Public Policy Detail
VBSR continues to work to ensure that a meaningful Climate Change bill becomes law this session.
The Bill:
- provides incentives for generation of renewable energy.
- establishes a wind energy production property tax that will help to bring wind power investments to VT.
- requires electrical utilities to increase their purchase of renewable energy
- raises the net Metering cap to 250kW, expands the number of net metering systems allowed (from 1% to 2%) and allows for full group net metering
- helps people and businesses reduce use of heating fuels and save money
- increases the business solar tax credit from 7% to 30%
- requires studies be done on reaching the goal of meeting 25% of our total energy from farm and forest based resources by 2025 and increasing the use of biodiesel by the State Government.
The Funding:
The funding source for the "all-fuels" utility is currently a generating tax on large electricity generators (in lieu of the usual property tax).
The funding source for large electricity generators is:
- $0.00225 per kWh in fiscal year 2009;
- $0.0025 in fiscal year 2010; and
- $0.003 per kWh in fiscal year 2011 and thereafter.
The current Yankee tax is the equivalent to approximately .001 per kWh, so the proposal is to move Yankee to be in line with what was negotiated for the wind tax. At .003 kWh, Yankee would pay approximately 14 million. (Remember-this is instead of property taxes). The bill also contains a study of taxes on electric generating property to determine whether there should be differential rates for different types of electric generating facilities. (VBSR supports less tax on renewables relative to coal and nuclear sources).
