Arconti, who co-chairs the committee, said that lawmakers will finalize the agenda over the next weeks before the Feb 9 start of session, but with a short election year calendar, he said he has several priorities of his own that he’d like to see addressed in the coming months. Arconti said the focus will be more on smaller, local projects – which the Shared Clean Energy Facility program is geared towards. Awarding more contracts to larger, grid-scale projects could lead to Connecticut buying from out-of-state, or to more out-of-state companies and workers being involved in the projects, he said. The program, which is entering its third year, allows the state to award contracts of up to 25 megawatts of generating capacity each year. Arconti said that he wants to consider raising that cap to allow more projects to be built. Arconti said Connecticut the state should develop a roadmap to guide the state towards becoming a hub for producing “green hydrogen” – where renewable energy sources like wind or solar power are harnessed to do the energy-intensive work of extracting hydrogen gas from water molecules. For the legislature, that means initiating a task force.
‘Green Hydrogen,’ Small Solar Projects, Electricity Bills Top Arconti’s Energy Agenda