An advisory committee convened to suggest changes to the newly signed law doubling the amount of renewable energy that Colorado’s rural electric cooperatives must have by 2020 will start work on July 10.
That’s according to an announcement Tuesday from the Colorado Energy Office, which also announced the members of the committee.
The committee was convened at the order of Gov. John Hickenlooper, who signed Senate Bill 252 on June 5 over the protests of representatives from the state’s rural electric cooperatives, business interests, agriculture interests, and some rural legislators. The same day, he signed the executive order convening the committee to review the law and suggest tweaks, if necessary, ahead of the 2014 legislative session.
The committee will hold its first meeting July 10 and are expected to submit its conclusions to the director of the Colorado Energy Office on November 1.
“This committee has an opportunity to move the discussion concerning renewable energy in rural Colorado beyond rhetoric and to a fact-based analysis.” said Jeff Ackermann, the director of the energy office. “I look forward to their results.”
The law requires rural cooperatives with more than 100,000 meters, and utilities that generate and supply electricity on behalf of member cooperatives, to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable-energy sources by 2020.
The bill also allows rural cooperatives to add a monthly surcharge, up to 2 percent of a customer’s monthly bill, to help pay for projects needed to meet the goal.
The law will affect the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, which serves customers in a territory south of Denver, and Westminster’s Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which provides power to 18 member electric cooperatives in Colorado in addition to serving customers in Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico.
Members of the advisory committee are:
- Dave Lock – representing Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
- Kent Singer – representing the Colorado Rural Electric Association
- Dan McClendon – representing the Delta Montrose Rural Electric Association
- Chip Marks – representing agribusiness interests
- Chris Kraft – representing livestock production interests in the state
* Marc Arnusch – representing farmers who need irrigation for crop production
- Jerry Vaninetti – representing the renewable energy industry
- Bruce Driver – representing electric resource planning efforts
- Pete Maysmith – executive director at Conservation Colorado, representing the environmental advocacy community.
- A representative from Intermountain Rural Electric Association who will be named.
Ex-officio members of the committee include:
- John Salazar – Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture
- Joshua Epel – Chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission
- John Suthers – Colorado Attorney General.