Suzanne speaking at the signing of the Renewable Energy Act as Gov. Lynch, Sen. Fuller Clark and DES Comissioner Burak look on (click on photo to enlarge). "...I truly believe this is one of the most significant pieces of legislation to emerge from the State House this past year."
(Gov. Lynch in speech to the Business Industry Association's Energy Conference, November 2007)
Back in 2006 when Suzanne filed a bill for the 2007 session to create a "renewable portfolio standard" for New Hamphsire, only a few legislators with a particular interest in the environment knew what an "RPS" was. Over 20 states had already adopted an RPS, inlcuding most of New England, but NH was lagging.
Suzanne, the bill's prime sponsor, along with Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, the bill's main co-sponsor from the Senate, and members from the Department of Environmental Services (DES) held stakeholder meetings over an 18-month period to forge a consensus for the final text. The bill passed overwhelmingly in the House and passed with the support of all 24 members in the Senate.
The main features of an RPS are:
*A mandate that electric utilities have a certain percent of the energy they sell come from renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, or biomass. Each state customizes its definition of renewables, so that a state in the southwest, for example, might have only solar energy as eligible, whereas in NH, we included a diverse list of eligible sources.
(Read the text of the bill.)
*The required percent of each source increases each year from a baseline until a specific year when the total percent of that renewable source from a utility must reach a particular percent.
*Each megawatt hour of electricity from renewable sources that a utility uses to meet its requirement earns the utility a "renewable energy certificate," or REC. If a utility cannot meet the required percent of renewable energy for a given year, it must purchase enough RECs from other eligible sources to meet the requirement.
*If the utility does not meet its requirement for any given year either in renewable megawatts or RECs, it must pay into the Renewable Energy Fund, which will be used to support renewable energy initiatives.
According to the DES website,
Benefits of Renewable Portfolio Standards include the following:
--Reduced dependence on imported fuels.
--Increased energy security.
--Diversification of fuel and electricity supply.
--Protection against rising and volatile energy costs.
--Reduced air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
--New employment and economic development opportunities.
You can read the Governor's official press release about the RPS here.