Patrick addresses energy group as negotiators work on reform bill 

Massachusetts needs to lead the nation in energy efficiency and clean energy because the state is “at the end of the pipeline” for oil and other natural energy resources, Gov. Deval Patrick told a crowd at a Beacon Hill restaurant on Tuesday morning.

“Today in Massachusetts we lead the nation in energy efficiency,” Patrick said, citing the state’s number-one ranking, beating out California, in last year’s American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy scorecard. “We’re attracting tremendous amounts of private capital . . . and creating thousands of jobs.”

In a speech delivered at Scollay Square to the Alliance to Save Energy, Patrick echoed themes from a speech he gave in May at a clean tech firm in South Boston, listing the ways the state has boosted clean energy, pushing for more wind and solar energy production and describing the risks that have led to failures in the clean energy field.

Patrick recalled his days working for Texaco.

“I used to work in the oil business. You know how many dry wells get drilled every day? Nobody says that’s the reason we should shut down the billions of dollars of subsidies we give the oil business. There are other reasons why,” Patrick said, going on to say, “We are going to have to learn how to raise our risk tolerance if we are actually going to change the energy mix in this country.”

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has argued the federal government’s investment in Solyndra, a solar panel company that later went bankrupt, is an example of President Barack Obama’s “crony capitalism,” rewarding donors with government assistance. On Beacon Hill, favored treatment of clean energy and life sciences companies has occasionally frustrated lawmakers and representatives of other industries looking to grow their businesses.

In part, Solyndra was harmed by the falling price of solar panels, but that has been a boon for Massachusetts’ efforts to go green, according to Patrick. There will be four times as many solar installations in Massachusetts this summer than in the summer of 2008, he said.

The speech and question-and-answer period that followed occurred as a six-member legislative conference committee tries to reconcile the House (H 4225) and Senate (S 2214) versions of an energy cost containment bill.

One future concern for those in the clean energy and the coal and gas-based electricity production field is the complication of merging large solar and wind energy plants onto the existing grid.

“Utilities don’t know what to do. They’re overwhelmed,” said Bill Pentland, chairman of the Northeast Clean Heat and Power Initiative. “When you put that much solar on the grid it costs money . . . It costs money to maintain that circuit.”

After the meeting, Undersecretary of Energy Barbara Kates-Garnick told the News Service that the administration is concerned about the potential for renewable energy to “overwhelm” parts of the power grid and the “cost” implications of that. Kates-Garnick said a report looking into those issues would be finalized in September.

Patrick’s clean energy agenda has included an energy siting bill that would set statewide standards for permitting land-based wind turbines. After nearly passing in 2010, the bill was sidelined this session amid strong opposition from groups concerned about wind energy impacts.

Patrick said there had been “an active effort to misrepresent what we are looking for in the siting bill, which is not state control but in fact some certainty at the local level.” The bill, he said, would create “one or two predictable layers of appeals.”

Rep. John Keenan, D-Salem, one of the lead energy bill conferees, told the News Service the conference committee planned to meet Tuesday and again later this week. Keenan was mum on any details of the negotiations, even when the governor highlighted his presence at the breakfast event.

“Some of the Q’s are going to be for you,” Patrick told Keenan ahead of his talk.

“Mr. Governor, I’m in conference. I can’t say anything,” Keenan responded, sticking to a line conference committee negotiators traditionally deploy after voting to close their deliberations and keep them confidential.

Outside the State House Tuesday morning, advocates from environmental and energy groups were outspoken in their disapproval of a provision Keenan included in the House bill, which critics called a “sweetheart deal” for natural gas companies.

The House bill calls for distribution companies to enter into 15-year energy contracts for small amounts of energy from proposed electric generation facilities located on the sites of former coal or oil-fired power plants, as long as the agreement results in “net benefits” to consumers’ bills. Critics of the proposal say it is designed to assist in the redevelopment of a Dominion Energy coal plant in Salem, which would be converted into a natural gas plant.

Opposition to the provision has created such unlikely allies as the Sierra Club of Massachusetts and the New England Power Generators, whose president Dan Dolan said, “It’s bad policy for consumers. This is an unnecessary plant that would cost consumers in the realm of upwards of a billion dollars.”

Keenan has said that converting an old coal plant into a natural gas plant would be a benefit for the old coal plant in his district, which is planning to shut down, and for others around the state.

“I’ve been very open about it. Is it going to be beneficial to Salem? Absolutely. I hope so. But will it be beneficial to Holyoke or Somerset some day? I hope so,” Keenan said. “We’re going to cleaner energy, and I know some now complain that natural gas is no longer clean, but it is.”