The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has released its Community Power Scorecard, an assessment of state policies that encourage clean local energy development.

The top ranking states, in order, are Massachusetts, California, New York and Illinois. Not surprisingly, these same states are also moving ahead rapidly with other renewable energy initiatives including storage incentives and policies that facilitate the development of microgrids.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance bases its power scorecard on an evaluation of nine individual policy initiatives that contribute to clean local energy including:

Customer friendly net metering

Simplified interconnection rules to encourage distributed renewables

Requires utility procurements to include renewables

Allows shared (community) renewably energy

Community Choice Energy (or Community Choice Aggregation) allowing communities to pick their own energy suppliers

Property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing for residential and commercial buildings

Allows communities to go further than state’s building energy efficiency codes

Has a standard contract or feed-in tariff for renewables

Twenty-five states earned flunking scores with the five biggest losers including Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alabama and Louisiana, coming in dead last. These state have but one policy each that promotes clean local energy.

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