Have you ever wondered why we need Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS)? You pay extra for it in your electric bill every month. RPS is regulation with the force of law. It requires the increased production of energy from renewable energy sources.
RPS is what subsidizes wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal. It accomplishes this by placing an obligation on electric suppliers. Suppliers must produce specified fractions of electricity from renewable energy sources. Availability, efficiency and cost are not considerations.
The good…
RPS imposes an economic burden on the private market. Minimum RPS requirements are legislated. The standards are entirely arbitrary. They ignore the ability of the rate payer to afford cost. They ignore the ability of the suppliers to produce the power. RPS programs eliminate price competition between different types of energy. It is a form of price control.
RPS supporters claim that market implementation will result in competition, efficiency, and innovation that will deliver renewable energy at the lowest possible cost, allowing renewable energy to compete with cheaper fossil fuel energy sources. The claim is complete male bovine excrement. Places where this system has been tried have stopped using it. We are expanding its use not because of the science or the economics, but as an exercise in political power.
A different view of the present…
RPS is a legislative creation. New Hampshire’s legislature has created a monopoly for non-economic power sources. Now, after creation of the monopoly the legislature is taking the next step. It is expanding the size of the monopoly market. This is creation not only a monopoly industry, but one with a growing taxpayer subsidy. RPS is a broad based tax levied through your electric rates.
The damage done is twofold. Immediately, the RPS unnecessarily takes dollars out of every house hold budget. It does that through artificially high electric rates. This is predatory to the poor, the young and those on fixed incomes.
Those dollars are ones that the young might use to repay student loans, or save for a home. The poor and elderly need them for basic food and shelter. RPS also raises the cost of doing business in the state. This is a competitive disadvantage. The disadvantage is large enough to be noted repeatedly by business thinking about coming here or starting here.
A view of the future…
Perhaps more important is the damage RPS does to the Granite State future. By adding regulatory burden plus tax burden plus governmental growth it increases cost of living and cost to do business in New Hampshire. This takes money out of the economy. Money is the fuel for economic and demographic growth. By killing growth it kills New Hampshire’s future. The prosperity of New Hampshire is at stake.
Conclusion…
There is a stark contrast sitting across the Connecticut River staring at us. Vermont implemented such socialist policies more than 50 years ago. In the intervening time it has declined in population while New Hampshire has nearly doubled in population. There are reasons for that.
Commonsense should be gnawing at us right now. Our population growth rate is nearly zero. SB 168 increases the carve out for renewables by a factor of 10. That will increase your electric rates. It will increase business cost. It increases the taxes and subsidies collected through your electric rates.
The future of New Hampshire dims with the advancement of government as our religion. Increased size of government and control by government comes at the expense of the free market and the freedom of the people. Do you want New Hampshire to be like Vermont which cannot get people to move there even with a $10,000 per head inducement? Is that our vision for the future?
