Maryland governor Martin O’Malley faced strong opposition yesterday from a key Senate committee regarding his offshore wind power bill.
This year’s bill does not impose requirements for mandated utilities to enter long-term contracts with an offshore wind producer, but it sets requirements for the offshore wind power production.
O’Malley said that the public is protected under the bill by the safeguards which ensure that residential customers’ bills will not go up more than USD 2, and 2.5 percent for commercial customers.
The Governor told the lawmakers the state could not reach its renewable energy goals of 20 percent of all energy use by 2022 without the offshore wind energy.
[mappress]
Offshore WIND staff, February 15, 2012