A majority of Illinois voters believe it is important that the state maintain its commitment to increase its use of renewable power and support legislation that would achieve this goal by fixing the state's broken renewable portfolio standard (RPS) law, according to a Zogby survey.
The survey, conducted for the Clean Energy Trust (CET) and Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), found an overwhelming majority (86.5%) of likely Illinois voters believe it is very important or somewhat important that Illinois ''continue to get an increasing amount of its energy from secure and clean power sources.'' Renewable energy companies have invested more than $5 billion in Illinois power projects in the last few years.
Specifically, the survey found the following:
- 86.5% of likely voters also believe it is very or somewhat important to ''maintain policies to bring renewable energy to Illinois; more than half called it ''very important.''
- 76.7% of respondents said they are either strongly or somewhat in favor of legislation to ensure Illinois ''continues to increase its use of renewable power.'' Only 8.2% are opposed.
- 66.4% said they would either be much more or somewhat more likely to vote for their state representative or senator in the next election if the politician supported this legislation, while only 9% reported they were less likely to vote for that person.
- 79.6% prefer that at least one-quarter of the state's electricity ''come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar'' with more than 61% wanting the state's renewable energy requirement doubled to at least half of the state's electricity.
‘The people of Illinois almost unanimously consider renewable energy critical to the future of our state,’ said Amy Francetic, CEO of the CET. ‘We hope this overwhelming voter support will help to inform policymakers' discussions around SB 103.’
The CET and AEE maintain Illinois RPS law has broken down. S.B. 103 seeks to fix this broken law by consolidating all renewable energy purchases under the Illinois Power Agency, which would administer a competitive procurement process to minimize consumer costs while maximizing renewable energy, the agencies claim.
