RALEIGH — State officials, lawmakers, and renewable energy consultants attempted Tuesday to downplay the $937.8 million cost of tax credits sought under the state’s new Safe Harbor Act — a total more than five times higher than initial projections. Some worried the program will be a drain on state finances that will provide large banks and insurance companies a windfall at the expense of taxpayers.
RALEIGH — Google announced in late November 2015 that it would participate in a new Duke Energy program allowing the Internet giant to buy power from a Rutherford County solar facility to run its new data center building located 50 miles away near Lenoir. Google did not mention in its press releases that the entire Caldwell County complex will continue to receive all of its power from Duke Energy, generated with the same general mix of fuels used by other Duke customers — dominated by nuclear, coal, natural gas, and hydro.
RALEIGH — The final batch of solar and other renewable energy projects requested under the “safe harbor” law enacted in April by the General Assembly could cost North Carolina taxpayers as much as $937,804,785 in credits, according to aggregated figures released Wednesday by the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
RALEIGH — California-based Apple promotes its 500,000-square-foot data center in Maiden, N.C., by saying it runs “100 percent” on renewable energy even though the facility continues to get all of its electricity from Duke Energy, a public utility that primarily generates electricity using coal, nuclear power, and natural gas.
WILMINGTON — Two prominent state lawmakers pushing to make North Carolina’s energy policy more friendly to consumers say they will press vigorously for freezing or reducing state mandates to use more renewable energy when the General Assembly returns for the 2016 short session. The goal is to allow the use of more low-cost fuels.
RALEIGH — Despite earlier claims by Iberdrola Renewables officials that the $400 million, 300-megawatt Amazon Wind Farm that will cover 22,000 acres near Elizabeth City would be built totally from company funds, another Iberdrola official says the project requires some tax incentives to be viable economically. “We’re not at a point yet where we don’t need subsidies,” Eric Thumma told a recent meeting of the North Carolina Energy Policy Council.
RALEIGH — An environmental group lauding North Carolina for ranking No. 4 nationally in solar energy capacity agrees with foes of renewable energy mandates — the state’s purported boom in clean energy mostly results from the government forcing utilities to purchase the higher-cost energy, along with lucrative incentive deals that shift costs to taxpayers.
RALEIGH — There is a disposal fee embedded in the pricing of consumer electronics for televisions, computers, and other electronic devices, he said. But solar investors, who enjoy a lucrative 35 percent tax credit for spending on their projects, have downplayed the role of decommissioning and cleanup in their advocacy.
RALEIGH — North Carolina has no environmental rules for shutting down solar projects safely, state officials say, and may lack sufficient facilities to dispose of the glass, steel, industrial lubricants, and toxic elements after solar panels in the state’s expanding solar industry reach the end of their useful lives. State Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, says some solar developers require property owners to cover the costs of disposal and land reclamation after the panels become ineffective.
RALEIGH — Two of the co-founders of Cary-based software company SAS Institute Inc. — James H. Goodnight and John P. Sall — appear to have collected tax credits totaling more than $3 million from the state’s renewable energy program even as their company is pushing state political leaders to maintain tax subsidies for the renewable energy industry.
RALEIGH — Internet giant Google collected $262 million in incentives when it located a data center in North Carolina, and now is urging the General Assembly to continue offering hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy investors. But while the search engine company strongly advocates maintaining green-energy subsidies for North Carolina, it once shut down its own research and development project after concluding it was impossible to make renewable energy more affordable than traditional electricity.
