Delaware Enacts New Incentives for Clean Energy Deployment

Joining a growing number of states investing in clean energy to promote economic growth and remain competitive, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell signed into law four renewable energy bills that he says will create new jobs by fostering the expansion of renewable energy industries such as wind and solar. Expanding the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and updating the Green Energy Fund to address a backlog in recipients waiting for grant dollars are among the new laws in the Clean Energy Jobs Package detailed below.

• SS 1 for SB 119 extends and expands Delaware's RPS so that 25 percent of the state's electricity must come from renewable sources by 2025, up from the current target of 20 percent by 2019. The bill also includes solar energy targets and provides incentives for local labor and manufacture of solar energy targets.
• SB 266 authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to adjust grant levels to achieve maximum renewable energy deployment and reallocate existing Green Energy Fund revenues to address a current backlog in recipients waiting for grant dollars. The fund provides grants for renewable energy installation, projects which demonstrate the market potential of renewable energy technology, and R&D in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.

The package also includes a measure to strengthen the state's net metering law allowing customers to finance larger renewable energy installations allows for installation of solar photovoltaic systems on residential lots one-half acre in size or larger without certain restrictions.

In other state news, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Texas Tech University and the National Institute for Renewable Energy will receive $8.4 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund for a collaborative wind energy project. Initial plans include facilitating technology development to further decrease the cost of wind energy and other renewable sources and to develop and optimize energy storage technologies, hiring world-class renewable energy scientists at Texas Tech to direct research, and purchasing mobile equipment to map wind flows and help design more efficient commercial wind farms. Read the press release.

Rhode Island and Massachusetts governors Donald Carcieri and Deval Patrick signed last month a Memorandum of Understanding to coordinate and collaborate in potential development of offshore wind energy in a 400-square-mile area of mutual interest beginning 12 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard and extending 20 miles westward into Rhode Island Sound, according to a press release. Under the terms of the agreement, any such project must be approved by the governors and economic benefits shared by both states on an equitable and fair basis before seeking necessary federal approvals. Read the agreement.

Additional state investments in renewable energy were reported in the June 30, 2010 issue of the Digest.