NEPPA members are starting to hear from the U.S. Treasury regarding the status of applications for Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) authority. The Hull Municipal Lighting Plant was awarded a $1.5 million CREB allocation for a wind turbine it is in the process of building and expects to have operational by May 2006. Hull was also denied a separate $30 million request, however. The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC) was also successful in receiving an allocation. Given the limited overall funding for the program ($800 million split $500/$300 for governmental entities and coops, respectively) and the allocation methodology embraced by Treasury (smallest projects to largest), both the Ipswich Municipal Light Department and the Princeton Municipal Light Department were denied requests for $3.8 million and $5.75 million, respectively.
Demand for the program was three times the amount of total program funding ($2.6 billion vs. $800 million), which should help in NEPPA's efforts to convince Congress of the need for expanding the $800 million cap to help buy down the high costs of renewable power projects for the public power sector. In addition, Morgan Meguire has heard that because of the broad definition of "governmental entities," a number of non-utility "governmental entities," such as school districts applied for and received allocations.
APPA, along with Morgan Meguire and others, will work to refine the definition of "governmental entities" and also increase (or possibly eliminate) the funding cap on the program to provide "comparability" with the unlimited production tax credits (PTC) benefits which are available to private developers.