State green energy mandates cost utilities and ratepayers $3 billion in 2015, according to a study released Monday, which found that the price tag of these energy policies has grown over the years.
Costs are expected to grow in the future as state mandates require that more green energy, like wind and solar, is added to the electric grid, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report.
Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) “compliance costs totaled $3.0 billion in 2015 … which equates to 1.6% of average retail electricity bills in states with green energy mandates,” research scientist Galen Barbose wrote in the study.
While 1.6 percent is a relatively small portion of an electricity bill, that number is expected to grow in upcoming years. Cost caps that states put in place to protect consumers will somewhat blunt this, but cost caps vary by state and most leave room for rising costs.
However, that may be a low-end estimate. When cost figures from California independent power companies are included, the total cost of green mandates nearly doubles to $5.8 billion, or 3.1 percent of household electricity bills in 2015.
The report underscores an argument often made by Republicans and conservative groups, namely, that green mandates increase energy bills.
State Republican lawmakers all over the country have introduced legislation in recent years to freeze, roll back or repeal green energy mandates.
One of the most contentious battles is taking place in Ohio where Republican Gov. John Kasich bucked his own party to veto legislation to scale back green energy goals. North Carolina lawmakers are debating a bill to cut the state’s green mandate from 12 percent by 2021 to 8 percent by 2018.
Mandates vary by state. California, for example, has one of the most aggressive mandates, requiring 50 percent of electricity to come from green sources by 2030. Wisconsin, on the other hand, only required 10 percent green electricity by 2015.
Democrats and environmentalists will likely also see the study as vindication — yes, prices have gone up, but the increase so far has been small and carbon dioxide emissions have decreased.
States have been enacting green energy, or RPS, mandates since the 1990s, and 29 states and the District of Columbia require utilities to incorporate an ever-increasing amount of green energy into their electricity portfolio.
With President Donald Trump reversing years of Obama administration policies on the federal level, Democrats have turned to the states to “resist” his agenda.
Hundreds of state and local officials pledged to honor the goals of the Paris accord, which the Obama administration joined in 2016.
Democratic governors of California, New York, and Washington created the United States Climate Alliance to circumvent Trump on global warming policy.
Read more at Daily Caller
Time to totaly defund the Green Energy waste and start consitering harnessing thje Hot Air coming from Gore,DiCaprio the Useless Nations Obama,David(Luarie)Greenpeace,EDF,NRDC,and tear down all those windturbines quit chopping up birds and bats so the eco-wackos can sit in their homes and watch all that mindless junk like Caotian Planet,Ferngully,A Inconvent Truth,A Inconvent Sequel,The 1th Hour,Before the Flood and other mindless Go Green Eco-Crap
In those States where SOLAR and WIND are providing a lot of electricity,
electric rates are falling ! …NOT INCREASING every year AT THE WHIM of the Killer COAL MONOPOLY!
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“1. NEW Wind & Solar Are Cheaper (Without Subsidies) Than Dirty KILLER COAL Energy
The first point is the very basic fact that new wind power and/or solar power plants are typically cheaper than new coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants — even without any governmental support for solar or wind.
Not only are they typically cheaper — they’re much cheaper in many cases.
….
2. NEW Wind & Solar Are Actually Even Much Cheaper Than Dirty KILLER COAL Energy (More So Than Lazard Shows)
The estimates above are supposedly “unsubsidized,” but if you include social externalities as societal subsidies (I do), the estimated costs of fossil fuels and nuclear energy are hugely subsidized in those charts.
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3. Solar & Wind Became Much Cheaper In The Past 7 Years (85% and 66%, Respectively)
No, wind and solar costs didn’t roll off a cliff because of Obama, but his staff did help to hasten the roll to some degree. Programs like SunShot have helped to bring down costs even faster than they were coming down anyway, as did greater deployment of renewables — with greater production and deployment, costs come down almost automatically.
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4. The Lowest Solar Costs Shown In The Lazard Report Are Considerably Higher Than Globally Recorded Low-Price Bids
I won’t go into much detail right now, but I will update this article as more record-low prices for solar power and wind power are reported. For now, though, note that we’ve seen solar project bids for under 3¢/kWh in the UAE and well under 4¢/kWh in Mexico — prices that are well below the Lazard’s low-end estimates for the US.
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People Can Get Lower Prices But More Jobs With Solar & Wind
Whether American, British, Canadian, Australian, Indian, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, or [fill in the blank], solar and wind power don’t just mean lower prices — they also typically mean more jobs. Much of the price of dirty energy power plants is in the fossil fuel — the physical resource. When we buy that fuel, much of the money goes to the billionaires and multimillionaires who “own” the fuel — the coal mines and the natural gas wells.
Sunshine and wind, of course, are free, but distributed solar and wind power plants have to get built and installed — those are things humans do. When we pay for solar and wind power plants, we pay for human labor, and often help create or support local jobs.
We don’t actually have to choose between low prices or jobs or protecting our air, water, and climate — we get all of those things with renewable energy options like solar and wind energy.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/25/cost-of-solar-power-vs-cost-of-wind-power-coal-nuclear-natural-gas/ “
Cheaper in Australia? South Australia with 42% clean, green cheap renewable wind is now the most expensive electricity on the planet and so reliable they need to double the gas generation capacity and install massive battery backup.
You are either a demented fool Rakool or you work for t h e Green Blob.