The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE — Senate President Joseph Montalbano said yesterday he plans to introduce a package of bills intended to promote private investment in the state’s fledgling renewable-energy industry.

Although the bills are still being drafted, Montalbano gave an outline of what they will include, at a roundtable discussion among legislative leaders at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce annual luncheon yesterday at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

“The time has come to expand upon our alternatives to expensive and supply-limited fossil fuels,” Montalbano told an audience of business leaders.

One bill would consolidate the state’s renewable-energy policies, priorities and investments. This would be a somewhat different approach than the one sought by Governor Carcieri last year, when he proposed establishing a new state power authority that would have the ability to borrow money to finance renewable-energy projects.

Montalbano said he would rather promote private investment in these projects than have the state be the proprietor.

He said another piece of the legislation would encourage that private investment by providing renewable-energy project developers with a commitment to buy electricity over a long period.

And another bill would direct the state to invest in municipal renewable energy projects that would help cities and towns lower their energy costs, he said. That would also include encouraging small projects, including those in private homes. The bill would address how relatively small amounts of energy produced by these projects could be sold back to the power grid, he said.

Montalbano said that investing in renewable energy provides many benefits, including lower or stabilized electricity rates, a reduction in pollution that would otherwise be emitted by fossil fuel power plants, and a boost to the local economy by adding new manufacturing jobs.

He said he expects to introduce the package of energy bills in the Senate next week.

Michael F. Ryan, president of National Grid’s Rhode Island distribution operations, said he agreed that it is important to provide guarantees to renewable-energy project developers that someone will buy their electricity.

“If we’re going to get alternative energy projects off the drawing board, one of the critical needs for that is long-term contracts,” he said. “The assurance to investors is critical.”

“This is very good news from our perspective,” said Matt Auten, an advocate for Environment Rhode Island, an environmental group.

“To have the Senate president embracing the idea that it’s an important piece to getting renewables built and online is just really exciting.”

Auten said he is hopeful that the legislation would make it more advantageous for cities and towns to invest in their own renewable energy projects by making sure they can sell back the excess energy they might produce.

Right now, there is an overall limit to how much energy can be sold back into the grid. Raising that limit would make renewable energy projects more attractive to cities and towns, he said.

tbarmann@projo.com