The annual coming of the summer solstice has never gotten any particular attention around my house - until this year.

    Last fall we installed a solar electric system on our roof, and as the longest day of the year approached, my interest in our personal electricity generation peaked as well.

    Almost forgotten are the frustrating overcast and snowy days of winter, when our meter sometimes registered little progress toward our goal of producing all of the roughly 5,000 kilowatt hours we consume in a year. In the full light of summer, our panels are humming along, pumping excess power into the grid. Our goal appears within reach.

    Like a growing number of Coloradans, I'm the happy beneficiary of state policies that have made it much easier - and more affordable - to convert to renewable energy. Utah would do well to learn by our example.

    Four years ago, Colorado voters charted a new energy direction for the state by passing a ballot initiative requiring investor-owned utilities to produce 10 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2015, with 4 percent from solar.

    Xcel Energy, the state's largest utility, opposed that measure but then made such rapid progress toward the goal that when the legislature doubled down the bet in 2007 - requiring a 20 percent renewable energy standard by 2020 - Xcel supported the bill. That measure also imposed a less ambitious standard on many of the state's electric co-ops and municipal utilities.

    Xcel Energy executives express confidence they can meet the 20 percent requirement. The company added 800 megawatts of renewable power last year and was ranked the No. 1 wind power utility by the American Wind Energy Association in 2006 and 2007.

    "Our intent is to push it to the max," Xcel Energy's chief executive Dick Kelly told the Associated Press in February. "Whether that's 20, 25 percent, 30 percent."

    Colorado's renewable energy standards - along with "net metering" requirements that mean homeowners who install renewable energy systems can essentially sell to the utility any excess power they produce at retail rates - have proven to be a powerful driver of the market.

    To help meet its targets, Xcel Energy offers generous rebates of $4.50 a watt to homeowners who install solar panels.

    Make no mistake, solar is still a substantial investment with a long pay-back period. In our case, the rebate paid for about 55 percent of our 4.3 kilowatt system, and the federal tax credit cut the cost by another $2,000. But our net cost was still about $13,000.

    We regard that not so much as a way to cut our electric bills as an investment in the world our children will inherit and a personal contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    This year the Colorado Legislature took an important step toward reducing the up-front cost of installing solar and other renewable systems. Legislation signed by Gov. Bill Ritter will allow local governments to use their bonding authority to finance low-cost loans to homeowners, and it's expected those financing systems will allow people to pay off the debt through their property taxes.

    Perhaps as important in our mobile society, the debt will stay with the home, which eliminates a disincentive to install renewable power systems when homeowners don't know if they will stay put.

    So what does all this have to do with Utah? Quite a bit.

    Like Colorado and many other Western states, Utah has abundant renewable energy resources. According to the Renewable Energy Atlas of the West, Utah doesn't have anywhere near the wind potential that Colorado does, but on a per capita basis it has more sun, and a lot more geothermal.

    But Utah is lagging behind Colorado and some other Western states in putting that potential to work. The federal Energy Information Administration reports that between 2002 and 2006 (the latest year data is available), Colorado's renewable energy capacity increased by 38 percent. In that same time period, Utah's actually declined slightly.

    Utah does have some admirable policies in place, including a range of personal, corporate and sales tax incentives for renewable energy. It also has a strong net metering guarantee, and Rocky Mountain Power has a $2 per watt rebate program, but it is limited to just 107 kilowatts per year or enough for about 25 home solar systems.

    The biggest thing Utah - which gets about 95 percent of its electricity from coal - could do to make up some of that ground is to adopt a real renewable energy portfolio standard. This year the Utah Legislature adopted a toothless standard that has such a huge loophole - utilities only have to meet it if it's cost effective - that it's not really a standard at all.

    That should change. Then our two states can argue not just about who has the best skiing but who has the best new energy economy.
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    * TOM KENWORTHY is a senior fellow at Western Progress, a regional nonpartisan policy institute.