The mandate to increase the number of solar panels in Ohio is generating some gloom among at least one Ohio utility.
For the second time in the two years since the state implemented a requirement that Ohio utilities make use of solar and other renewable energy, First Energy has asked for an exemption. Solar power is sold as solar credits, and First Energy spokeswoman Ellen Raines says there are just not enough to go around –
“We worked hard to purchase every credit that was offered to us, but there were simply not enough available for us to meet our goal.”
Ohio is one of 36 states that have some type of renewable energy mandate. The 2008 law requires one-fourth of the energy used in Ohio come from alternative energy sources by 2025, and half that amount, or 12.5 % be generated within the state.
The solar requirement gradually increases, from .01 % in 2010 to 0.5 % by 2025.
But First Energy claims even that amount of solar power is unavailable in Ohio.
Kevin Quilliam, president of S-REC Trade, a California company that pioneered the trading of solar renewable energy credits, says that’s because the solar industry in Ohio is just too new –
“It’s more a factor of it being a nascent market than it is that there’s a real shortage going on.”
But Quilliam says the law is working. He says trading solar credits, the S-RECS, will help create a solar industry - from massive solar arrays, to individual homeowners who finance their investment by selling credits to utilities.
He says instead of the government setting a reimbursement for solar producers, "they have this floating market based system.”
Another Ohio utility, American Electric Power contracted its solar requirement from a developer who built Ohio’s largest solar array in Wyandot County. It’s also contracted with a Spanish company to build an even larger solar field over an abandoned strip mine in southern Ohio.
First Energy’s Ellen Raines says that’s fine for AEP, but First Energy is not getting into the solar energy business – “we really don’t have expertise as an operator of renewable resources." But, she says, they are willing to support the development of solar energy.
Last year all the major utilities in Ohio -- First Energy, Dayton Power & Light, AEP, and Duke requested exemptions from the solar mandate. First Energy is the first to file for an exemption this year, but the PUCO’s Matthew Butler says the other companies have until April to declare that they too can’t find enough solar power to meet the gradually increasing amount required by law.
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