Government Policies Promoting the Accelerated Deployment of Non-Hydro Renewable Electricity Generation Resources

This paper ascertains which state policies are accelerating deployment of non-hydropower renewable electricity generation capacity into a state’s electric power indus-try. A state fixed-effects model and seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) model are used to estimate the effects of multiple state policies in all fifty states on all emerging renewable electricity capacity. As would be expected, renewables portfolio standards with either capacity or sales requirements lead to significant increases in actual renew-able capacity in that state. A surprising result is that required green power options, a policy that merely requires all utilities in a state to offer the option for consumers to purchase renewable energy at a premium rate, has a sizable impact on non-hydro renewable capacity in that state