New
language regarding the state's
renewable energy standards is headed for the House floor.
This week, a House committee passed legislation that it hopes will allow the state's renewable energy statute passed by voters in 2008 to go into effect.
The new language requires Missouri-based utilities to make a good faith effort to obtain 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by the year 2021, with no penalties for not reaching compliance.
The new language also requires 750MW of new non-solar renewable energy and sets aside a fund for 60MW of solar by 2021.
All of the energy must also be sold to Missouri consumers. Language mandating the 15 percent threshold was part of rules written to put the renewable energy standards into state law.
But the House and Senate voted in January to throw that language out. P.J. Wilson of Renew Missouri, the author of Proposition C in 2008 that established renewable energy targets for Missouri utilities, accepts what he says is compromise language.
"If (this legislation) passes, utilities will begin to add more renewable energy generation to their power mix that they sell to Missouri," said PJ Wilson, co-director of Renew Missouri. "That's the whole point of the Renewable
Energy Standard.
Missouri will greatly benefit from the green jobs, economic investment, and clean air that will result from new in-state wind, solar, and sustainable biomass developments."
The bill, HB613, now moves to the House floor for debate.
