MIXED BAG FOR CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 16, 2001) -- President Bush releases his National Energy Plan on Thursday. Leaders in the clean energy industry, including Scott Sklar, President of The Stella Group, Ltd., met with the Vice President and White House staff yesterday.

The good news is the plan includes residential solar tax credits (15% credit with a $2,000 cap) for solar thermal and solar electric (photovoltaics), a production tax credit extension and expansion for wind and biomass (including organic urban, forest and agricultural wastes), and hybrid vehicles, as well as a business credit for combined heat and power systems. The plan also includes the start of a new consumer awareness and acknowledgment program for renewable energy by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following in the footsteps of the successful "Energy Star" programs promoting energy efficiency. Sklar called these tax and EPA provisions "good, sound public policy incentives for renewable energy".

The gaps in the plan were startling. While the conventional energy industries had pages devoted to removing regulatory barriers, the single largest barrier to distributed generation is rules relating to interconnection to the electric grid. Sklar said, "While 30 states have passed net-metering laws which establish a technical interconnection standard, user-friendly contracts and credit for excess power generation, the Administration allows this regulatory barrier to stand in the way nationally of consumer choice and power reliability." Sklar also questioned why the 50 to 80 percent budget cuts for solar programs were allowed to stand. "While the Study directs the Energy Secretary to possibly reconsider them, in light of the Energy Secretary's public comments against these RD&D programs, it is still unclear what is Administration policy". Sklar stated further that he believed a bipartisan coalition on Capitol Hill will overturn these unwise and unfair cuts in the FY 2002 Department of Energy RD&D recommendations.

Some misguided public policy provisions were also included. Aside from supporting drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve whose unproven oil reserves cannot yet be refined in the United States because of its composition, Sklar questioned the need for "$150 million of taxpayers' money to the coal industry to make coal cleaner which is direct corporate welfare to a very profitable mature industry, with mature technologies in mature markets." Extension of the Price-Anderson Act for nuclear energy places the liability of an accident on consumers rather than the industry which claims this is safe technology. "Nuclear power is either safe or it isn't, and if nuclear power needs liability caps, then it isn't", said Sklar.

The Stella Group, Ltd. is a strategic marketing and policy firm for the clean distributed energy industries including advanced batteries and interconnection technologies, concentrated solar, energy efficiency, fuel cells, hydrogen, modular biomass, and photovoltaics. Scott Sklar, its founder, served for 14 years as Executive Director of both the Solar Energy industries Association and the National BioEnergy Industries Association in Washington, DC He lives in a passive solar home with solar water heating and photovoltaics in Arlington, Virginia.

Contact information:
Scott Sklar, President, The Stella Group, Ltd.
733 15th St., NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-347-2214 Fax: 202-347-2215
E-mail: solarsklar@aol.com , Message beeper: 1-800-759-1858
or 7591858@skytel.com (do not use voice mail feature)