New Energy Bill Opens Door for Renewable Energy Projects and More

June 2009

This year, with the help of VNRC and a broad network of organizations, businesses and concerned citizens, the Legislature passed a far-reaching energy bill which many people anticipate will be very powerful in catalyzing small-scale, homegrown renewable energy projects.

Among many important benefits, the bill:

•    Promotes the construction of small-scale, community-based renewable energy projects like solar, wind and farm methane by setting a fair but premium price for the energy created through a ‘standard offer contract.’

•    Enables municipalities to utilize their bonding authority and create ‘clean energy assessment districts’ to help property owners finance energy efficiency or renewable energy projects. Read much more about CEADs here.

•    Expands the purview of the Clean Energy Development Fund — which offers financial support to develop in-state renewable electric energy projects —to include thermal energy projects.

•    Directs funds from the federal economic stimulus package to the Clean Energy Development Fund.

•    Requires the Agency of Natural Resources to reconsider its policy of prohibiting wind energy development on state lands.

•    Makes improvements to residential- and commercial-building standards.

•    Creates a pilot program to support two downtown, combined heat and power projects: one in Montpelier and one in Randolph. 

•    Limits certain prohibitions on residential installation of renewable-energy and energy-efficiency devices, such as solar panels, residential wind turbines, and clotheslines.

Read H.446 in its entirety here.

This far-reaching bill makes Vermont the first state in the nation to enact a state-level program, through the creation of a standard offer contract, to facilitate the development of different types of small-scale renewable energy projects. If properly enacted, this bill could be the single most powerful mechanism to date to drive the development of community-scale green power projects in Vermont (Click here for a report on Vermont's new law posted by the environmental news and commentary website Grist. )

There is much to celebrate in the passage of H.446. And so many Vermonters to thank for making it possible.

For more information about this bill or any particular provisions in it, contact VNRC’s Johanna Miller at 802-223-2328 or jmiller@vnrc.org. Or, contact one of the primary proponents of the bill — Renewable Energy Vermont — a nonprofit organization focused on helping Vermont and Vermonters make an “intelligent transformation from a foreign fossil fuel based economy to an economy increasingly based on our own renewable energy.”