Vermont House advances broad update to renewable energy standard after hours of debate

The Vermont House on March 20 adopted committee amendments to H 289, a sweeping revision of the state's renewable energy standard, after an extended floor debate that focused on cost, grid reliability and how the bill treats municipal and small utilities.

Member from Dover, speaking for the bill, said the measure is built to balance affordability, reliability and emissions reductions and to tailor the standard to each type of utility. "This bill respects the priorities that Vermonters identified in that work, affordability, reliability, and reducing carbon emissions, and it values renewables," the Member from Dover said while walking members through the bill's sections.

H 289 would change the RES from percentage-of-retail-sales to percentage-of-load, add new regional tiers, raise distributed generation requirements, and set different 100% renewable deadlines for large investor-owned utilities…