New Energy Future Program News

News Room

 As the new home of NHPIRG’s environmental work, Environment New Hampshire may be contacted regarding this release.

A report released today by the New Hampshire Public Interest Research Group (NHPIRG), intended to help state officials write a 10-year energy plan mandated by the Legislature, lays out a series of steps that give prominent roles to wind and solar power as well as efficiency and conservation measures.

NHPIRG Advocate Josh Irwin said the benefits anticipated from his group's recommendations went beyond the environmental and public health advantages of shifting away from nuclear power and limiting global warming pollution, smog, acid rain and other consequences of burning fossil fuels.

"This is a prime opportunity for the state to adopt measures that not only protect our health and our environment, but make economic sense too," Irwin said. "The cost of electricity from wind and solar power and other clean, renewable sources has been falling for years, and it is almost sure to fall even farther. We also know from experience that adopting tougher energy appliance standards and tightening our building codes pays off in the long run."

Ted Vansant of the Wilton-based company Solar Works, Inc., which is thriving in the renewable energy market, joined NHPIRG at a press conference to emphasize the economic and environmental benefits the state could realize from the shift in energy policy envisioned by the report.

Solar Works employs 16 people, and earned $1.6 million in revenues last year. "Solar energy, both in the form of solar electric and solar hot water systems, is a growing market in New Hampshire and throughout the nation," said Vansant. "Consumers are quickly seeing the benefits both for the environment and for their electricity bills."

"Saving energy is more than saving money," said Michael Pais of the Bedford-based energy efficiency company Vestar. "Our experience analyzing facilities, both in New Hampshire and across the nation, shows potential energy and cost savings of 20-30 percent or more each year."

Among the recommendations NHPIRG asked the state to include in its plan:

• Tap the state's potential for wind power, which researchers pegged at 1900 megawatts—enough to meet nearly one-third of the state’s demand for electricity in 1999. The report said hundreds of megawatts of capacity could come online in the next decade.

• Urge legislators and state energy officials to continue working to win adoption of a Renewable Portfolio Standard, a measure requiring that a fraction of the electricity sold in New Hampshire come from clean, renewable sources of power. Other New England states have already adopted that standard.

• Set a statewide goal of reducing anticipated energy demand by 10 percent by 2010 and adopt an aggressive building code aimed at conservation and modeled on the International Energy Efficiency Code.

• Expand the scope and pace of the state’s successful Building Energy Conservation Initiative, a program that allows the state to make state-owned buildings more efficient through retrofitting, if the improvements pay for themselves in 10 years.

Irwin said a series of studies by national research laboratories, public policy organizations and the EPA had all affirmed that a vigorous commitment to energy efficiency and renewable energy technology would mean a net economic gain.

He cited a 2001 report by the Tellus Institute, a Boston-based energy policy research group, concluding that an aggressive energy policy aimed at protecting the climate could bring 2800 jobs to New Hampshire by 2020.

"We don't have to choose between cleaner energy production and economic growth any longer," Irwin said. "We can have both. The state’s 10-year energy plan is the perfect avenue for clean power and energy conservation and efficiency measures to get a foot solidly in the door."