DENVER—Colorado would create thousands of jobs with legislation requiring large utilities to increase their use of renewable energy, a study released Tuesday by Environment Colorado said.
But Republicans are questioning how much the measure would impact the state’s economy, as well as the number of long-term jobs that have been created under previous renewable energy requirements.
Colorado voters approved a required Renewable Energy Standard of 10 percent 2004. Lawmakers doubled that in 2007 to 20 percent by 2020.
The standard would increase another 10 percent under legislation that won approval from the Senate Local Government and Energy Committee on Tuesday. Major power companies support the bill because they would be allowed to collect a portion of their costs from consumers up front.
Qualified renewable energy projects under the legislation—which now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee—include wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other projects approved by the Public Utilities Commission.
Environment Colorado’s study said the bill would create 23,450 jobs in solar generation over the next 10 years. But researchers acknowledged that only 152 of those jobs would last for two years or more. The remaining jobs would be short-term construction and support jobs.
Raising the renewable energy standard to 20 percent has already created 17,000 jobs in Colorado, Gov. Bill Ritter said last month.
But even supporters acknowledge the projects need government subsidies of up 50 percent to cover the cost to make it affordable.
“It’s a make-work project on the front end and heavily subsidized and costly on the back end,” said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, a Republican from Fort Collins.
Critics say the only way to sustain the industry is with subsidies and increasing energy standards, since most of the jobs are short-term construction jobs.
Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, said a study of Spain’s experience, cited by President Barack Obama as a model for the United States, showed the energy industry lost nine traditional energy jobs for every four jobs created by a shift to renewable energy.
If Colorado’s standards were economically viable, mandates and subsidies wouldn’t be needed, Lundberg said.
