I know, because I have spent decades bringing money-saving energy efficiency to Ohio. In 2008 a bipartisan vote gave Gov. Ted Strickland a bill to sign which corrected a decade-old failed attempt to deregulate Ohio’s electricity industry. Three of 120 pages created electric efficiency and renewables standards.
At the end of 2015, these standards have created more than 100,000 new Ohio jobs, and have already saved $2.7 billion in electricity bills. Another $6 billion in savings will result from the high-efficiency lighting, motors and many other products already installed Ohio’s homes and businesses after the end of 2015.
The renewable portion of the standard has created about 16,000 of these jobs, and over $2 billion worth of wind generators were installed. Most people are more excited by solar, and the solar contribution is not negligible, but today new utility-scale solar equipment is economically competitive with fossil fuels, while rooftop solar still needs subsidy.
During the last seven years, the cost of renewable energy has dropped through the floor. The Federal restoration of the wind tax credit is an incentive to build turbines, which last more than twice as long as the tax credit does. In states to the east of Ohio, the tax credit makes wind economical. In Ohio it makes wind deliverable for about a third of the current wholesale price of electricity.
Ohio Republicans have voted on three laws since 2008 which weaken and derail Ohio’s clean energy revolution. Many things could be said, but the most important one is that if we restore the original standards as they stood before the first weakening law in 2013 Ohio will overcomply with the Clean Power Plan and spend $18 billion less on electricity than it would by doing nothing.
The natural gas frenzy appears to be driving Ohio Republicans. A wind turbine must have a quarter mile separation from a vacant property owned by a crabby neighbor, but a fracking well can be drilled within a few feet of a school playground under Ohio law.
The public needs to understand these issues better. Ohio Republicans are hoping you won’t.
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