Oklahoma, United States — America’s state governments are at the forefront of efforts to expand the nation’s supply of renewable energy. Renewable energy standards (RES) comprise the cornerstone of these initiatives. RES is by far the most widely used mechanism by states to expand renewable energy production and consumption. Fully 29 states have adopted some form of a mandatory RES. RES is also in place in the District of Columbia. And Vermont has a goal that so far has been voluntary, but which may become mandatory by 2013.
What follows is an assessment of how different states have structured their RES programs, what similarities they share and what differentiates them. Renewable energy standards are complex instruments and this assessment is not intended to be exhaustive. It focuses on five selected examples of state RES initiatives to highlight key features upon which these programs are founded. States use a number of different names for their RES programs including renewable energy portfolios. For simplicity, all will be referred to as renewable energy standards. A primer on how RES is supposed to work offers a useful point of departure.
How Renewable Energy Standards Work
State RES programs share a basic common thread. They place a mandatory obligation on electric utilities to generate a specified percentage of the electricity they sell to their consumers from renewable energy technologies. The underlying concept is that RES will foster competition, efficiency and innovation to create a market that expands renewable energy generation and drives economies of scale that lower the cost of renewable production such that it is competitive with conventional fossil fuel generation.
RES mandates vary from state to state. Each state has designed its RES to account for a range of state-specific conditions and policy priorities. These include available wind, solar and other renewable energy potential in a state; reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating other environmental externalities associated with fossil fuels; and lowering electricity costs to consumers. Other goals include diversifying the energy mix to protect against potential fuel interruptions and attracting wind and solar farms, product manufacturers and research and development facilities to promote economic development and job creation.
Every state with RES includes photovoltaic solar, wind, hydropower and biomass as qualifying renewable energy generating technologies that utilities may use in meeting their RES obligations. Other technologies are qualified on a state-by-state basis. Included are anaerobic digestion, geothermal, ocean and tidal energy, municipal waste incineration, ocean and solar thermal, cogeneration, fuel cells and distributed generation through net metering. Ohio alone qualifies advanced nuclear generating technology as an eligible RES resource.
Table 1 summarizes principal features of the RES programs enacted by the 30 states (including Vermont) and the District of Columbia. Several states have revised their RES requirements since they were first adopted, usually to advance compliance dates, raise compliance targets or add carve-outs for specific technologies. The figures depicted under the “Goal” column represent a state’s final-year renewable energy mix objective. Many states also set interim yearly goals not reflected in the table.
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