A familiar theme among Connecticut economists during the current recession is the need for the state to better position itself as center for the renewable power and energy efficiency industries.

The theory is that because the state already has a number of companies in the renewable energy business - like UTC Fuel Cells in South Windsor, Proton Energy Systems in Wallingford and the Shelton-based solar firm Opel International - building blocks are already in place for an expansion of the sector to really take off.

Whether there's any validity in this line of thinking remains to be seen. But one of the state's high powered political leaders - House Speaker Chris Donovan (D-Meriden) - is preparing to put the theory to the test.

Donovan (shown at left in a 2008 photo) announced Thursday that he has created an advisory group to work with the General Assembly to develop a strategy for cultivating new jobs in the energy efficiency and renewable power industries.

The first meeting of the Green Jobs Coordination and Policy Committee -was scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The group's members include officials from clean energy industry and representatives labor groups, environmentalists as well as from the state’s community colleges and technical schools.

Donovan's announcement of the group's creation was long on platitudes and short on specifics, particularly at a time when the state doesn't have a lot of money available to implement any new initiatives.

But let's give him credit for trying, particularly in a legislative environment where the power brokers (no pun intended) are pretty evenly divided between those who would have the state take a greater roll in dealing with the energy business and the free market types.

State Representative Vickie Nardello (D-Prospect) has been selected by Donovan to lead the new advisory group. Nardello (shown at left) also co-chairs the General Assembly’s Energy & Technology Committee, so she knows the subject matter.

You have to wonder, though, how many of the ideas that Nardello's new advisory group comes up with will actually become state policy.

Nardello's co-chair on the Energy & Technology Committee is State Senator John Fonfara (D-Hartford) and while the two lawmakers are members of the same party, they are philosophical opposites.

Fonfara (shown at left) is part of the free market crowd in Hartford when it comes to energy and his opinions could carry plenty of weight among lawmakers who are considering any recommendations coming from Nardello's Green Jobs Coordination and Policy Committee

During a six month period between May 31 and Nov. 30th of 2009, about 23,000 United Illuminating Co. customers chose to seek new power providers in an effort to reduce generation costs on their electric bills.

That’s according to the latest data from the Department of Public Utility Control, which gets monthly reports from both UI and Connecticut Light & Power Co. During the same six month period at CL&P, 58,000 customers switched to alternative power providers, according to the DPUC’s data.

Statewide, about 20 percent of the 1.28 million electric customers in the state, or nearly 260,000, are served by alternative power providers.

Even with about 192,000 of its customers seeking alternative power providers, CL&P still purchases electricity for 1.02 million of its customers. UI still buys power for 259,309 consumers, even after having 67,649 seek out different power generators.

Connecticut lawmakers voted to deregulate the generation portion of the business in 1998. The laws that forced UI and CL&P to sell off their power plants and begin purchasing electricity on the open market didn’t begin until the year 2000.

For more on this story, read Wednesday's New Haven Register.

Customers of state’s two largest electric utilities will see some changes to charges on their electric bills as 2010 is ushered in on Friday, thanks t0 two separate approvals given by the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control this week.

If you’re a customer of Connecticut Light & Power, the generation charges on your electric bill will decrease between 4.6 percent and 5.2 percent starting in January, depending upon the type of service you have.

Customers of the United Illuminating Co. aren’t going to be so fortunate. Your overall bills will stay the same, even though several line items will increase.

Read Thursday's New Haven Register for more details on this story.

Connecticut Light & Power is asking state utility regulators to approve a reduction in the generation service charge portion of their customers' bills.

The majority of CL&P’s customers would see a 5.2 percent decrease in the generation service charge in January if the state’s Department of Public Utility Control approves the filing made by the company earlier this week. For those customers who use about 700 kilowatts per month, the rate decrease could translate into a $7.29 per month reduction in their bills.

Mitch Gross, a CL&P spokesman, said proposed decrease in generation service charges to customers is the result of declining natural gas prices and the long term strategy the company has taken toward purchasing electricity from power generators.

"Natural gas is driving all electric costs in New England, but we’re also always watching the market, looking for the best time to buy," Gross said. "We go out three years in advance to purchase these contracts and that is paying off."

Under the deregulated generation environment in which power providers operate here in Connecticut, utilities like CL&P and New Haven-based United Illuminating change rates every six months, according to market conditions and the types of contracts they are able secure with the companies that produce the electricity.

Gross said the decrease in generation service charges reflects a six percent decrease in the cost that CL&P pays to power generators.

For more information on this story, read Thursday's New Haven Register.

I confess that when officials of Connecticut Light & Power trotted out a study last month, produced by two Eastern Connecticut Connecticut University economists, saying that the utility "is a linchpin organization” in the state's economic growth, my private reaction to the report was more suitable for a teenager than a 49-year-old journalist.

"Well, duh, yeah," the inarticulate inner me said to myself about the study, which CL&P's corporate parent, Northeast Utilities, paid for with a $23,000 grant from its shareholders. "Tell me something I don't already."

After having fought the urge to open my mouth and say that, I asked CL&P officials if the study had any other purpose than to quantify the company's value with the state. Jeff Butler, CL&P's president insisted that the purpose of having the study done was "to educate people to the value of what this company brings to the state of Connecticut."

"The part that most people haven’t had a full understanding of before is we have a much broader impact," said Butler (who is shown at left).

David Cadden, a management professor at the School of Business at Quinnipiac University and frequent source in my stories, begged to differ. He told me that typically, the release of an economic impact report like this one comes with a corporate agenda behind it.

And just as Cadden said it would, that agenda surfaced on Wednesday.

Large portions of the ECSU study were included in a media briefing given to Connecticut journalists as CL&P announced that it will file a $210 million rate increase in January. If state utility regulators approve the rate increase on the distribution portion, it would take effect next July 1, but that CL&P would not begin collecting it until the start of 2011.

The money would be collected over an 18-month period and CL&P could not request another increase in distribution rates until July 2012, if the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control approves the plan. But the timing of the utility’s plan would wipe out the 5 percent decrease in the distribution portion of customers’ bills.

That decrease is supposed to occur as bonds that come under the competitive transition assessment on CL&P customers’ electric bills are paid off.

At this point, I'm not going to address the company's justification for the proposed rate hike, which is that it needs the money to upgrade its aging distribution network. There will be plenty of time to debate that once the company actually files its rate case with the DPUC.

But I do think it was a little disingenuous of the company to insist it didn't have an ulterior motive for developing this study.

No, CL&P didn't do anything wrong, anything illegal. But to my way of thinking, if you want your customers to think of you as good corporate citizen, you should try to be as transparent with them as you possibly can.

There's nothing wrong with CL&P using the study to build its case for approval of the rate hike before the DPUC. The regulatory agency operates like a quasi-judicial body and makes its decisions based on facts that are presented to it.

But in the court of public opinion, the way the release of this study was handled seems like an effort to soften the blow the company clearly expects to its image with customers will take as the rate hike case plays out while the recession drags on.

A new report by a state environmental group claims that the money that would needed to build the nation's first new nuclear power plant in 30 years would be better spent on efforts to promote energy efficiency and power from renewable sources.

The study, by the group Environment Connecticut, concludes there would need to be 100 new nuclear reactors built in this country over the next 20 years for the amount of emission that cause air pollution associated with global warming to be reduced by just 12 percent.

Even if it were possible to have that many new nuclear plants built over the next two decades, an estimated $600 billion dollars investment that would be required to do it, according to Environment Connecticut officials. Invest that same amount of money on clean energy projects and the reduction of air pollution associated with global warming would be twice as great as the nuclear solution, according to the study.

“When it comes to global warming, time and money are of the essence and nuclear power will fail America on both accounts,” said Christopher Phelps, Program Director with Environment Connecticut. “With government dollars more precious than ever, nuclear power is a foolish investment that will set us back in the race against global warming.”

Click here to access the group's full 52-page report.

A new report released Monday says that Connecticut Light & Power “is a linchpin organization” to the state’s economic growth, with its investments adding over 4,400 jobs and increasing its economic output by $673.5 million annually.

The 28-page study, conducted by two Eastern Connecticut State University economics professors, also says that investments the Berlin, Ct.-based utility has planned through 2012 will increase the state’s employment by 2,767 jobs and its total economic output by $354.8 million. Output is the dollar value of goods and services produced in the state of Connecticut as a result of additional spending by the utility.

“CLP has a more multi-dimensional economic impact than any other company in Connecticut,” said Dimitrios Pachis, an economics professor at ECSU and one of the authors of the study. “Here’s a company that is forward looking, a true partner of the state.”

The study was done over a two-month period using state and federal data. Pachis and fellow economics professor Jennifer Brown conducted the study working on a $23,000 grant that came from shareholders of CL&P’s corporate parent, Northeast Utilities.

Jeff Butler, CL&P’s president, said results of the study are designed “to educate people to the value of what this company brings to the state of Connecticut.

Even without the results of the study confirming it, Connecticut Business & Industry Association Economist Pete Gioia said there was never any question of CL&P’s status as a major economic engine for the state.

"All you have to do is take a look at the list of top taxpayers in every community in the state," Gioia said. "There are a lot of small towns out there that would be suffering if they didn’t have CL&P as part of their tax base.”

The ECSU study found that CL&P pays more than $71 million in municipal taxes each year, which supports an estimated 1,550 jobs around the state.

For more information on the study, read tomorrow's New Haven Register.