Setting the Table for Clean Energy Progress in the Granite State

Without much fanfare, New Hampshire lawmakers took important steps in 2014 toward clean energy progress.  This spring, the legislature completed what is arguably the most successful session for energy issues in many years with a series of significant bills each addressing different parts of the clean energy puzzle:  a pathway to ending the state’s inexcusable subsidies for its two coal plants, scaling up energy efficiency, reforming the process and standards for siting new energy facilities, ensuring sound utility planning, and protecting our natural resources from the ongoing risks of fossil fuels.  Notably, this work steered clear of the risky and controversial gas and transmission infrastructure plans that captured most energy headlines.  With Governor Hassan’s signatures this summer, these bills are now New Hampshire law:

• PSNH Divestiture:  New Hampshire’s single biggest clean energy opportunity is the new pathway, established by House Bill 1602, that could lead to the sale and eventual retirement of PSNH’s coal-fired power plants in Bow and Portsmouth.
• Energy Efficiency and C-PACE:  New Hampshire continues its progress toward implementing an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard, which would allow the state to capture much greater levels of cost-effective energy efficiency; the bill creates a stakeholder process to develop energy efficiency goals and policies, including legislation for consideration in 2015, and encourages state government to increase its own efficiency efforts.  House Bill 532 provides a major boost to privately funded energy efficiency projects using the property assessment financing known as C-PACE, substantially raising the former cap on such projects.  A third bill, Senate Bill 268, helps channel funds available for energy efficiency to proven programs that were at risk of shutting down and to municipal energy efficiency projects, many of which are shovel-ready.
• Senate Bill 245:  The addition of non-agency members and a professional staff to the committee charged with reviewing projects, a reduction in the committee’s overall size, increased opportunities for public participation, and the requirement that all large energy projects affirmatively “serve the public interest.”  For wind farm projects, the legislature—in a section of the PSNH divestiture bill—offered a strong endorsement of their potential role in the state’s future energy portfolio and provided some clarity on the issues that must be considered by the siting committee when it sets rules for such projects.
• Other bills:  In House Bill 1540, the legislature approved changes to the statute governing utility long-range planning to modernize the requirements and ensure full consideration of energy efficiency, grid modernization, and distributed generation.  And in House Bills 1224 and 1376 and Senate Bill 325, the legislature focused on addressing the risks of transporting fossil fuels by pipeline and rail, through increased state regulatory oversight over oil pipelines and initiating a full legislative review of the safety requirements for oil and gas transportation.

Setting the Table for Clean Energy Progress in the Granite State