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Rendell calls for Fed Alternative Portfolio Standard
Philadelphia Business Journal reported on Gov. Rendell’s speech today at PV America conference in Philly.
The federal government can help the country escape from recession by launching a five-to-10 year infrastructure revitalization program and by taking steps to boost the production and consumption of alternative energy.
Part of Rendell’s message was similar to the message delivered by SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch later in the session: When they go home, the people at the conference should promote solar energy’s virtues to everyone from their neighbors to their municipal, state and federal elected officials.
[Ed. note: that is the purpose of this site]
“You have to roll up your sleeves and be advocates,” Rendell said.
Both Rendell and Resch praised President Obama for his efforts on behalf of renewable energy — “President Obama is becoming the solar president,” Resch said — but they said they’d like the federal government to do more.
Twenty eight states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the District of Columbia have alternative portfolio standards. Rendell said he’d like the federal standard to have minimum figures that states could exceed on their own.
Rendel said alternative energy will drive the U.S. economy for the next 25 years just as the information-technology and life sciences industries have driven it for the last 25.
Under his leadership, Pennsylvania has moved to capitalize on that shift. In 2004, it established an alternative portfolio standard that requires 18 percent of energy sold in Pennsylvania to come from alternative sources of energy by 2020.
Last summer, Pennsylvania created a $650 million renewable energy fund. Of that money, $180 million is to go to solar energy, consisting of $100 million for loans, grants and rebates to cover up to 35 percent of the costs incurred by home and small-business owners who install solar energy systems, and $80 million for grants and loans for solar economic-development projects.
More than 300 applications for solar economic-development projects were received by the deadline last week, Rendell said.
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