What's New
Inflation Reduction Act Communications
In the latest iteration of this REC scorecard, CURE added an important new survey category: Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) communications. The IRA makes historic investments in RECs and member-owners NEED to know what these new programs and federal funds mean for the future of their co-ops and rural communities.
The New ERA (Empowering Rural America) program allocates $9.7 billion in funding for new renewable generation projects in the REC sector, with an additional $1 billion in loan forgiveness to retire fossil fuel infrastructure and invest in renewable energy generation. The IRA’s suite of REC clean energy programs is the single largest investment in rural electrification in U.S. history.
CURE is fighting tirelessly to help ensure the New ERA program is equitably implemented and deployed, which could mean huge awards for generation & transmission (G&T) cooperatives that serve Minnesota RECs.
Minnesota’s 100% Clean Energy Act makes aggressive and needed cuts to the state’s carbon emissions. CURE is committed to decarbonizing the REC sector. Creating high-impact carbon reductions will put our state’s member-owners at the front of a national movement to transition energy generation to clean and renewable sources. Funding available in the IRA eases the energy transition by giving RECs the opportunity to retire aging and depreciating coal assets and construct new renewable baseload generation; all the while, RECs would be preserving the affordability and reliability of their energy service to member-owners.
Self-reporting
CURE also recognizes that RECs make more information available to their member-owners through private portals on their websites accessible only with an account. Board minutes, director contact, and other critical transparency information can be tucked away in the back of a newsletter or an annual membership packet that CURE won’t see. RECs should have the opportunity to include those materials if they wish. We encouraged RECs to self-report data based on our criteria so that all RECs efforts could be counted towards their final score.
Co-ops self-reporting scorecard information to CURE also serves as a mechanism to gauge how co-ops engage with us. As the scorecard is replicated and refined, we hope to see a growing relationship between REC governance and CURE’s engagement with RECs and their member-owners.
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