Clean Energy Finance Forum

A growing list of Connecticut towns want to play a bigger role in procuring clean energy, but first they need state lawmakers to give them the authority. Known as community choice aggregation, the model gives local governments the right to buy power on behalf of their residents, enabling them to focus on buying more renewable energy or lowering costs, or both.

"In Washington and many other states, we are using innovation and cooperation to grow jobs and protect the planet. As Washington’s governor, I know firsthand the obstacles states face when they respond to increasingly devastating floods, wildfires, and earthquakes, and other catastrophes made worse by a changing climate."

Utilities like Duke Energy and Xcel Energy have issued billions in green bonds to fund renewables development. Green banks in New York, Connecticut and other states are backing investments in distributed resources and energy efficiency. It appears much more institutional money wants in on the green opportunity.

The National Climate Bank Act introduced this year is based in part on successful projects in Connecticut and New York.

Rival developer teams filed formal proposals with Connecticut regulators to build massive new wind farms off New England’s southern coast, with the state having mandated that 40% of its electricity be generated from renewable sources within a decade’s time.

"The way Westar Energy runs its coal plants in Kansas unnecessarily costs consumers millions of dollars a year through an obscure, if common, practice known as self-committing generation."

On June 26th, Governor Janet Mills signed new legislation to broaden customer access to net metering (known in Maine as net energy billing) and to promote distributed energy generation, including through competitive procurements for long-term contracts with the state’s transmission and distribution utilities.

A study examining the impact on property values where commercial wind farms have gone up in Kansas found no statistically significant changes in aggregate rural home values in a county within the three years of a wind development.