Environmentalists are squaring off against Narragansett Electric Company in an effort to force the energy transmission giant to obtain a portion of its electricity from renewable energy sources.

Seeking to promote wind, solar, and geothermal energy that doesn't pollute the air or depend on foreign oil, state Representative Paul Moura (D-Providence) sponsored legislation that would require Rhode Island electricity suppliers to provide three percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2005, and 20 percent by 2021. Producers would be exempt from the requirements, however, if the state Public Utilities Commission found that compliance would raise electricity costs by more than three percent a year.

Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and even Texas now have renewable energy portfolio standards, but they vary widely and are more complex than the proposed Rhode Island standard.

In Rhode Island, supporters led by the Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group, Clean Water Action, the Coalition for Consumer Justice, and the renewable energy industry argue that the bill would reduce the state's dependence on nuclear power plants in Connecticut and polluting coal plants, like the Brayton Point facility on Mount Hope Bay in Massachusetts. Rhode Island's large power plants use relatively clean-burning natural gas, but experts fear that that this reliance could be disastrous if gas prices increase. Supporters also claim that constructing wind farms will create local jobs.

Wind power is increasingly generating electricity generation in Europe, according to Dennis Duffy, vice president of regulator affairs for Energy Management Inc., the company that's developing a 400-megawatt wind facility on shoals near Martha's Vineyard. Demark obtains almost 20 percent of its power from wind, he notes. But progress in the US, argues Duffy, requires regulatory support to make inroads into the established market.

The Sierra Club, the Diocese of Rhode Island, and the Ocean State Fisherman's Association back the Moura bill, but Narragansett Electric opposes it.

The company, Rhode Island's principal electricity supplier, argues that the bill would increase electricity prices. "Although we're supporters of renewable energy," says Narragansett Electric executive vice president Michael Ryan, "we believe the market should rule." While the legislation caps energy cost increases at three percent a year, Ryan says, Narragansett Electric is trying to keep prices from increasing, "Whether it's 10 percent or three percent."