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Colorado legislature raises state RES, move seen creating jobs
Recharge News
03/18/10
The Colorado legislature has approved a bill that increases the state's renewable energy standards from 20% to 30% by 2020, among the most ambitious clean energy mandates in the US.
The legislation also mandates that 3% of total electricity sales originate from distributed-generation (DG) systems, which is expected to encourage homeowners and small business owners to install solar power units, according to state Senator Gail Schwartz, who co-sponsored the bill.
She says that DG systems help drive local market activity, allow energy consumers to lower their electricity bills by going solar and enable utilities to avoid costly investment in new transmission systems.
A new report by the pro-solar group Vote Solar Initiative suggests that 1,000MW of distributed solar energy in Colorado would create more than 33,500 jobs in the state. It would also produce $4.3bn in total economic output (direct, indirect and induced economic activity generated through the construction and maintenance of the solar projects). The report says other benefits include saving 6.8 billion gallons of water, a limited resource in Colorado, and avoid emission of 30 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Governor Bill Ritter estimates the bill will create thousands of jobs and lead to installation of 100,000 solar rooftops over the next decade.
"This legislation will give Colorado the strongest renewable energy standard in the Rocky Mountain West and one of the highest standards in the nation,“ he says.
The bill also had support from Xcel Energy, the largest electric utility in Colorado. Colorado had 1,246MW of wind power at yearend 2009, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
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Colorado legislature raises state RES, move seen creating jobs
A coalition of stakeholders who worked on the Colorado Climate Panel's were critical to the new legislation’s passage. Since investor-owned utilities supply 60% of Colorado’s electricity, this implements most of the Panel recommendation (adopted by the Governor) on renewable energy standards (RES).
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