The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has completed a study comparing three proposed national renewable electricity standards (RES), also known as renewable portfolio standards (RPS).
The study found that none of the RES bills modeled have a significant impact on consumer electricity prices at the national level. Differences between average national electricity prices in the RES cases and the base case are less than 1%.
The three standards examined
are under consideration by committees of the U.S. House of
Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The three proposals were compared
against a baseline in which only currently enacted laws are considered.
Lawmakers in at least 28 states and the District of Columbia have
established schedules that mandate minimum uses of renewable energy,
typically within the next two decades.
"This is the first credible and objective comparison of the
proposed national renewable portfolio standards," said Douglas J.
Arent, director of NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis and Applications
Center.
To assess the potential impacts of the three proposed standards on the U.S. electricity sector, a team of senior NREL energy analysts used the Laboratory’s Regional Energy Deployment System, a detailed least-cost optimization model capable of simulating the special attributes of variable sources like wind and solar power.
"The ReEDs model provides a useful picture of how the electricity sector might develop in the next several decades under various policy scenarios," Arent said.
The NREL report, "A Comparative Analysis of Three Proposed Federal
Renewable Electricity Standards," is available as a pdf at the link below.
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