Legislation to support renewable energy usage received a hearing Wednesday in the Michigan Senate.
The bill package, as currently written, would require electric companies to generate power using only renewable energy sources by 20-35.
There are plans to move that back to 20-40.
The legislation would also give the Michigan Public Service Commission more power to ensure utilities are meeting renewable energy goals.
M-P-S-C chair Dan Scripps said the targets are reasonable—given how the state has responded to past standards.
"Since 2008, we’ve seen that renewable resources have been consistently less costly than traditional generation resources. In fact, the affordability protections included in the 2008 law have been largely redundant and most utilities have not collected a surcharge in years."
Opponents said the green energy transition would be costly.