renewable electricity standard

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Many different stakeholders have strongly supported the development and expansion of renewable power supply within the U.S. for many years. After 25 years of government and private support how much progress has actually been made towards replacing fossil fuels and nuclear power supply with renewable power sources? The answer may be surprising.[read more]

Some news reports are suggesting the U.S. is now less likely to pass climate change legislation, but prospects for policies boosting renewable power may have improved slightly. Ever more timely, then, is this 2008 analysis of proposed national renewable portfolio standards by Jay Apt, Lester Lave, and Sompop Pattanariyankool: “A national...[read more]

News broke a few days ago that a bi-partisan group of Senators has introduced a bill to create a country-wide RPS (renewable portfolio standard): Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) introduced the Renewable Electricity Promotion...[read more]

The Renewable Electricity Promotion Act would require U.S. to get 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2021A bipartisan group of Senators Bingaman (D-NM), Brownback (R-KS), Dorgan (D-ND), Collins (R-ME), Udall (D-NM), and Udall (D-CO) introduced a 15% by 2021 renewable electricity standard (RES) bill. The standalone Renewable...[read more]

Is this RES for real? It’s baaack. Maybe. Tomorrow at 2:30 PM EDT, a federal Renewable Energy Standard (RES) — which has been pronounced dead and then revived many times in the past year — will get another jolt of Senate CPR, when a bipartisan group of Senators unveils a new attempt at establishing a minimum amount of electricity that...[read more]

Four democratic senators have introduced an initiative urging the Obama administration to suspend a U.S. Treasury grant program formed under the Recovery Act. The program enables renewable energy producers to receive grants in lieu of Investment Tax Credit payments, essentially providing valuable financing up-front rather than over...[read more]

Fast on the heals of the Arizona legislature’s attempt to pull support from in-state solar power generation, Colorado’s legislature passed a bill yesterday to boost dramatically the amount of electricity produced by renewable sources in their state. The Arizona bill would have ended a state program requiring utilities to generate 15%...[read more]

Colorado isn’t waiting for Washington to move aggressively on clean energy, as CAP Senior Fellow Tom Kenworthy explains here. On March 5, the state Senate approved a measure to increase Colorado’s renewable energy standard (RES) to 30% by 2020, and on March 8th, the House finalized the bill, sending it to Gov. Bill Ritter for his...[read more]

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Saturday that major Capitol Hill renewable electricity proposals would not prompt additional generation from sources like wind and solar power beyond the increases expected under existing programs. The Hill report is not really big new.  I wrote back in May that EIA projects wind at 5% of U.S....[read more]

When the first flakes of the second major snowstorm in less than a week began to fall on Northern Virginia, it occurred to me that I might not be in a position to post for a couple of days. I had intended a longer posting covering all the topics mentioned in a renewable energy conference call that I dialed into yesterday, but then I've...[read more]

Guest post by Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow, American Progress. While Congress moved in fits and starts in 2009 on bipartisan legislation to spur the deployment of renewable energy and reduce global warming pollution, the U.S. wind energy industry powered ahead at a record pace. Issuing its end-of-year report, the American Wind Energy...[read more]

One of the features of cap-and-trade legislation is that it typically includes a variety of supporting standards – for example, a renewable portfolio standard in the power sector or a vehicle efficiency standard in the transport sector. But shouldn’t we just trust the cap-and-trade system to deliver the lowest cost outcome for the...[read more]

Since the federal government has so far refused to adopt a nationwide renewable electricity standard (RES) the states have stepped in. Some 25 states, plus DC, have adopted an RES, also known as a renewable portfolio standard, which requires utilities to purchase a rising percentage of their power from renewable sources like wind and...[read more]