R.I. 12th on Clean Tech Leadership Index

RHODE ISLAND MOVED up five spots, to No. 12 on the 2016 Clean Tech Leadership Index. California topped the index, again, for the seventh consecutive year. / COURTESY 2016 CLEAN TECH LEADERSHIP INDEX
RHODE ISLAND MOVED up five spots, to No. 12 on the 2016 Clean Tech Leadership Index. California topped the index, again, for the seventh consecutive year. / COURTESY 2016 CLEAN TECH LEADERSHIP INDEX

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island has jumped five spots to No. 12 on the 2016 U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index, matching the second largest year-over-year increase in the country.
The seventh annual report by Clean Edge Inc., based in Portland, Ore., tracks more than 70 energy-related indicators throughout the 50 states.
Rhode Island, which missed the top 10 by fewer than five points on the report’s leadership score, finished at 48.3 out of 100. California topped the index with a score of 89.7 and West Virginia finished last with a score of 9.
“Rhode Island moved up five places from 17th to 12th, which is a great jump,” said Clint Wilder, senior editor at Clean Edge and one of the lead authors of the report.
“Among the higher ranking states, that’s as good a year-over-year performance as anyone,” he added.
Of the New England states, Rhode Island finished behind Massachusetts, ranked No. 2, Vermont, ranked No. 3, and Connecticut, ranked No. 8. New Hampshire ranked No. 17 and Maine ended at No. 18. The only other state to move up more than five spots on the index was Kentucky, which jumped six places to No. 35.
“The seventh annual edition of the U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index comes at a time of notable acceleration in the nation’s transition to a clean-energy economy,” according to the report.
Last year, utility-scale wind and solar power rose 47 percent totaling 62 percent of all new electric-generation capacity added to the U.S. market compared with the prior year, according to the report. The added capacity included 8.2-gigawatts of new wind and 2.6-gigawatts of new utility-scale solar, together amounting to 4-gigawatts more than what was added in natural-gas capacity, according to the report.

Vermont jumped three places compared with the prior year, fueled largely by the shuttering in late 2014 of the 42-year-old, 635-megawatt Vermont Yankee nuclear generation plant. The state added more than double its utility-scale solar generation in 2015, now ranking in the top 10 states in both wind and solar as a percentage of total generation, according to the report. Massachusetts ranked No. 2 for the fourth consecutive year, ranking No. 1 in the report’s capital ranking, thanks largely to the large amount of venture capital available in the Bay State, which sets it apart from the competition.
Rhode Island did not score well in its investment into clean technology, which tracks energy generation, transportation and energy-efficient infrastructure, ranking No. 27. With the exception of Massachusetts and Vermont, Wilder says it’s typical of smaller northeastern states to do worse than western states when it comes to technology.
“Rhode Island is a small state and doesn’t have a lot of room for onshore wind and solar,” he said. “That category tends to be dominated by the western, or mid-western states, to a large extent. Although Massachusetts and Vermont have shown that small New England states can do well in technology.”
Rhode Island – like much of New England – scored well in terms of policy, ranking No. 8. The policy ranking measures clean-tech policies passed in each state. Four of the six New England states ranked in the top 10 states, excluding Maine and New Hampshire. The New England region also dominated in energy-efficiency spending as it relates to utility improvements, and Rhode Island spent more money per capita than any other state in the most recent year calculated in 2013, according to the report.
“Rhode Island’s performance of strong policy and also good capital, with technology as its lowest rank, is the more typical pattern for the region,” Wilder said.

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