Floor speech for sb124-Steady growth for nh energy industries

Floor speech for SB124, Jan 9, 2020

Thank you Mr Speaker. And thank you colleagues for your kind attention.

Mr Speaker, I rise to speak about SB124, which is about the Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS. The aim of the RPS is to encourage an annual steady growth rate of the state’s production of electricity from renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, hydro and landfill biogas (which are called Classes I - IV, respectively).  Hopefully, many of these renewable energy generators will be in-state NH businesses.

The RPS schedule proposed by SB124 is exceedingly modest, and does not substantially alter the overall trajectory of the portfolio standard. It calls for annual minimum increases of only nine-tenths of one percent in Class I renewables, and 0.9% in Class II renewables. Class III and IV growth remains flat, because our rivers have hydro already, and because we don’t want to incentivize the growth of  landfills. 

What this bill does do, is update the yearly RPS schedule to eliminate some abrupt changes in the rate schedule over the next few years, and it extends the predictability of the RPS schedule to the year 2040. Abrupt changes are bad for business and for consumers.  By eliminating abrupt changes, SB124 makes the future more predictable, which is good for businesses and households, to be able to more confidently predict their energy income and expenses into future decades. 

I hope that the predictability proposed by SB124 will garner broad bipartisan support.

Thank you!





Caucus bullet points:

• Provides steady, predictable increase in RPS out to year 2040 for wind & solar - very important for business consumers obviously, but also for fledgling renewable industries in NH to be able to project assured steady income and growth
• Holds hydro and biomass at a flat percentage of total energy
• Sets long-term goals: 
  • By 2040, the Class I (wind) goal must be no less than 28.5%,
  • Class II (solar PV) no less than 18.7%, 
  • Class III (hydro) is 8% and 
  • Class IV (landfill biogas) will be 1.5% of total electricity production.
• 0.9% gain is “exceedingly modest”, that is, it achieves less than 50% of IPCC goals, but ...
• Note that market forces in recent years have been succeeding at surpassing these modest RPS goals; SB124 is important to backstop those gains out to 2040.