USA’s Tea Party targeting renewable energy

Today, with the price of solar panels dropping and demand increasing, the state grants are generally less than half of what they were. Federal grants for 30 percent of a solar project remain available………..For decades, businesses that have extracted, combusted and delivered traditional fuels have received subsidies, and their prices have excluded societal impacts like air pollution in their price

Tea party activists seeing red over Delaware’s green initiatives System discouraging waste and pollution criticized as meddling with subsidized fossil fuels By AARON NATHANS • The News Journal • December 26, 2010 DOVER — They’re not exactly money, and they’re not a direct government handout.

But they are seen as the state-backed boost that solar and wind energy need to compete with power generated from fossil fuels in the coming decade.

Trouble is, they may be the next target for Delaware tea party activists, who see them as wasteful government intervention into the free market system that just end up costing consumers more for electricity.

They’re renewable energy credits, or RECs. Owners of a wind or solar system, big or small, get one for every unit of energy they generate. The credits can be sold on the open market, including to utilities that need them to help satisfy state requirements that a set percentage of the power they provide be obtained from renewable energy sources.

In Delaware, each electric utility is required to buy 25 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have enacted renewable energy purchase requirements, and Congress is considering some kind of nationwide requirement………
Today, with the price of solar panels dropping and demand increasing, the state grants are generally less than half of what they were. Federal grants for 30 percent of a solar project remain available.State officials like natural resources secretary Collin O’Mara say RECs are the long-term solution, with grants expected to be phased out over time. Because renewable power is generally more expensive than old-school fuel, the credits provide a second revenue stream that pays out over the life of the installation.

O’Mara said solar RECs are the long-term key to creating a “more level playing field” with fossil fuels, which receive any number of indirect subsidies through tax preferences at the state and federal level.

For decades, businesses that have extracted, combusted and delivered traditional fuels have received subsidies, and their prices have excluded societal impacts like air pollution in their price, he said…….

Tea party activists seeing red over Delaware’s green initiatives | delawareonline.com | The News Journal