Editor’s note: This commentary is by Olivia Campbell Andersen, who is the executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont, a nonprofit trade association.
[V]ermont has a lot of work to do to meet its commitments on total renewable energy and carbon pollution reduction. Critics of our local renewable energy revolution recently correctly pointed this out. However, they incorrectly try to pin shortcomings on inert renewable energy credits and propose false remedies that would eliminate state policies enabling affordable renewable energy installations in Vermont.
We are a part of the New England regional electricity grid whose generation mix is largely fossil fuels and nuclear power. When solar or wind projects are built in Vermont, they reduce our reliance on gas, oil and other dirty energy, regardless of whether the RECs are kept by the renewable project owner. Additionally, since Vermont imports electricity 84 percent of the time, local renewable energy projects improve the efficiency of our grid, lower electricity prices for all Vermonters, and cut air and carbon pollution in New England.
Renewable energy credits, known as RECs, serve a dual role: a method of accounting for renewable electricity and a financial instrument to help pay for a renewable project. Vermonters who install solar, wind, hydro or other renewable energy can choose to keep the RECs and claim the renewable attributes associated with them, or they can sell the RECs for a period of time to help cover the cost of installing and financing the project. Transparency, customer choices and fair compensation for the benefits that local renewable energy projects provide all Vermonters is what’s important. Transparency and honesty are values held by every Renewable Energy Vermont member and can be found in our organization code of ethics.
Renewable energy credits are nothing more than a piece of paper which has been forged into a wedge in an attempt to divide people and consequentially slow progress by causing frustration and confusion. Many of the concerns raised in recent articles and commentaries about RECs have already been addressed.
In 2017 two state laws, the Renewable Energy Standard and the revised net metering rule, now require electric utilities to retain more RECs from renewable energy projects in Vermont. Renewable Energy Vermont advocated and the Public Utility Commission agreed that RECs given to utilities from Vermonters who generate their own solar, wind or hydroelectricity be retained locally and counted toward our state’s Renewable Energy Standard.
This is a crucial component around RECs that those who have editorialized or oppose local renewables left out; many of the problems they bemoan have since been resolved. It can leave a person to only come to one of two conclusions about what drove their actions; ignorance of these solutions now in place or that they were aware of these improvements, yet excluded them from commentary with a malicious aim. Electricity markets, regulation and generation are extremely complex. Vermonters have been confused, and this matter of accounting has been turned into a wedge issue. People’s choices about what to do with their RECs should be their own choices.
We must not be distracted or divided and instead, focus on how we can catch up on our climate and renewable energy commitments. The facts show that we are behind. Now is a time for action to move forward further, faster, and together. We need to further progress on local renewable electricity and rapidly accelerate our top sources of climate pollution – transportation and heating — away from dirty fossil fuels. We need a more comprehensive and aggressive Renewable Energy Standard. We need to break down cost barriers and enable more low-, moderate- and fixed-income Vermonters gain energy independence. These are not only things we can do, these are things we must do.
With this, I leave you with a simple request. Heed not the calls of those who sow seeds of uncertainty and doubt. Instead, join us supporting the cost-effective tools we have in our hands to revitalize our economy with local renewable energy.
