Growth in renewable energy in the U.S. over the past decade has been propelled by a number of forces, including rising fossil fuel prices, environmental concerns, and policy support at the state and federal levels. In this article, we review and discuss what are arguably the two most important...

Renewables portfolio standards (RPS) have proliferated at the state level in the United States since the late 1990s. In combination with Federal tax incentives, state RPS requirements have emerged as one of the most important drivers of renewable energy capacity additions. The focus of most RPS...

Concerns about the price and supply of natural gas have deepened in recent years both nationally and in New England. Renewable energy (RE) technologies can directly hedge natural gas price risk by reducing the need to purchase variable-price natural gas-fired electricity generation, and...

The market for small wind systems in the United States, often defined as systems less than or equal to 100 kW that produce power on the customer side of the meter, is small but growing steadily. The installed capacity of domestic small wind systems in 2002 was reportedly 15-18 MW, though the...

Markets for renewable electricity have grown significantly in recent years, motivated in part by federal tax incentives and in part by state renewables portfolio standards and renewable energy funds. State renewables portfolio standards, for example, motivated approximately 45% of the 4,300 MW...

On December 9, the reference case projections from ''Annual Energy Outlook 2005 (AEO 2005)'' were posted on the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) web site. As some of you may be aware, we at LBNL have in the past compared the EIA's reference case long-term natural gas price forecasts...

The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the market share of independent, nonutility generators (NUGs) relative to traditional, utility-owned generation assets. Accordingly, the ''buy versus build'' decision facing utilities--i.e., whether a utility should sign a power purchase...

For better or worse, natural gas has become the fuel of choice for new power plants being built across the United States. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), natural gas combined-cycle and combustion turbine power plants accounted for 96% of the total generating capacity...

Renewable energy certificates (RECs) are tradable instruments that convey the attributes of a renewable energy generator and the right to make certain claims about energy purchases. RECs first appeared in US markets in the late 1990s and are particularly important in states that accept or...

The fundamental conclusion that we draw from this analysis is that one should not to base itself blindly on forecasts prices of natural gas when one compare contracts at price fixes with producers of renewable energy with contracts at variable prices with promoters power stations with gas....