At the official dedication of a new solar manufacturing facility Milpitas, California, Brown said the state has not only the potential to reach, but to actually exceed the new RPS target.
"While reaching a 33 percent renewable portfolio standard will be an important milestone, it is really just a starting point – a floor, not a ceiling," Brown said in a statement released by his office. "Our state has enormous renewable resource potential. I would like to see us pursue even more far-reaching targets. With the amount of renewable resources coming online and prices dropping, I think 40 percent, at reasonable cost, is well within our grasp in the near future."
“Today, California legislators approved one of the most ambitious renewable energy programs in the world,” Peter Miller, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement earlier, on the occasion of the vote by the legislature. “As a result of the RPS program, renewable energy generation in California in 2020 will be roughly equal to total current U.S. renewable generation, and supply enough clean energy to power nearly 9 million homes.”
The legislation “sends a signal to renewable energy providers that California wants them here,” State State Sen. Joe Simitian, who authored the bill, said in a statement. “They will respond, as they have in the past, with billions of dollars in investments that will provide jobs and tax revenues.”
Expectations are that clean energy programs, including this one, will generate over half a million jobs and billions of dollars in investment over the next few years.