Trade group unifies shades of green
A Trumbull consultancy is starting a nonprofit trade group in Connecticut representing all manner of renewable energy companies, as the state enacts an array of new measures to promote green power.
The Renewable Energy Association of Connecticut is being launched by Alliance Consulting L.L.C., which itself is developing small power plants that use bio-waste to fuel generators.
Besides potentially lobbying on “green” energy issues, the Renewable Energy Association of Connecticut would assist organizations in analyzing sources of renewable energy for their own use.
Because solar, wind, biomass and other renewable energy companies are ultimately in competition with each other as power providers, no unified group has emerged locally to represent their common interests, said Barry Diamond, president of Alliance Consulting, who is organizing the group.
“They are all fighting against each other,” Diamond said. “We talked about creating a new association so that all the different (companies) will have a unified voice.”
There exists a national organization called the American Council on Renewable Energy that lobbies for the full panoply of issues in sustainable energy, and a Greenfield, Mass.-based nonprofit called the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) has some Connecticut organizations among its member base.
The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund (CCEF), which grants funding for power and conservation projects, lobbies in Hartford for various initiatives but is not considered a trade group. SmartPower, a nonprofit that receives support from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, has a national scope but focuses on marketing initiatives.
“There certainly are issues that are broad enough that it is helpful to have an umbrella group,” said David Barclay, executive director of NESEA, citing as an example metering systems that assess the impact of green energy-generation systems on a building”™s overall utility bill. “Whether you are in the wind business or the solar industry, there are common issues that affect the generation of decentralized energy whatever the source.”
In June in Barclay”™s home state of Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick sparked the formation of the Clean Energy Council to represent the Bay State”™s renewable energy industry.
If different clean-energy industries can agree on topics like net metering, they can clash if it appears that one subindustry like wind power is gaining at the expense of another, said Andrew Perchlik, who in 2000 formed Vermont Renewable Energy in Montpelier, Vt., and is its executive director today.
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“In the past we had (situations) where wind people who didn”™t know anything about the biomass industry in Vermont (were) coming in and badmouthing biomass,” Perchlik said. “When legislators hear from a wind developer or another renewable energy (provider), it amplifies the differences and the opposition gains from it.”
In the recently concluded legislative session, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a number of renewable energy initiatives, according to Kevin McCarthy, an analyst with the state Office of Legislative Research. They include:
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Ӣ authorizing bonds to replenish the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund;
Ӣ increasing electric utilitiesӪ use of green power to 20 percent by 2020;
Ӣ crediting electric customers for generating their own power;
”¢ raising “green” requirements for public buildings;
Ӣ requiring municipalities to exempt some renewable systems from property taxes; and
Ӣ establishing a plan and grant program for installing renewable systems in municipal buildings.
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