Report: State may top renewable energy goal
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – Florida can exceed Gov. Charlie Crist’s goals for solar, wind, biomass and other renewable energy use, but only if everything goes right, state regulators were told in a report presented Wednesday.
That includes higher prices for fossil fuel, which will make renewables more competitive.
If not, the report said, Florida could fall well short of deriving 20 percent of its electric power from renewable energy by 2020 as Crist has proposed.
Navigant Consulting Inc. of Bulington, Mass., presented its report to the Public Service Commission for use in developing a renewable energy rule that would set goals for the state’s five investor-owned electric utilities. The study was prepared for the commission with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The commission will vote Jan. 9. The rule then will go to the Legislature for approval.
Environmentalists and other renewable energy advocates had been critical of a draft rule proposed by commission staffers that also sets a 20 percent goal – but not until 21 years later in 2041. Staffers will use the study in submitting a revised draft before the commission acts.
Crist has made renewable energy a cornerstone of his climate change policy. It’s designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that have been blamed for causing global warming.
The study shows the utilities could get 27 percent of their power from renewables by 2020 under the best of circumstances but only 6 percent in a worst-case scenario. The midrange is under 15 percent.
“The bounds are pretty large,” acknowledged Navigant’s Jay Paidipati.
Renewable energy advocates were encouraged by the report. A lawyer for four of the utilities, though, questioned many of the assumptions and variables that went into a complex formula Navigant used to develop the differing scenarios.
Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the study answers questions about the availability of renewable energy and its cost.
“This study resoundingly says that there is the resource,” Smith said. “The other really key point is can it be delivered in a cost-effective way? And I think that we see that’s the case also.”
Susan Clark, a lawyer for Tampa Electric Co., Progress Energy Florida Inc., Florida Power & Light Co. and Gulf Power Co., said the study’s conclusions cannot be verified until Navigant responds to a list of written questions she submitted.