By RICK WHITBECK | REAL CLEAR ENERGY
Think of something politicians could impose that is blatantly anti-free-market, would nearly guarantee increased rates for consumers and decrease reliability.
Now, do it in a state that sees snow and below-zero temps for months on end. It’s a recipe for disaster, yet my home state of Alaska is considering legislation that would implement a program called “Renewable Portfolio Standards” (RPS) on four electric utilities that cover the state’s largest business and residential areas.
RPS, to put it simply, is a mandate pushed by environmentalists to make sure electricity is generated only from the sources they want, no matter the impact to family budgets. Alaska’s RPS would be mandated in a vast area from Fairbanks in the north to the Kenai Peninsula in the south. Utilities covering these areas provide power to nearly 75% of the state’s population.
Alaska is far from the first northern state to consider RPS. In fact, a number of New England-area states have enacted RPS goals, as have New York, Minnesota and Wisconsin. With the exception of Republican-led New Hampshire, which has a RPS goal of 25% of its power coming from renewables by 2025, the formula used to pass RPS in those states is the same: legislatures with a majority of elected Democrats vote on the bill, and a Democrat Governor signs for final approval. Those states’ RPS are as partisan as it gets.
Alaska is different – and much like New Hampshire – with Republicans in the numerical majority in both legislative bodies and a second-term Republican Governor in office. While one would hope the free-market principle of markets over mandates would lead to RPS legislation failing miserably, that’s not what has happened to date. If the eco-left organizations pushing for RPS in Alaska can succeed here, other red states should take notice and prepare for their own RPS battles.
Unlike New Hampshire’s 25% renewable percentage, our legislation would create an aggressive timeline to move on from the Railbelt’s legacy energy sources of coal and natural gas. The bill would mandate 80% renewable power by 2040, which would increase the total renewable production by more than 500% from today’s wind, solar and hydro output.
Alaska’s proposed RPS also will impose significant penalties on the utilities if they fail to meet RPS objectives. Of course, the utilities won’t ultimately pay any of those directly; they’ll just pass them onto ratepayers. Keep in mind, Alaska’s families already struggle with per-Kilowatt-hour costs higher than the national average. That number is kept low because of the tremendous amounts of coal and natural gas responsibly developed for decades and brought to market at reasonable prices.
Today, however, producers in Cook Inlet – who are responsible for most of Southcentral Alaska’s supplies of reliable energy – have sounded alarms about running out of economic-to-extract gas supplies. Utilities are looking at importing natural gas as a short-term fix, which could double ratepayers’ bills until other firm (always-on) sources are brought to market.
Backers of RPS legislation have touted their wind and solar solutions as the ultimate fix, but a quick glance at wind and solar reliability factors paint a different picture. Because of a lack of sunlight during the winter months and long periods of low-wind, high-pressure weather patterns, the largest solar arrays in the Railbelt produce power less than 25% of the time, and wind solutions come in even worse, at less than 15% output-versus-capacity.
The fact that RPS backers refuse to consider hydro and micro-nuclear solutions – and, in fact, want a current hydro project removed because of its supposed impacts to a minor fishery – shows their true intent, which is to drive less-reliable, higher-cost power onto the Railbelt’s grid under any means possible.
So, red state consumers, here’s a warning. Unless you want to pay more for power than you do today, with less reliable power potentially available when you need it most, fight against any attempts by your state’s governmental leaders to impose RPS mandates on you.
We’ll keep fighting it here in Alaska. Our economic future – and potentially, our very lives and ongoing health – depend on us doing so.
Rick Whitbeck is the Alaska State Director for Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @PTFAlaska.
This column fist appeared in Real Clear Energy.
