Delaware has a new package of renewable energy laws that aims to create more wind and solar jobs.
Gover Jack A. Markell last week signed the Clean Energy Jobs package, including S.B.119, which extends and expands Delaware’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 25% by 2025. The bill includes solar energy targets and provides incentives for local labor and manufacture of renewable energy systems.
S.B.266 updates the Green Energy Fund law to address the large backlog of renewable energy projects across the state currently awaiting incentive funds.
S.B.267 strengthens Delaware’s net-metering law by increasing the amount of energy that customers can sell back to their electric supply grid. Homes and businesses may sell back 110% of their aggregate consumption to the grid. In addition, homeowner associations and similar groups of customers sharing a unique set of interests will be able to cooperatively finance and build community-scale renewable energy projects, both on and off-site.
S.B.316 loosens some restrictions on solar energy systems located on land-zoned residential areas.
R.I., Massachusetts To Collaborate On Offshore Wind
Governors Donald L. Carcieri of Rhode Island and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to coordinate and collaborate in the permitting and development of offshore wind projects in federal waters in Rhode Island Sound.
The MOU commits both states to coordinate and collaborate in potential
development of offshore wind energy in a 400 square-mile area of mutual
interest (AMI) beginning 12 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard and
extending 20 miles westward into Rhode Island Sound.
The special area mapping plan (SAMP), developed and executed by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), will serve as the planning guide for the two states in applications to the federal government.
In addition, the two states will develop an economic development study
to identify the costs and benefits of offshore wind development in the
AMI.
The MOU ensures that future projects in the AMI will be approved by the
governors of both states and that economic benefits be shared by both
states before it can seek necessary federal approvals.
Additional Funding For Offshore Wind Research in Maine
A Senate subcommittee on energy and water has initially approved a $10 million appropriation to support the University of Maine’s (UMaine) deepwater offshore wind energy research and development, according to the DeepCwind Consortium.
Senate Appropriations Committee member Susan Collins (R-Maine) has thus far helped secure $25 million in federal funding as UMaine works toward developing and testing this technology. Plans call for the first, one-third-scale floating wind turbine to be deployed off of Maine for testing in 2012. The additional funding will be used to build, deploy and test a full-scale prototype of a 5-megawatt (MW) floating wind turbine, using companies and labor from within the state.
Maine’s Ocean Energy Task Force has set a goal of developing 5,000 MW of deepwater offshore wind farms by 2030. Such an effort could attract as much as $20 billion of private capital to Maine, according to the DeepCwind Consortium.
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