PacifiCorp Hails Kerry Plan

PacifiCorp Hails Kerry Plan

Aug 27 - Deseret News

PacifiCorp, the utility unit of Scottish Power Plc that does business as Utah Power in Utah, said a plan supported by Sen. John Kerry would encourage the development of renewable energy sources and lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Kerry, the four-term U.S. senator from Massachusetts and Democratic nominee for president, would require utilities to produce 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. President Bush says individual states should decide how much energy from sources such as wind, biomass and solar to use.

A renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, was part of a Senate energy bill that stalled in Congress last year. The U.S. House passed an energy bill that did not include a federal mandate for renewable energy.

"If John Kerry were to be elected president, it would make RPS a priority," Rich Glick, director of government affairs for PacifiCorp, said at a briefing for reporters in Washington. "That might change the debate in Congress."

PacifiCorp, which owns or controls 830 megawatts of wind generating capacity, plans to increase that to 2,000 megawatts by 2010, Glick said.

Fourteen states, including Texas and New York, require utilities to use renewable energy sources. Of the 9 percent of electricity produced in the United States from renewable sources, 7 percent comes from hydroelectric projects. Solar energy, wind energy and other renewables account for 2 percent.

Bush opposes a federal mandate because it will create a standard individual states will be reluctant to exceed, David Garman, acting undersecretary with the U.S. Department of Energy, said at the briefing.

"If you have a national RPS, it will become the least common denominator," Garman said. "It will become a subject of compromise."

An energy department analysis found that more than 100 gigawatts, enough to power 100,000 average U.S. homes, could be produced by wind turbines off the eastern U.S. coast from Maine to Maryland. At the end of 2003, there was 6,374 megawatts of wind generating capacity in 30 U.S. states, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

A megawatt can power about 1,000 homes. There are 1,000 megawatts in a gigawatt.

About $2 billion worth of wind projects are stalled because Congress failed to renew a tax credit for wind production that expired at the end of 2003, said Randy Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association.

Fewer than 500 megawatts of new wind capacity will be installed this year, down from last year's record 1,687 megawatts, the association said. The tax credit would give producers of alternative energy 1.8 cents a kilowatt-hour for 10 years.

"If we had an RPS, that would be a huge incentive for investment firms because it would be long-term and it would be stable," Swisher said.

The Edison Electric Institute, the Washington-based lobby for U.S. utilities, lobbied against the federal mandate.

"The proposed renewable portfolio standard is unworkable," Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the trade group, said in an interview. "This should be something that really is dictated by the market."

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