Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Bill introduced to kill NC renewable-energy standard

A measure to eliminate North Carolina's renewable-energy standard, the first in the Southeast when it was adopted in 2007, was introduced in the N.C. House Wednesday.

House majority whip Mike Hager, a Rutherford County Republican and former Duke Energy engineer, was among the bill's primary sponsors.

Hager had targeted the law for "picking winners and losers" in the energy marketplace. He's said the law unfairly forces consumers to subsidize renewable energy, which costs more to produce than traditional energy forms.

At the end of 2012, Duke Energy Carolinas, which serves Charlotte, was charging residential customers 22 cents a month to recover its costs of complying with the law. Progress Energy Carolinas, serving the state's eastern half and Asheville, charged 41 cents a month.

The N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, which represents the renewables industry, calls the portfolio standard "the first real opportunity for clean energy companies to compete with the utilities and offer consumers a choice."

The association says the standard has had too powerful an economic impact to destroy. Its 2012 jobs census found the equivalent of 15,200 employees working for 1,100 energy-related companies that pull in $3.7 billion a year.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This is what happens when one party rules the roost. Let's all go back to 1950.

NancyK said...

This consumer will HAPPILY susidize with 22 cents/month. It probably should be more. No progress without change.

Relentless said...

I drove up 321 toward Lenoir recently and spotted the solar farm which was build by either Apple, Duke, or some other incented corporation. What is polution; energy generated by fossil fuel, acres displaced by solar farms, transmission lines cutting across wide swaths of land from green energy generators,wind farms which alter coastal wind patterns, etc? Or is it better to export fossil fuel (coal) to China so that they can generate energy? I believe that I've read that their emissions reach the US.

Scrap the subsidies.