EERE Network News
Two policy approaches are currently proving popular for developing renewable
energy supplies in the United States: green power markets, which use a
free-market approach to allow consumers and businesses to buy renewable
energy; and state renewable energy requirements and goals, which set
specific amounts of renewable energy per year, usually imposed upon
utilities within each state. According to recent reports, as of the end of
2003, the two policy options have resulted in about 3,650 megawatts of new
renewable energy capacity.
In a June memo titled "Estimate of New Renewable Energy Capacity Serving
U.S. Green Power Markets (2003)," analysts at DOE's National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) report that nearly 1,650 megawatts of new renewable
energy capacity was supplying green power customers at the end of 2003, with
another 390 megawatts either under construction or formally announced.
According to the NREL memo, wind power provided nearly 94 percent of that
new capacity. Competitive power markets and renewable energy credits
produced about twice as much new capacity as voluntary "green pricing"
programs offered by utilities. See the memo, posted on the newly redesigned
Green Power Network Web site.
State renewable energy requirements and goals have been slightly more
successful than green power programs, resulting in 2,004 megawatts of new
renewable energy capacity as of the end of 2003, according to a new analysis
by DOE's Energy Information Administration (EIA). Fifteen states now have
some form of renewable energy requirement or goal, according to the EIA.
Nine have renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which require renewable
energy to supply a percentage of the state's electricity, and four states
have mandates that specify how much new capacity should be built. Since most
RPS requirements are just beginning to take effect, they have resulted in
only 321 megawatts of new renewable capacity, but the EIA credits state
mandates with 2,335 megawatts of new capacity, about half of which is in
Texas. Similar to the green power markets, 93 percent of the new capacity
was provided by wind power.
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