Soft renewable energy bill amended in Senate

Utah's sole surviving bill aiming to incorporate goals for renewable power generation remains on the third reading calendar after a substitute bill, incorporating some technical changes, replaced it.

SB202, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, proposes a goal of 20 percent renewable power generation from corporate and municipal sources by 2025.

The targets posed by Bramble's bill are "soft" and backdoors are available to utilities if alternative power sources do not prove cost effective.

SB173, a bill sponsored by Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake City, failed to gain a committee recommendation earlier in the session and approached the same issue with tougher goals and bigger teeth.

McCoy's bill mandated a 25 percent renewable generation requirement by 2025 and created a penalty system for companies that failed to achieve targets. McCoy's bill also created an "off-ramp" for added costs to utilities, but tied it into a percentage change in customer energy costs.