July 2, 2008 Gov. Patrick signs green energy bill Play video

(Peter Howe, NECN: Boston, MA) - Ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls. I am here today to sign into law the best clean energy bill in America.

It took a year and a half of wrangling with legislators, environmentalists, and businesses. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has finally signed a major energy conservation and green power act. One of the landmark accomplishments of his term so far.

Patrick came to Boston's museum of science and even tagged along with kids learning about the physics of wind power.

The centerpiece of the green communities act is a huge increase in utility-funded energy conservation.

By 2020, Massachusetts utilities will have to get 15 percent of electricity from renewable like wind, hydro and solar. That's up from 4 percent now. National grid, n-star, and western mass electric can each deploy solar power for 37 thousand homes by 2010.

And there's 10 million a year in state aid for city and town green energy projects.

Half the commonwealth's official fleet will have to be high-mileage hybrids or non-gas cars by 2018.

maybe the most important change in the law: before utilities sign up for any power from power plants like this one in Everett, Massachusetts, they would have to pay for every kilowatt hour of energy conservation that costs less than generating electricity.

this is going to be a great opportunity for people to really focus on that, have a lot of information and a lot of choices

for the consumer, there's a lot in it for them. There's going to be washers and dryers that are energy efficient, there's going to be energy audits available looking at how to switch lighting to save energy.

And the state's biggest business group is happy, too. we do have the highest cost of electricity, and we believe that one of the prime ways of reducing the cost will be energy efficiency, and this bill can do that .

NECN's Peter Howe reports.