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Nevada's experience with the Renewable Portfolio Standard

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  • Rountree, Valerie

Abstract

The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is widely considered the most important state-level renewable energy policy in the U.S. RPS policies are designed to move the state's electric sector toward renewables while minimizing electricity cost increases for customers but the specific design elements vary widely from state to state. And yet, the impacts of specific policy design features on outcomes has received relatively little attention in scholarly research. This study employs an in-depth case study approach to examine stakeholder perceptions of how and why particular policy design features of Nevada's RPS have changed as the result of social and political dynamics of Nevada's electric sector and the perceived impacts of these changes on policy outcomes. Although most expert stakeholders perceived Nevada's early RPS as critical to spurring growth in renewables, addition of a credit multiplier and allowance of existing and out-of-state resources, the long-term banking of RECs, credits for energy used to operate geothermal facilities, and energy efficiency measures were viewed as undermining policy objectives and delocalizing important economic and environmental benefits. Stakeholders perceived these changes as the result of an electric-sector culture that is resistant to change and a single, powerful electric utility that has significant sway over its regulator.

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  • Rountree, Valerie, 2019. "Nevada's experience with the Renewable Portfolio Standard," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 279-291.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:129:y:2019:i:c:p:279-291
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2019.02.010
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    2. Xin-gang, Zhao & Yi, Zuo & Hui, Wang & Zhen, Wang, 2022. "How can the cost and effectiveness of renewable portfolio standards be coordinated? Incentive mechanism design from the coevolution perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    3. Ying, Zhou & Xin-gang, Zhao & Zhen, Wang, 2020. "Demand side incentive under renewable portfolio standards: A system dynamics analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    4. Song, Xiao-hua & Han, Jing-jing & Zhang, Lu & Zhao, Cai-ping & Wang, Peng & Liu, Xiao-yan & Li, Qiao-chu, 2021. "Impacts of renewable portfolio standards on multi-market coupling trading of renewable energy in China: A scenario-based system dynamics model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    5. Rhodes, Ekaterina & Scott, William A. & Jaccard, Mark, 2021. "Designing flexible regulations to mitigate climate change: A cross-country comparative policy analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    6. Neveen Hamza & Ruben Paul Borg & Liberato Camilleri & Charalampos Baniotopoulos, 2022. "Experts versus the Public: Perceptions of Siting Wind Turbines and Performance Concerns," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-25, October.
    7. Ying, Zhou & Xin-gang, Zhao & Lei, Xu, 2022. "Supply side incentive under the Renewable Portfolio Standards: A perspective of China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 505-518.
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    9. Zeng, Lijun & Du, Wenjing & Zhang, Wencheng & Zhao, Laijun & Wang, Zhaohua, 2023. "An inter-provincial cooperation model under Renewable Portfolio Standard policy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
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    11. Parrish Bergquist & Christopher Warshaw, 2023. "How climate policy commitments influence energy systems and the economies of US states," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.

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