Agenda - 05-05-2009 - 3b - Laserfiche WebLink

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23 DEVELOPMENT OF A SOLAR CLUSTER IN ORANGE COUNTY April 13, 2009 Orange County Economic Development Commission Another survey indicated that in response to passage of the REPS, it is estimated that 90 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy will need to be generated by 2025; this will require 12,000 new manufacturing jobs in North Cazolina just to maintain the current mazket share (Appalachian, 2008). Challenges While the building blocks are in place for the rapid growth in the solaz mazket, several obstacles should be considered when developing a strategy. One of the largest challenges will be in integrating a new energy source into the existing utility regulatory framework. Although the REPS have been instituted by the North Cazolina Utility Commission (NCUC), the effect will not be immediate -the utilities have no set aside funds to support renewable energy and there are no enforcement mechanisms for REPS (Cherry and Saha, 2008). Solutions to these regulatory challenges with regards to REPS may be gleaned from other states that implemented REPS prior to North Carolina. Those states that were more successful in achieving their goals had funds available to help renewable energy on a larger scale -typically with a small surchazge on kWh used to support renewable energy. North Cazolina does not currently have a similar program in place. Another regulatory challenge is with enforcement of the REPS -currently the regulation does not have monetazy penalties if the renewable energy goal is not met (Cherry and Saha, 2008). The regulatory structure that makes renewable energy attractive to the renewable energy generator in terms of utility savings has been developed on a state by state basis, resulting in a wide range of regulations that govern the transfer of energy from the renewable energy back to the utility. The two primary components of the regulatory For EDC use only 17