A Prospective Analysis of the Costs, Benefits, and Impacts of U.S. Renewable Portfolio Standards
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
As states have gained experience with renewable portfolio standards (RPS) policies, many have made significant revisions to existing programs. In 2015 and 2016, seven states raised and extended their final RPS targets, while another state enacted a new RPS policy (Barbose 2016b). Interest in expanding and strengthening state RPS programs may continue, while efforts like recent proposals in many states to repeal or freeze existing RPS policies may also persist. In either context, questions about the potential costs, benefits, and other impacts of RPS programs are usually central to the decision-making process. This report follows on previous analyses that have focused on the historical costs, benefits, and other impacts of existing state RPS programs (Heeter et al. 2014; Wiser et al. 2016a). This report examines RPS outcomes prospectively, considering both current RPS policies as well as a potential expansion of those policies. The goal of this work is to provide a consistent and independent analytical methodology for that examination. This analysis relies on National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model to estimate changes to the U.S. electric power sector across a number of scenarios and sensitivity cases, focusing on the 2015–2050 timeframe. Based on those modeled results, we evaluate the costs, benefits, and other impacts of renewable energy contributing to RPS compliance using the suite of methods employed in a number of recent studies sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): a report examining retrospective benefits and impacts of RPS programs (Wiser et al. 2016a), the Wind Vision report (DOE 2015), the On the Path to SunShot report focusing on environmental benefits (Wiser et al. 2016b), and the Hydropower Vision report (DOE 2016).
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Office of Strategic Programs
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; AC36-08GO28308
- OSTI ID:
- 1344104
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL--1006962; ir:1006962
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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