California, Massachusetts consider multi-billion clean energy trust funds

story from NYT editorial, via Boston.com

Cash for clean energy


WHILE Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey opposes the Cape Wind project and her Democratic opponent for governor Deval Patrick favors it, the two agree on the need for more renewable energy. The question is whether the renewable energy trust -- the arm of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative that funds alternative-energy projects -- has the wherewithal to meet the challenge.

The trust was created in 1998 as part of deregulation of the state's electric power industry. The deregulation law also mandates that renewable sources must provide a growing share of the state's electricity needs, reaching 4 percent by 2009.

The average homeowner's electric bill includes a fee for the trust that amounts to about $5 a year. A utility's suit against the fee was not resolved until 2000, which delayed the trust in getting started on its mission. By 2003, the trust had still made so few grants that critics talked about eliminating it.

Since that low point, the trust has now become involved in a range of projects, from wind to solar to the harnessing of landfill methane. Its director, Warren Leon, says current outlays, drawing on funds accumulated during the slow years, exceed the trust's annual $24 million in revenues. But even that is dwarfed by the $34 million subsidy a Massachusetts solar company, Evergreen Solar of Marlboro ugh, got from the German government to build a factory in that country. California could have a renewable energy fund as large as $4 billion by 2017 if voters approve a proposition on the ballot there.

The trust's former director, Robert L. Pratt, now with the nonprofit Kendall Foundation, says the biggest problem the trust faces is NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) opposition, especially to wind turbines. Leon said another hurdle is the complexity of getting permits for any energy proposal in Massachusetts. The trust secured two wind turbines for a project in Orleans, only to have it delayed by the need to get legislative approval for the site. The town of Princeton considered using the turbines on a ridge there, but the manufacturer said they were not suitable for that site. A wind project at Cape Cod Community College had to be redesigned when the Federal Aviation Administration said the turbines were too tall.

Before long, wind turbines will become an accepted feature of the landscape and NIMBY opposition will melt away. At that point, the biggest hurdle to the trust's growth will be its revenue source. For the state's renewable energy industry to compete with other states and nations and provide the environmental and economic benefits that many believe it can, the trust could well need an expanded funding base.