Posts Tagged ‘Solar Alliance’

Pennsylvania Legislative Update: HB 1580 Still in Committee and In Need of Support

Posted October 28th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

Over 90 members of the Pennsylvania solar industry lobbied Pennsylvania legislators on Monday, 10/28/11 to voice their support HB 1580 an SREC bill. The effort was part of an official “Pennsylvania Solar Advocacy Day” event put on by PennFuture, Solar Alliance, Vote Solar, PASEIA and others. By the end of the day more than 108 members of the Pennsylvania House (of a required 100) had offered to sponsor the legislation should it make it out of committee.

House Bill 1580 (sponsored by Rep. Chris Ross, R-Chester) proposes to move the total requirement of SRECs forward by three years to increase the number of SRECs Load Serving Entities (utility-scale “dirty” electricity producers) must purchase. The rapid implementation of Pennsylvania SREC eligible facilities over the last year has led to an SREC over-supply of more than double the amount of SRECs needed by utility-scale electricity producers. This over-supply is responsible for low SREC pricing in Pennsylvania.

SREC markets are driven by the fundamentals of supply and demand. However in Pennsylvania demand (the amount of SRECs required for a given year) is significantly lower than the number of SRECs available. The Pennsylvania SREC market is designed in such a way that every year there is a set goal for amount of power that comes from renewable energy sources and any adjustment to the yearly goal requires legislative action.

In order for the bill to move forward it needs the support of Rep. Bob Godshall, Chairman of the House Consumer Affairs Committee for Committee vote. PennFuture has asked the Pennsylvania solar community to write Rep. Godshall to show their support of the bill. However, even if the bill gets out of Committee in its current form it still needs to pass the House and Senate.  With 108 state Representatives co-signing the bill it is expected to pass the House, but it’s unclear how it will fair if it reaches the Senate.

Stay tuned for more HB 1580 Updates.

Pennsylvania Solar Advocacy Day (Monday, Oct. 24th)

Posted September 27th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

On Monday, October 24th PennFuture, Vote Solar, the Solar Alliance, and SUNWPA will hold a Solar Advocacy Day and Evening Reception at the Capitol building in Harrisburg. If you are part of Pennsylvania solar community this is an opportunity to educate policymakers and the media about solar in your state. The main focus of the advocacy day will be the support of the Solar Jobs Bill, which we’ve written a few blog postings about.

Here are the websites for the participating groups:

Vote Solar: national grassroots solar advocacy group
PennFuture: Pennsylvania environmental advocacy group
Solar Alliance: state-focused solar industry group
SUNWPA (Solar Unified Network of Western Pennsylvania): sub-group of PennFuture without a formal website

Click here to take action. Use the link to let your local PA state representative know that you support solar in PA.

If you have an advocacy event that you’d like SRECTrade to know about please email installers@srectrade.com