On November 4, 2008, Missouri voters approved the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative, creating the nation’s third state Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to be adopted by ballot initiative. Currently, 29 states and the District of Columbia have established mandatory RPSs. Most state RPSs have been adopted through legislation or executive order. The proposal requires that investor-owned utilities increase renewable electricity generation to two percent of total output by 2011, five percent by 2014, 10 percent by 2018, and 15 percent by 2021. Two percent of generation must come from solar energy; the remainder may come from other renewable sources including landfill gas, wind, biomass, and hydroelectric power. In order to protect rate-payers, utilities are prevented from increasing power prices more than one percent.
The Clean Energy Initiative ramps up the goals set forward in S.B. 54 enacted in Missouri in 2007, which calls on utilities to make a “good-faith effort” to generate 11 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2021.
Clean Energy Initiative [1]
Press Release [2]
SB 54 [3]
Links:
[1] http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/2008petitions/2008-031.asp
[2] http://www.gov.mo.gov/press/Energy062507.htm
[3] http://www.dsireusa.org/documents/Incentives/MO08R.pdf