Energy Legal Blog

States Seek to Increase Renewable Energy Development

State governments have been busy of late seeking to increase renewable energy development and sales within their borders, mostly through the increasingly popular renewable portfolio standards that require utilities to include a certain percentage of renewable energy in the electric power sold to consumers.

Most recently, the Oregon State Senate approved SB 838 that would introduce a renewable portfolio standard to the state.  Oregon is today the most populous Western state without a renewable portfolio standard.   If enacted into law, the bill would require utilities to gradually increase their procurement of renewable energy up to the level of 25 percent of the energy they provide to consumers by the year 2025.  To stimulate development of other resources, the bill would limit the amount of the requirement that can be satisfied by hydroelectric generation, on which the Pacific Northwest already heavily relies.  To reduce the cost of the standard, the bill would cap the added cost of renewables at 4 percent on a utility’s annual revenue requirement.  The bill now goes to the Oregon House of Representatives for hearings.

In Colorado, Governor Bill Ritter signed a bill doubling the state’s renewable energy standard, which had been adopted through a voter ballot in 2004.  The new law increases the renewable energy procurement for utilities from 10% to 20% by the year 2020 and also establishes a 10% procurement requirement by 2020 for municipal utilities serving more than 40,000 customers and electric cooperatives.  The Governor also signed legislation compelling the state’s utilities to identify high-potential wind-energy locations by undertaking biennial reviews to designate “Energy Resource Zones” where transmission constraints hinder the delivery of electricity.  This requirement is intended to spur subsequent development of the transmission needed to bring renewable energy to load centers.

Wisconsin likewise moved to increase renewable energy development as Governor Jim Doyle signed several executive orders intended to boost renewable energy development and fight global warming.  The Governor previously announced a goal of Wisconsin obtaining 25 percent of its electricity and 25 percent of its transportation fuel from renewable fuels by 2025, although the state’s renewable portfolio standard calls for a more modest 10% procurement of renewable energy by 2015.  The executive orders create a new Office of Energy Independence whose objectives will include working with the state’s Public Service Commission on a potential multi-utility effort to build a integrated gasification combined cycle “clean coal” generator.  Another executive order created a Task Force on Global Warming to include a wide range of business, industry, government, energy and environment leaders to examine the effects of, and solutions to, global warming in Wisconsin.