Public opinion on global warming has changed dramatically in the 11 years that Jack Ruderman has been working on energy issues in New Hampshire. Just two years ago, Ruderman remembers that a senator threatened to nix a program to update the lighting in the State House with more efficient bulbs if a press release on the project referenced "climate change" or "global warming."

"The language was excised," he said.

Since then, the Legislature has voted to dedicate millions of dollars - about $20 million next year - to programs aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.

Ruderman, 45, will leave his post as deputy director of the Office of Energy and Planning this week to take over as head of the new Sustainable Energy Division at the Public Utilities Commission at the end of the month. He will be in charge of determining how to use those millions to make homes and businesses throughout the state more energy efficient and to increase the use of renewable energy.

"We're really embarking on a new era with these two new funds, and we're shooting for much bigger goals," he said. "It's a really exciting time."

The funds Ruderman refers to were created by bills passed in the last two years.

One requires utilities to purchase or produce renewable energy as a percentage of the energy they sell, with the goal of making it 25 percent by 2025. If utilities cannot comply, they pay into a fund earmarked for promoting renewable energy generation.

Ten percent of that money will go to rebates for small-scale renewable energy projects that produce 5 kilowatts of electricity or less. Families that want to install solar panels at their home, for example, could be reimbursed for up to $6,000 of the cost.

The second bill entered New Hampshire into a 10-state program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Power generators are required to purchase an allowance for every ton of carbon they emit. Each state is given a limited number of allowances to sell at auction.

In New Hampshire, revenue from those sales will go into a fund primarily for energy efficiency projects. Some of that money is earmarked for assisting low-income families.

Each fund is projected to bring in about $10 million next year. Ruderman will have a big task in sorting out how exactly that money will be used. Money could begin filling the RGGI fund coffer as soon as Jan. 1.

"I keep telling people I'm going to

have to hit the ground sprinting," he said.

Ruderman, who lives in Contoocook with his wife, Amy Messer, and two sons, said he has always been an environmentalist. He and his wife met in law school at Northeastern University in Boston.

They came to New Hampshire when they both took jobs with the public defender's office.

Ruderman left that office to work for Jeanne Shaheen's campaign for governor in 1996. After her election, he took a job with what was then the Governor's Office of Energy and Community Services.

"I just sort of fell in love with energy," he said. "Energy is just so intimately connected not only with the environment but almost anything we do - with transportation, with buildings, with the economy. It just seems to touch almost every aspect of our lives."

Ruderman managed a biomass energy program and a project to create a fleet of state vehicles that run on compressed natural gas and electricity. He later became director of energy policy. He continued in the office when it was merged with the state planning department under governor Craig Benson's administration.

He said the state, until recently, was behind in its efforts to address climate change. With the two new programs plus the work that the governor's climate change taskforce is doing to draft a state climate plan, he said, New Hampshire is catching up.

Debra Howland, executive director of the Public Utilities Commission, said the new Sustainable Energy Division will deviate some from the commission's main purpose, which is to serve as a quasi-judicial agency that reviews applications from utilities. The division staff will administer grants from the two major funds and participate in policy discussions with legislators and various boards in the New England region.

Ruderman said the division could put out a request for proposals from individuals, nonprofits and businesses as soon as January.

"We're hoping that we're going to see a lot of innovation and creativity," he said. "There may be all sorts of proposals that get funded that are not even on our radar screen yet."

Ruderman pictures a diverse energy future for the state: more homes and businesses with small solar and wind power installations, solar hot water heaters, and geothermal heating and cooling systems; more large-scale renewable energy production, especially in the form of windmills; and drivers using plug-in hybrid vehicles, straight electric cars and biodiesel.

The Legislature passed RGGI on the assumption that, despite likely short-term increases in rates, greater efficiency across the state will reduce the demand for electricity and decrease the cost in the long term.

Ruderman said that is a very feasible goal.

"Energy efficiency is not exotic," he said. "It's not unproven. It's very clear that we today can construct homes that are net-zero energy, that we can slash energy costs in factories by 30 percent or 50 percent. There really is almost unlimited potential, I think, for cutting energy use substantially."