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Legislators want to begin exploring whether to require large new buildings to have solar panels on their roofs.

A bill, S.21, would form a study committee to consider the question and report back to the Legislature next year with its findings.

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Sen. Claire Ayer , D-Addison, is lead sponsor of the bill and spoke in its favor last week to the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee.

“We’ve got all these big box stores … with ugly roofs,” Ayer told committee members. “Wouldn’t it be nice, if the math worked, if they were generating power?”

Whether the math works is the important question, Ayer said, and the study group’s makeup represents an earnest effort to answer it. It’s more important to have business leaders among the group than legislators, she said.

“This would be asking industry to look at it, and to see if it’s a good idea and if it could work,” Ayer said. “These are the people that would have to be sold on the idea for it to go anywhere anyway.”

Assuming the idea pans out financially, legislators said, it might address issues that have caused considerable controversy among lawmakers, regulators and other Vermonters.

“If you’re putting it on roofs, you’re not putting (solar panels) up in fields,” said Sen. John Rodgers, D-Essex-Orleans.

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One major retailer met the idea with equanimity.

A requirement that large new buildings include rooftop solar panels wouldn’t affect whether Wal-Mart chooses to open a new store in Vermont, said Kevin Gardner, the company’s senior director for global responsibility communications.

Wal-Mart doesn’t have solar panels on any of its Vermont stores, but “requiring solar would not impact our decision to open additional stores there,” Gardner said.

The retail giant has already installed 145 megawatts of solar panels on its properties, and generates more solar power than any U.S. company other than Target, according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association.

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