Illinois has strong opportunities to develop wind, biomass and solar power, which provide environmental benefits, improved reliability, and economic development in the growing renewable energy business sector. Furthermore, Illinois can develop new efficient CHP using natural gas. Together, the opportunities shown in Figure 3 can provide 10 percent of Illinois' generation capacity by 2010, and 22 percent by 2020.

The Clean Energy Development Plan's benefits can be achieved at a modest cost, as energy efficiency savings offset the cost of new generation. In Illinois, it would increase overall electricity costs by about 1.5 percent in 2010, and 3.4 percent in 2020.

Smart policies can overcome the market and regulatory barriers that energy efficiency and renewable resources face. Illinois has already adopted some policies to promote clean power options, but more must be done to succeed. The key policies for achieving the Clean Energy Development Plan are to:

• Increase the Illinois Energy Efficiency Investment Fund by investing 0.3¢/kWh.
• Evaluate and update Illinois' efficiency standards and building codes. Establish or reinforce monitoring and enforcement practices.
• Establish an Illinois Renewables Portfolio Standard that requires all retail electricity suppliers to provide eight percent of their power from renewable resources by 2010, and 20 percent by 2020.
• Increase the Illinois Renewable Energy Investment Fund investment to 0.1¢/kWh.
• Ensure that transmission pricing policies and power pooling practices treat renewable resources fairly and account for their intermittent nature, remote locations, or smaller scale.
• Remove barriers to clean distributed generation by: (1) expanding Commonwealth Edison's net metering program to be offered statewide by all utilities; (2) establishing standard business and interconnection terms; (3) establishing uniform safety and power quality standards to facilitate safe and economic interconnection to the electricity system; and (4) applying clean air standards to small distributed generation sources, thereby promoting clean power technologies, and discouraging highly polluting diesel generators.