Hawaii (solar energy) Feed Law Bill: SB 1223 Introduced

[jpak]

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48474

During the 2007 session of the Hawaii state legislature Erik Kvam, of Zero Emissions Leasing, drafted a bill modeled after Germany's EEG (the Renewable Energy Sources Act), the German electricity feed law.

Senate Bill 1223 was introduced by Senator Ron Menor, chairman of the Senate Energy and Environment committee. A companion bill was also introduced into the Assembly. The Senate bill was heard but not reported out of committee. Kvam plans to re-introduce the bill in the 2008 session.

According to Kvam, "There's real interest here" (Hawaii) on both sides of the aisle and "everyone wants to be seen as out in front on this."

SB 1223 or the Solar Energy Electricity Feed-in Tariff specifies a solar photovoltaic (PV) tariff of US$0.70 per kilowatt-hour (/kWh) ($0.81 CAD/kWh) for 20 years. Kvam says he arrived at the tariff by incorporating the federal tax subsidy and solving a cash flow model for an internal rate of return of 15% after tax. He notes that not unsurprisingly this is similar to the current German solar PV tariff.

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