A Green Bank, governed by a board of directors and comprising additional members with clean-energy and energy efficiency financial expertise, will make a significant contribution to the nation’s overall energy innovation strategy and project funding decisions. Importantly, the Green Bank will not place the federal government in the role of picking winners and losers in specific clean technologies. Rather, the Green Bank would establish broad, overarching performance-based goals such as the deployment of clean energy that diversifies our energy supply, and reduces or sequesters greenhouse gases.
The Green Bank will work in an integrated manner with clean-energy and climate change legislation that promotes clean energy, energy efficiency, limits on global warming, clean-energy jobs, and transition investment to ensure U.S. competitiveness. The Green Bank has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 22 to 59 million metric tons a year, which would be the equivalent of:
- Taking between 4 million and 10 million cars off the road every year.
- Neutralizing the carbon emissions of between 15 and 39 power plants every year.
The Green Bank also can help meet the demand created by a national renewable electricity standard, and it will encourage the deployment of a smart grid and modernized transmission to ensure supply comes from optimal locations throughout the country. In addition, energy efficiency projects financed by the Green Bank would include any project that results in a net reduction in energy use required to achieve the same level of service prior to their application. Such projects would include smart-grid technologies and energy efficiency gains in existing buildings and new construction.
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