CCAN and our partners will be fighting over the next year to double Maryland’s commitment to clean electricity. Burning dirty coal, oil and gas for electricity remains the single largest source of statewide greenhouse gas emissions, and so it’s essential that Maryland transitions as quickly as possible to clean, non-polluting sources. Our state’s current requirement is 20% clean electricity by 2022, and we want to double that to 40% by 2025. This 40% clean electricity standard would put Maryland on the cutting edge of renewable energy policy, and it would go a long way toward increasing national momentum behind a clean energy economy.
A 40% clean electricity standard for Maryland would incentivize enough clean energy capacity to offset about 10 coal-fired power plants, and it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 9.7 million metric tons per year. That’s the carbon equivalent of taking 2 million passenger vehicles off the road every year, which will deliver improved public health outcomes, cleaner air and cleaner water for Maryland and our region.
This 40% clean electricity standard for Maryland is ambitious, and in fact it is eminently achievable. The operators of our regional electricity grid recently released a study that examined the grid impacts of doubling current clean electricity levels in states in our region over the next decade. They included the cost of coping with the intermittency of wind and solar as well as the costs of major transmission upgrades that would likely be needed. The very good news is that the study concluded that grid “will not have any significant issues” if each state doubled its own clean electricity standards. In fact, the study found that we would reap significant benefits by accelerating our clean electricity generation, including maintenance of reliability, reduced emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and lower energy costs.
So, Maryland can and should get to 40% clean electricity as soon as we can, and that’s what we’ll be pushing for in the coming months. Stay tuned for updates and ways to get involved, and check out more on the campaign here: http://chesapeakeclimate.org/maryland/40-percent-rps/