Solar News States Update: What about Ohio?

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Solar News States Update: What about Ohio?

State updates:
As busy as last year was, this year is off the charts.  As Congress gears up to work on the mother of all energy bills, state efforts are in full swing. Being in the solar advocacy business these days is like drinking from a firehose.  Some highlights of recent activity in select states:

Nevada
The solar community is advocating for policies to expand both distributed generation and central station solar. The state's current solar policies need to be revamped, with both the solar carve-out of their RPS fully subscribed for years to come, and helpful tax abatements about to expire.  On the DG side we are pushing for a 5% set aside in the state's RPS, and on the central station front we are attempting to renew tax abatements that make the state an attractive locale for large solar plants.  A key selling point is the potential to bring significant jobs and revenues to the state which hit double-digit unemployment earlier this year.  To that end, yesterday we released a new report that highlights the economic benefits of solar development. Full text of the study can be found at: www.votesolar.org/nvreport.html

Vote Solar's report indicates that 2,000 megawatts of large-scale solar developed in Nevada over the next seven-years would deliver significant in-state benefits, including:

    * Jobs created: 5,900 jobs per year associated with project construction and 1,200 full-time jobs for plant operation and management. Each plant will produce permanent local jobs paying above-average wages.
    * Wages and salaries: $5 billion in cumulative direct, indirect and induced earning associated with the projects.
    * Economic impact: Nearly $11 billion in goods and services generated in the state as a result of project development and operation.
    * Sales and property taxes paid: $500 million over the life of the projects, assuming proposed tax abatement levels are passed by the state.
    * Avoided greenhouse gas emissions: 4.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, 81 tons of methane, and 27 tons of nitrous oxide avoided each year that the projects are in operation.


Florida
Last year, a key victory in Florida was the establishment of a gold-standard net metering program.  In recognition, last week Gwen Rose traveled to Tallahassee to present Governor Crist with the Golden Meter Award.  Pictures of the very tan governor accepting the award for the Sunshine State here: http://www.votesolar.org/press/GoldenMeter.html

This year, in a culmination of years of work making the case for renewables, the powers that be in the state legislature are coalescing around a 20% 'clean energy standard', at least three quarters of which would be renewable.  It's a fluid environment, but there's strong momentum for $200 million a year in incentive funds dedicated to solar.  Solar allies are working to strip out the bad and preserve the good, but we've got to start somewhere. And $200m a year is a pretty good start.

California
Some recent highlights: A week ago, the California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposed decision (pdf) in its inquiry to expand the state's feed-in tariff program.   Upshot: on top of the current FiT (500 MW for projects up to 1.5 MW), the decision proposes an additional 1000 MW for systems 1.5 to 10 MW, and a standard offer (but not must-take) for systems 10 to 20 MW.  We've been heavily involved in this process for the last eight months, and while we will have plenty of reply comments, in general this is a positive development in the right direction.

Note that pricing, the key element and really the hardest part to get right, will be addressed in a future phase of the proceeding.  For the wonks, take a look at the 'guiding principles' section in the ruling.  It's a good enumeration of the challenges that fixed-price programs face: e.g. how to mine untapped markets while not putting a floor on prices received under competitive solicitations (CA utilities have signed over 5 GW of solar contracts at very competitive prices), and balancing the need to pay enough to stimulate development while maintaining a downward pressure on prices and avoiding the boom and bust cycles that have plagued other FiT programs.  We view this as a good faith effort on the part of the CPUC to balance many responsibilities and develop a long-term, sustainable industry.  Look for some...lively discussion in the months to come.

Legislatively, there has been furious action on efforts to raise the state's RPS to 33%.  Both Senate and Assembly versions recently passed through committees, but the battle has really just begun.  Several Feed-in Tariff bills are also in the works, and we expect to see additional movement soon.

One of the solar community's top priorities this session is AB 560 (Skinner), which would remove the cap on net metering.  California law currently caps net metering at 2.5% of utility system peak load. With California's solar market continuing its healthy growth tragectory, this arbitrary obstacle is going to become a real problem sooner rather than later. We are gearing up for a robust campaign to remove the cap and protect the future of California's solar programs.

Texas
There were 69 renewable energy bills introduced in the Texas Legislature this session, and most of them deal with solar.  In order to help make the case that solar in the Lone Star State means jobs for Texans, we did the obvious thing: placed want ads. The ads, placed in papers throughout Texas, read: 'Help Wanted: 90,000 electricians, engineers, sales managers to power the new solar energy economy; interested applicants apply at the Legislature and ask for strong solar policies.'  The campaign, referencing a jobs report we produced, was picked up by the AP and excellent articles ran in newspapers throughout Texas.

With the Senate and House wrapping up their energy conferences, the leaders of this effort in the Texas solar and environmental community expect that the process of consolidating the 69 bills into a final vehicle will take place soon.  There's real momentum, and we are hopeful that Texas will be home to a few gigawatts of solar over the next decade.

Connecticut
HB 6635 would add about 350 MW of solar to the Nutmeg State. The bill outlines an elegant program for deploying solar of all kinds (residential, commercial, wholesale, you name it) - that was developed to reflect the interests and concerns of local policmakers, advocates, and industry.  It made it out of the Energy Committee by a 19-2 margin--good progress, but still a ways to go before the finish line. Contact our east coast campaigns director Shaun Chapman if you want to get involved.


Arizona
The Arizona Corporation Commission has established strong foundation for solar, with one of the most ambitious (on a per capita basis) distributed generation requirements in the country.  The Attorney General just approved the state's net metering regulations, and now we'll work with utilities on their net metering tariffs applications.  Still left to do by the Commission: clarify the rules surrounding solar service providers.

With the foundation largely in place, there are 4 bills in the Legislature that would help open the solar market in these troubled economic times:

HB 2332 would make it easier for schools to go solar;
HB 2335 would allow municipalities to set up opt-in, voluntary financing programs for solar and energy efficiency investments (details here),
HB 2329 would cap permit fees for solar installations at $375.

There's also a Senate bill, SB 1403, that is designed to attract high-wage, hi-tech solar manufacturing companies to the state.

When will Ohio start making some solar news? Or will we be last again in the race for new technology, jobs, and manufacturing?

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Greens
Ohio Green Party

www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/