December 15, 2004—Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell has signed into law a clean-energy portfolio standard that will cut energy costs, promote economic development, and encourage technologies to protect and restore the environment by ensuring more electricity generation comes from environmentally beneficial resources. Part of that effort includes $10 million in new investments that the Governor authorized for clean power plants, enhancing Pennsylvania’s reputation as a national energy leader.
The Governor signed into law a two-tiered portfolio standard that ensures that in 15 years, 18 percent of all of the energy generated in Pennsylvania comes from clean, efficient sources. Act 213 of 2004 makes the Commonwealth the 18th state to adopt a renewable and advanced energy production provision.
Tier I requires 8 percent of electricity sold at retail in the state to come from traditional renewable sources such as solar photovoltaic energy, wind power, low-impact hydropower, geothermal energy, biologically derived methane gas, fuel cells, biomass energy, or coal-mine methane. At least 0.a5 percent of the Tier I electricity must come from solar photovoltaic cells.
Tier II requires 10 percent of the electricity to be generated from waste coal, distributed generation systems, demand-side management, large-scale hydropower, municipal solid waste, generation from pulping and wood manufacturing byproducts, and integrated combined coal gasification technology.
A recently published study by the global engineering firm Black and Veatch Corp. found significant economic benefits over and above pursuing business as usual with only traditional fuel sources. The benefits include $10 billion in increased output for Pennsylvania, $3 billion in additional earnings, and between 3,500 and 4,000 new jobs for residents over the next 20 years.
For environmental benefits, the clean energy portfolio standard as proposed would annually avoid 9,a044,615 tons of carbon dioxide, 78,462 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 21,398 tons of nitrogen oxides.
