By: Kenric Ward | Posted: April 15, 2010
\nMore than 10 times as many jobs as for fossil fuel jobs<\/b><\/p>\n
Generating 700 megawatts of increased solar-power output would create 40,000 jobs<\/b> and expand economic activity in Florida by $8.1 billion, a new study says. The report by the Washington Economics Group helped to fuel support for Senate Bill 1186, which the Senate Energy Committee passed Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Representatives from the renewable energy, construction and manufacturing sectors touted the financial projections, and urged lawmakers to “remove the barriers to a clean energy industry.” <\/p>\n
“We’ve watched clean energy companies overlook Florida for years<\/b> and have been frustrated by the Legislature’s inaction. That has to change this session,” said Rich Paul-Hus, senior vice president at Hypower<\/b>, a Fort Lauderdale<\/b>-based energy concern.
\n
\nTo facilitate the development of renewable-energy projects, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, amended SB 1186 to direct that “all prudently incurred costs of renewable energy shall be recoverable from electric utility customers through an environmental cost recovery clause.”<\/p>\n
An additional provision inserted by author Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, capped the costs that can be passed on to ratepayers.<\/p>\n
In the first year, recovery costs could be no more than 2 percent of the average residential bill. The second and third years would be capped at 1 percent.<\/p>\n
Proponents of the Senate bill — including investor-owned utilities — reportedly supported the inclusion of the consumer-protection caps, which are not currently in the House energy bill.<\/p>\n
Renewable-energy advocates also said a renewable-energy output of 700 megawatts could produce even more jobs and greater economic benefits, depending on the power source.<\/p>\n
To streamline its projections, the Washington Economics Group calculated only for solar power. But purveyors of biomass and other renewable sources say their operations will employ even more Floridians per kilowatt.<\/p>\n
Biomass appears to be far more powerful employment generators than fossil fuels<\/b> as well. Based on employment per million megawatt hours, biomass yields 791 jobs versus just 69 jobs with fossil fuel<\/b>, according to industry studies.<\/p>\n
Jack Sullivan, of the Tallahassee-based Florida Research Consortium, said it’s crucial that state policymakers promote research and development programs “to create a demand so manufacturing can take root here.”<\/p>\n
“In turn, research will be where the manufacturing is,” he added.<\/p>\n
Manufacturers and developers see the synergy and urged prompt passage of SB 1186.<\/p>\n
In a letter to lawmakers, a consortium of 10 companies and contractor associations stated that the cost-recovery provisions in SB 1186 would kickstart development and construction of renewable energy ventures that “would add an additional $2.1 billion in wages”<\/b> around the state.<\/p>\n
Syd Kitson, CEO of Kitson and Partners, said a 75-megawatt solar plant is ready to be built at Babcock Ranch in Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n
“At Babcock Ranch, we have the opportunity to create a new industry with new jobs. We can break ground and create jobs in the next six months,” Kitson said.<\/p>\n
Rob Kornahrens, founder and president of Advanced Green Technologies, said 95 percent of the solar panels distributed by his Broward County-based firm currently are shipped out of Florida.<\/p>\n
“We’ve trained 50 solar contractors here in Florida, but without a statewide renewable energy policy, they won’t have any work,” Kornahrens said.<\/p>\n
Proponents said they were not overly concerned about the bill’s failure to include “renewable portfolio standards,” [minimum requirements] which would set specific annual targets and goals for renewable energy output.<\/p>\n
Though Florida is one of just 14 states without RPS standards or goals, one industry observer stated, “It’s pretty clear that RPS won’t pass.” [not with Republicans in a controlling majority] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Kenric Ward | Posted: April 15, 2010 More than 10 times as many jobs as for fossil fuel jobs Generating 700 megawatts of increased solar-power output would create 40,000 jobs and expand economic activity in Florida by $8.1 billion, a new study says. The report by the Washington Economics Group helped to fuel support for Senate Bill 1186, which the Senate Energy Committee passed Wednesday. Representatives from the renewable. . . CONTINUE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternative-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}