Bad news for residents of the European Union and possibly Colorado. EU consumers and businesses face more than twenty years of rising electric costs as the region tries to meet its renewable energy goals according to a leaked report.
The the working title of the draft report “Energy Roadmap to 2050” examines how the EU will meet its goal of 80 percent reduction of 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It’s due to be released by the end of the year.
According to a recent Financial Times article, the 112-page report examined various scenarios under which the EU could move away from carbon-based electrical generation and toward wind power and other renewable energy sources. Over the next several decades reliance on wind could go from just 5 percent to 49 percent of the EU’s energy portfolio.
As the number of wind farms increases so do energy prices. Under one scenario energy prices may increase 100 percent by 2050.
This report is bad news for Colorado because in 2008 then Governor Bill Ritter issued an executive order to reduce Colorado’s greenhouse gas emissions at least 20 percent 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.
Earlier this year, we exposed that Ritter’s New Energy Economy will cost Xcel Energy ratepayers $212.3 million (8 percent of their Xcel bill) in 2011 for just four pieces of legislation.
