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Senator King: Renewable bill is coming, but 2020 deadline may be too soon
Environmentalists successfully convinced state utility regulators last fall that Florida could produce 20 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources, but after weeks of testimony before the Senate committee that would have to produce the legislation requiring that to happen, the panel’s chairman said he was not so sure.
Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, told the News Service after a meeting of the Senate Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee Tuesday that he was confident the Legislature would approve a renewable energy standard for Florida this year. King said a bill on the proposed requirements for increasing the amount of electricity produced by power companies from renewable energy sources could be drafted by the end of the month.
But King also said that his committee’s review of the PSC proposal and testimony from renewable energy makers and consumer advocacy groups, which began before the session officially began, illustrated the challenges with reaching the regulatory panel’s ambitious target in just 11 years, especially without allowing large increases in rates.
“Enough people smarter than I am have said that we can’t do 20 by 2020 with the 2 percent rate cap,” King said.
But he quickly added that it was important that the ball get rolling anyway.
“If its 2020, 2030 or somewhere in between, what’s important is that we get there,” King said. “We’ve been talking about this a long time, but its important that we get going.”
A fast start was what the PSC had in mind when it sent its proposal to the Legislature. To reach its ambitious goal by 2020, the PSC called for a schedule that begins at the end of 2012, when utilities would be required to have increased the amount of renewable energy they use by at least 7 percent. The requirement would then increase to 12 percent by the end of 2015 and rise again to 18 percent by the end of 2018 before reaching 20 percent by the end of 2020.
King said his panel has not yet created a schedule of its own, but he said that those targets and other specifics of the PSC proposal were still being combed over by committee members. However, King said that if the decision was his alone, the regulators’ 2 percent investment cap, which requires the state to cut off spending if consumers’ bills increase by that amount, would stand and nuclear energy would be counted as a renewable source of energy.
The PSC specifically excluded nuclear technology from its recommendation to the Legislature.
Before that decision was made, the debate raged for months before the PSC about whether or not nuclear should be counted as a renewable resource because it does not emit greenhouse gasses. It has re-emerged as a thorny issue during the proposal’s start in the Legislature this year.
“I’m a nuclear guy,” King said. “I was a nuclear guy before I was chair of this committee.”
But King acknowledged the high start-up cost of nuclear power as he explained his support of the cost cap. Publicly-regulated utilities can ask the PSC for permission to recoup construction costs from consumers before power production begins.
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Wed, Mar 18, 2009 by News Service of Florida
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