The Public Service Commission on Wednesday approved a pilot program intended to create up to 350 megawatts of long-term renewable power within the next three years, a move that state officials and environmentalists say could help establish a permanent guideline that utilities would use to generate or purchase electricity from renewable sources.
The decision, which followed an eight-hour meeting in Covington, comes four months after the commission announced its support for the program, which is aimed at bolstering the Louisiana's fuel mix while adding resources that contribute to its reliable and economic long-term power supply.
For years, state officials have considered creating a renewable portfolio standard that would require regulated electricity utilities to acquire a portion of their energy from generators that use renewable sources. Some environmentalists and renewable energy advocates say the pilot program that has been approved will also encourage growth and potentially fast-track testing of smaller-scale renewable sources, which would then be sold to in-state utilities.
Details of the program were released for public comment in August, and based on the feedback that was received, state officials made several changes to its guidelines, including one that allows some woody biomass products to be turned into fuel.
The program is intended to create enough long-term renewable power supply 2 percent of the state's energy needs, by way of a request for proposals that would spur research and development of renewable energy technologies, such as biomass, geothermal, hydro, solar or wind.
The board met in executive session for a half-hour before returning to vote on the pilot program, with commissioners indicating that talk centered on opening the program to out-of-state resources.
Discussion on the pilot program, nearing the end of the day, drew a back-and-forth dialogue between Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, the lone vote against the proposal and the most vocal member of the Public Service Commission at the meeting, and several of his colleagues.
"In the future, who knows what will happen," said Skrmetta, of Metairie, who took issue with the program, set to run over several years, being considered an experimental trial. "I don't think it's a pilot, I don't think it passes the smell test on being a pilot for me, and I think it's the wrong way to go."
Other commissioners, including the board's chairman, Lambert Boissiere III of New Orleans, said the program, while not perfect, should move forward.
After the meeting, Jordan Macha, a conservation organizer for the state chapter of the Sierra Club, praised the pilot program as an important step in putting Louisiana in the company of other states attempting to move away from fossil fuels in producing electricity.
"With anything of this magnitude, the devil's in the details," Macha said.
Meanwhile, a day after New Orleans-based power provider Entergy Corp. said that the company was cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into its competitive practices, several commissioners, including Lambert and Foster Campbell, said they believed Entergy should have provided details about the inquiry in the weeks since the probe began.
"I'm real concerned about it," said Campbell, of Elm Grove, who added: "We need to be up to date about this investigation, exactly what's involved. I hope it's nothing bad, but I'd like to know everything about it."