Governor of California Jerry Brown, who likened the Trump administration’s environmental stance as a “declaration of war on America”, looks set to commit his state to a “100% renewable energy” policy.
In response to Massachusetts Legislature passing a bill raising the state’s renewable energy standard and another encouraging clean energy and energy storage use during peak hours, solar and energy storage trade groups SEIA and ESA offered contrasting views.
News in Brief: Bill Clinton opens Westchester's largest solar array – a 2.7MW facility at Swiss RE's US headquarters; Nexamp completes a 700kW community solar facility in Massachusetts, Michigan introduces a bill to up its RPS and Solaria deploys its architectural solar products at Cornell Tech's campus in New York.
Nevada has failed to gain a community solar programme and to extend its renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 40% by 2030, after governor Brian Sandoval vetoed those bills on Friday.
Nevada solar moved up in a big way earlier this week, with the state legislature passing several bills to ensure the industry will return to its former heights.
Despite battle cries to end the ‘war on coal’, Trump’s first 100 days as president have done very little to materially dismantle progress in renewable energy and climate action, according to energy and national security expert Kevin Book.
North Carolina is making another effort at freezing the state’s 12.5% by 2021 renewable energy standard, via a bill introduced by lawmaker Chris Millis.
Last month, Maryland achieved a clean energy victory when the legislature voted to override governor Larry Hogan’s veto of the Clean Energy Jobs Act in a 32-13 vote.
Colorado will continue to push ahead with renewable energy despite president Donald Trump’s order eliminating many restrictions on fossil fuels, governor John Hickenlooper has said.
Minnesota is pushing for an even more aggressive renewable portfolio standard (RPS) with the Dayton administration proposing 50% renewables integration by 2030.
Ohio governor John Kasich has stuck to his guns and vetoed a bill that sought to make compliance for investor-owned utilities (IOUs) with the state’s energy standards voluntary, as opposed to mandatory, for a further two years.
