Governor Christie is tapping into the Clean Energy Fund to balance the New Jersey Budget, with NJ Transit being the big winner by receiving $62 million of the $112 million in the Fund. Apparently this is nothing new, but here are a couple of quick notes about the fund…as a refresher:

• The Clean Energy Fund is financed by a surcharge on utility & gas bills.
• Surcharges could cost residential customers > $100 per year.
• Christie’s administration has diverted more than $1 billion since he took office.
• Diversion is called “Societal Benefits Charge.”
• Funding priorities include biomass, energy storage, and offshore wind.

When looking at the trends for New Jersey from 2004-2014, our reliance on Coal has dropped significantly from 19% to 4%, but what about our renewable energy? It’s held steady at 2% over ten years?  A number of factors have played into this quagmire (e.g. politically), but really folks, we can do better than that.

Here are some industry updates / opinions from Renewable Energy World.

Stay tuned for future updates on this topic. We hope that you find these posts informative, and relatively useful, and your feedback is always welcome. For further information please don't hesitate to contact us at tfrancis@cardinallsrp.com or www.cardinalLSRP.com.