By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD– Michelle Knox, founder / owner of WindSolarUSA in Springfield, says business – facilitating renewable energy – is great.

“When I started in the business in 2008, the payback on a photovoltaic system was about twenty years,” she said Monday. “Now I’m looking at paybacks that are about 5-7 years, so you’re getting 18-20 years of free energy, so it’s a no-brainer.”

Knox was one of the speakers at a public meeting in Springfield to build support for Illinois’ Clean Energy Jobs Act.

The bill could come up in the fall veto session, which starts the last week of October. One goal is to de-carbonize Illinois’ energy mix by 2030. Big Coal has said it’s the only one which can meet the demand.

Scott Allen, environmental outreach coordinator for the Citizens Utility Board, which is convening such meetings around the state, disputes that.

“It’s not so much of a technological roadblock as it is political – where is the political will to do that,” Allen said. “Illinois generates an excess of electricity as it is, and if we built out renewables, we’d have to find somewhere to send the electricity that we generate.”