State Requirements and Green Power Markets – Both Yield More Renewables
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 […]