Olympia Debates Changes in WA Renewable Energy Standards

Wind Turbines and Solar Panels

Wind turbines churn in the breeze at a Puget Sound Energy wind farm near Vantage.

Six years of battle over Washington’s renewable-energy standards has resumed at the state Capitol as utilities and business groups continue to complain that the big green-energy thrust of a 2006 ballot measure is forcing them to buy costly windpower they don’t need.

But as one of the Legislature’s oldest fights rages anew, it’s worth noting that this isn’t the same old battle.  Certainly this session, as always, there’s a bill that would declare hydropower to be a form of renewable energy — and that would essentially gut Initiative 937, the voter-approved measure that requires utilities to buy an ever-increasing share of power from clean-energy sources. Governor Jay Inslee devoted a bit of a Wednesday news conference to a denunciation of that one.

Read the full story at the source:  Erik Smith, Washington State Wire, February 7, 2013.