SUBMITTED NEWS RELEASE
CARSON CITY — According to Nevada State Office of Energy (“NSOE”) Director Jim Groth, several major renewable energy development companies worth billions of dollars in potential annual revenue and key exponential tax base have chosen to locate their facilities in Nevada’s neighboring states in the past ten months.
For this reason, a Nevada Energy Economic Strike Force team met for the first time Wednesday in Carson City to help remove barriers holding back renewable energy development and make Nevada more attractive to these companies.
The informal group, consisting of public employees, private sector energy experts, consultants, utility representatives, educators and energy efficiency experts, will meet regularly to execute a plan of attack to successfully develop Nevada’s energy economy. Teams are being formed to quickly tackle different areas including transmission, permitting, funding sources, regulatory structure, energy efficiency, outreach, land issues and more.
“The Strike Force will address renewable energy issues and solve bottlenecks,” Groth said. “Nevada has an overwhelming abundance of natural resources, the technological knowhow and certainly the immense brain trust to develop and operate a renewable energy economy that can help deliver our state out of the recession. We just want to help connect the dots.”
As part of this effort, Groth released Nevada’s Energy Economy Declaration, a document that describes the federal land ownership situation in Nevada and puts forth ideas that could potentially correct Nevada’s economic distress and related debt, educational, housing and employment woes.
Groth highlights several initiatives to help expedite this process including putting more land under state control and updating Nevada’s Renewable Portfolio Standard more frequently.
“It will simply take us Nevadans standing at the precipice, the cliff edge if you will, declaring we’re mad as heck at our current situation and we’re not going to take it anymore,” Groth added. “I am convinced that once harnessed, Nevadans can quickly move forward with such strength that the inertia created will drive Nevada to unstoppable success and straight out of the recession.”
Visit www.energy.nv.gov to read the entire declaration document.
