The comprehensive energy legislation, approved last month by Michigan House and Senate lawmakers, requires utilities and other electric suppliers to derive 10 percent of their electricity mix from renewable sources by 2015. The bills also gradually decrease electricity rates for business and industrial customers, offset by rate increases of up to 20 percent for residential customers. The legislation also includes tax credits to encourage energy efficiency measures that supporters say could help offset any rate hikes.

Granholm has long touted alternative energy as a promising growth field for Michigan, and she called on lawmakers to pass a renewable portfolio standard during her State of the State speech earlier this year. Recent trade missions to Sweden, Germany and Japan have focused in part on meeting with alternative energy companies to persuade them to open facilities in Michigan.

In her weekly radio address Friday, Granholm called the energy bills “perhaps the most important legislation to create jobs and diversify Michigan’s economy that has crossed my desk.” Granholm said the state was a natural fit for the renewable energy jobs of the future.

“Our manufacturing history, outstanding universities and bountiful natural resources give us an advantage over most of our competitors,” she said. “This comprehensive energy plan will create all kinds of jobs for all kinds of people.”

But the plan has drawn criticism from some quarters. Critics including the Customer Choice Coalition objected to the legislation, which would guarantee Consumers Energy and DTE Energy 90 percent of the state’s electricity market, as being anti-competitive and discouraging entrepreneurship.

The Washington-based American Wind Energy Association also took the rare step of opposing the bills, saying they paint an overly broad definition of renewable energy and would do little to spur new renewable energy generation in the state.

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