Vermont’s Department of Public Service has released the public draft of its new comprehensive energy plan, which aims to further the state’s goal of using renewable sources to meet 90 percent of the state’s energy needs by 2050.
The plan will undergo several public hearings throughout October, and the Department of Public Service will take public comment on the document through Nov. 9.
The plan relies on innovations the state says will offer greater efficiency, and on greater use of electricity, which it proposes to derive from wind, from solar cells and from dams.
Vermonters are forecast in the plan to reduce their total energy use per person by 15 percent by 2025, and by more than a third by 2050.
Of the energy needs that remain, 25 percent will be supplied from renewable sources by 2025, 40 percent by 2035, and 90 percent by 2050, the plan states.
In order to reach the goals outlined for 2025, the plan proposes a scenario to raise the percentage of renewable energy used in buildings from 20 percent today to 30 percent in 10 years’ time. Energy for transportation would also increasingly be supplied from renewables – from 5 percent today to 10 percent in 2025.
Residences and commercial buildings today consume more than 45 percent of the total energy used within the state, the plan states. Of that amount, about 70 percent is expended on heating those structures. Of that energy used to heat buildings, about three-quarters comes from fossil fuels, and about a quarter comes from burning wood. Very little of the energy currently spent to heat buildings comes from electricity.
The comprehensive energy plan proposes to increase the total share of renewable energy used to heat buildings primarily through the use of cold climate heat pumps and through increased burning of wood fuel – methods that according to the plan have “the potential to displace a significant amount of the fossil fuels Vermonters rely on for space and water heating.”
The plan further proposes to replace Vermonters’ fossil fuel consumption not only with wood for heating purposes, but also with “liquid biofuels” for transportation.
Ethanol is listed as one example of such fuels, which since the mid-2000s have replaced between 5 percent and 7 percent of gasoline used in motor vehicles.
Electric vehicles are another technology the plan states could reduce Vermonters’ gasoline consumption.
Between these and other sources, the plan forecasts renewable energy will grow from 5 percent today to 10 percent by 2025 of what’s used to transport goods and people around the state.
The first of five public hearings on the plan is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Lyndon State College in Lyndonville. Other hearings are scheduled for Oct. 13 in Essex; Oct. 21 in Montpelier; Oct. 26 in Bellows Falls; and Oct. 29 in Rutland.
To comment on the plan, visit the website established for its public review at energyplan.vt.gov.
