credits, but they earn triple credits if the facilities are located on reclaimed surface mines. Customer-owned generators also earn credits that can be sold to the utility, while utilities can earn credits through energy efficiency and demand management initiatives, as well as projects that reduce or offset greenhouse gases. Eligible renewable energy resources include solar energy, wind power, geothermal energy, biomass power, run-of-river hydropower, and fuel cells. Alternative energy resources include advanced coal technologies, waste coal, coal bed methane, fuel from coal gasification or liquefaction, synthesis gas, natural gas, tire-derived fuel, pumped storage hydropower, and energy reclaimed from waste heat.

The changes in Maine and Nevada are far more straightforward. Maine has passed legislation that provides a 50% extra credit toward its renewable energy standard for community-based renewable energy projects. Nevada has simply extended its renewable energy standard, which previously topped out at 20% for 2015 and after. Under the new legislation, the standard increases to 22% by 2020 and to 25% by 2025.

Kevin Eber is a senior science writer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In that capacity, he has promoted energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies for nearly 20 years.

This article was first published in the U.S. Department of Energy's EERE Network News and was reprinted with permission.

13 Comments

Madeline Sanders
October 20, 2009

Our company is excited about the possibility of positively impacting the quality of life for urban communities -- it's wonderful to see that states are ever so slowly beginning to implement legislation favorable for a renewable energy climate. We certainly still have a long way to go, especially in certain midwest sectors. We must however continue to push the envelope by finding legislators interested in a clean environment!!

Mary Saunders
July 28, 2009

State-based, micro projects appeal because they encourage inclusion.

Allowing hyper-functioning alter-abled people to be forthright about their expertise encourages performance over privilege. It operates here enough to make the U.S. different from other places, in voluntary micro-climates.

The Bill of Rights is under attack with SLAP suits, FISA, veggie-libel laws, and company use of interns to go on private property for their purposes.

Nonetheless, when privilege acts out, we're going to talk about it. What ethnic or other kind of group doesn't have a member with jail experience?

A culture of free speech is spreading with a sub-radar creep. Some believe it operates better in some off-shore places than it does in the U.S. Go anywhere in the world and try not to hear rap music on the street or somewhere in private if it's not allowed on the street (I like some rap myself--I'm NOT putting rap down). A Pakistani group donates for girls' schools.

Some corporations/governments are careful to hire token NO-people as opposed to all YES-people. Alter-abled people are hired for their strengths. Not being able to detect power well enough to know not to speak truth to it is a feature of some things we call diagnoses.

Top-down, over-certified claptrap tends not to work, over time. It leads to breaking bubbles that then have to be cleaned up.

Calling aristocrats on hubris is the American way, from colonists singing Yankee-Doodle-Dandy to rap artists.

It's this that is going to carry us through, not confiscatory taxes promised to us for our own good, but the tracking of which cannot be confirmed.

Government has proper functions. It's respecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights where it trips up about First, Do No Harm.

Obama asked for help on transparency. He is going to get it, and REW is a forum for that.

Mary Saunders
July 28, 2009

Hello Marv, if I grit my teeth and pretend everything is fine, when it isn't, I can't fix what is broken or live my life with zest and rational exuberance.

My point was how happy and excited my friend was in making her house a beta sita (whatever that is, science expermiments everywhere?).

We could glumly waiting for government subsidies to build the TVA.

Or we can have fun testing things for our own micro-climates, the output of which we can eyeball ourselves while we and our children learn useful skills of fabrication, observation, and fine-tuning.

In Oregon, SolarWorld is taking build-it yourself-panel plans into schools, using their cells.

The arts magnet, DaVinci, is one of the sites. SolarWorld makes cells here, but not panels. I took a popular tour of the SolarWorld facility. The Greenbuild group had to schedule a second tour to accommodate the demand, and other groups go also.

My neighbor, whose child will enter DaVinci school this fall, is excited about the panel-construction plan. Her daughter is the sort of child who could really fly with this. Her parents have had her in the Mandarin magnet, but she's just not a language geek. She has enough Mandarin to do well if she needed its, but she's not there at Middle School age.

I work part-time for a government. I like my job, and I like the people where I work. Nonetheless, I was a pest about pest-control at Parks (I wrote acerbic E-Mails). They didn't fire me (yet). The commissioner I complained at moved to a different bureau, and anyway, I wasn't the only one aghast at what they were doing.

People are brainstorming madly to get renewable energy systems and conservation to make big dents in our summer inversion challenges, for example.

My child rode a consuming interest in geothermal all the way to overwhelming his generals committee with too much information at MIT. He went to public school.

Marv Kausch
July 28, 2009

Mary, consider this:
A man drives into a new town. He asks a pedestrian, "How is the government in this town?"
"Well, how was the government in the last town?", the pedestrian responded.
"The government there is so corrupt!"
"That's how they are in this town."

A while later another driver enters the town and asks the same pedestrian, " How is the government in this town?"
"Well, how was the government in the last town?", the pedestrian responded.
"That is the most honest government I have ever seen!"
"That's how they are in this town."

So, if you go through life thinking the government is corrupt, they will probably in some way seem to prove it to you. But most of Congress is honest and bound by many ethical laws. They are definitely politicians, which do not mean they are all corrupt. Likely a small percentage of most governments have ethics and corruption problems.

Benjamin Gorman
July 22, 2009

Hear, hear, Mary. No sense waiting for the leaders to lead, since they need leading themselves (at present, they're led by lobbyist dollars). We are indeed an innovative, proactive people, when we want to be.

For my part, I hope the other American weakness doesn't stall our much-needed efforts to move this energy revolution forward: that, is, our near-religious reliance on technology. We've done wonders with it, but it has become our demigod. We tend to defer actions we could take because, we say, "some technology will come along to save us". I maintain that the biggest single source of new energy available to us is through conservation. Amory Lovins's "negawatts".

Don't wait. Start now. I used 50 kWh/month or less and have been doing so for 6 months. And I'm not trying all that hard. The immediate effect of this low-tech, easy work-- taken collectively-- will have tremendous impact on the energy landscape, forcing our "leaders" to sit up and take notice.

Mary Saunders
July 21, 2009

Respectfully, I disagree with Paul. If we wait for governments to become uncorrupt, well, excuse me, where does that exist in the history of the world?

The reason the U.S. got great is that we are full of people who see government corruption, roll their eyes, roll up their sleeves, and start figuring out how to do what needs to be done anyway. In ag, they say what the advanced adopters are doing will not show up in universities for eight years or so.

Harm-reduction is another way of looking at it. If our elites are trying to make money by locking increasing percentages of our population up, with possibly a hope that incarcerated people will make good slaves, then those who can elude their clutches can be getting together with like-minded people to solve our serious challenges.

We should be joining stuff anyway, as a method to avoid being locked up without anyone left on the outside to look for us if we were to disappear.

I went to a solar seminar in Portland over the weekend. The presenter says her house is a beta site, always testing things. Because we live in a historical neighborhood (I should move I guess), it costs us more to do what we want to do because it has to look upscale (metal roofs have to look like asphalt, give me a break).

Nonetheless, people are doing things anyway and making the corporations and governments deal with it. It's where the new is, and Our Higher Power knows, U.S. people care about what the new is. It's embarrassing contemplating getting kicked in the butt by Abu Dhabi. No self-respecting U.S. geek or hippy wants that, even if our governments and current corporate titans don't want to get on the hybrid or the EV.

Anybody see the cartoon, Gold In Sacks? I guess you still need fossils to move a lot of heavy stuff.

paul tousignant
July 21, 2009

Net metering and feed-in-tariffs are vital to successful small renewable projects. Unfortunately, the utilities and their powerful lobbyists fight those tooth-and-nail, so their "support" of renewable energy is nothing more than lip service. Until net metering and FIT's are included in state and federal legislation, our hands are tied, and we won't be as successful as we could be.

ANONYMOUS
July 17, 2009

Stephen, paying for energy improvements with the savings over time is the goal of the "Energy Efficient Mortgage," a federal program a few years old. Hope the new president keeps this. Try googling on it!

Mary Saunders
July 17, 2009

There is a proposal something like this in Oregon. Right now, one bank has been granted an exclusive right to do these loans, but I don't think they will be able to keep it exclusive too long. It is a loan, but stretched out over many years, and it has the advantage of the vetting that happens for the manufacturers and the installers and with their histories of carrying through on their guarantees. Payments on the loans are assumable by subsequent owners, thereby making energy costs a part of the figuring concerning whether a buyer is qualified to pay the costs of owning the home. Rather than writing legislators, a thing I have tired of, I would visit your local energy organization. If you want solar, visit the solar trade group, etc. Suggest it to them, because they have a vested interest in recruiting an enlightened bank or credit union, and they will probably have wires (figurative wires) to the local utility already. Taking it to D.C. or a state capitol just seems like a loss of energy. If it ever gets back to a local venue, it's a paltry fraction of what it was before it left.

Luke Divemaster
July 17, 2009

stephen-greenwood, you're wrong... your idea IS perfect. Write your representatives... local, state, national. Great idea.

Stephen Greenwood
July 17, 2009

I believe that its a wonderful thing that the federal and state governments are promoting renewable energy for the people, yet even with all the tax incentives people like myself can still not afford a PV system or wind generator. With all the cost of having to build new power plants and the rising cost of operating coal fired plants, wouldn't it be better if lower income people who need help the most in reducing their energy cost, be give an opportunity to have systems installed on their homes at a reduced cost and pay for them with the saving from the energy cost over a 30 year period. It would help create more jobs , reduce polution, reduce the need for new power plants, reduce our need on imported oil as well as creating a new renewable source of power for the local power companies. I know the idea is not perfect but people who wouldn't benifit from a tax breaks could help the enviorment as well as this country to reach it's goals.

ANONYMOUS
July 16, 2009

The Wind Energy Siting Reform Act is under consideration by the Massachusetts legislature. If enacted, it will promote onshore industrial wind development in every municipality within the state, and shift control over the permitting from local zoning boards to the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board.

It will also open constitutionally protected public lands to industrial wind development.
This Act will apply to all the communities of Massachusetts.

The state of Massachusetts through the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act is about to set standards for responsible development of land-based commercial wind turbines. The current standards for setbacks are the least protective in the world.

The state needs to protect individuals from bearing the burdens imposed by the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. A quote from this amendment is: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The placement of commercial wind turbines in residential locations by zoning change or special permit is a form of intervention called a "police power," or placing restrictions on land use activities that could be injurious to the health, morals and safety of the community.

This act will bring those opposed to commercial wind turbines in Massachusetts into a class action suit that could stall commercial wind power for ten years. These groups have the resources.

Dan P
July 16, 2009

I'm a wholesale Solar Energy distributor in Texas (http://www.advancingthegreen.com) and I think it's wonderful that there is so much interest in renewable energy like solar panels and such. This is a wonderful thing and I think we should all do our part to advance the "Green".

I'm finding that homeowners everywhere are quickly finding out that with all the rebates available when you install a solar energy system, their out of pocket cost when they buy from discounted distributors like "Advancing the Green" could end up being as little as 10% of the total cost for a fully installed system. For example, in Denton, Texas, if a homeowner buys a 22 panel solar energy system through our company, it is possible after all the rebates that their out of pocket costs could be less than $3,000. With prices like these, you'd have to be crazy to not go green.
Keep up the great work of Advancing the Green.